#barbierapunzel

Had to make posters for the Barbie Cinematic Universe!

Some context and explanations: 

1st: In Barbie as Rapunzel. Otto says "Give him to me" and makes the "aughh" moaning sound.

2nd and 3rd: In Barbie and the Three Musketeers, Corinne's alias is "Lady Barbecue" and Prince Louis is sexist since he doesn't believe girls can be musketeers.

List of what films and characters are included in order:

Otto from Barbie as Rapunzel

Bibble from the Barbie Fairytopia films

Corinne and Prince Louis from Barbie and the Three Musketeers

Princess Brietta from Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus

Princess Rosella from Barbie as the Island Princess

Princess Merliah from Barbie in a Mermaid Tale

Princess Graciella from Barbie: A Fairy Secret 

Princess Sophia or Blair Willows from and Princess Portia from Barbie: Princess Charm School.

These super cute Barbie charms are available to be preordered! 🌸✨

Which one do you want to buy? Odette is my fav!

As the second installment in the Barbie movie franchise, Barbie Rapunzel very much represents the infancy of the series; however it still expresses many iconic hallmarks of the classic Barbie experience. Some examples being, the Makeover, the Anti-Semitic Coded Villain, and of course who could forget the Heterosexual Marriage Sequence.

Barbie Rapunzel is the story of a Blonde-Haired, Blue-Eyed girl triumphing over a Long-Nosed, Magic-Using, Rich, Dishonest woman with the power of Other People, Hereditary Privilege, and Not Much Else.

I'd like to look a little deeper at how the movie portrays the feminine characters, with a particular focus on feminine strength and autonomy.

Gothel, as the only example of a woman in a position of power, being the villain speaks volumes. From her visual coding to her characterization she's riddled with contradictions that result in her both being a monster for rejecting common expectations AND a slave to said expectations.  

She's coded as old with gray hair and wrinkling around her face, in contrast to a "good" character we see briefly, the unnamed Queen of Wilhelm's Kingdom. Presumably they're a similar age however the Queen does not visually express signs of aging, showing blonde hair, and flawless skin, practically a clone of Rapunzel herself. This choice to portray them so differently deliberately villainises nonconformity to narrow beauty expectations, appended by Gothel's fashion choices of dark green robes as opposed to pink gowns. But of course the very presence of a willingly non-conforming character, villain or otherwise, can't stand because she might become a decent role model for young girls, so she also wears bright red lipstick to show that she too accepts her obligation to seek conventional attractiveness for the populus she seemingly rejects by separating herself from them.

To top it all off, it's revealed that the motivation behind her lies, her abuse, and her plot to take down 2 whole kingdoms is not in fact any kind of self-actualized ambition; it is in fact for the sole purpose of revenge on King Wilhelm for not loving her :( so you can't even say At Least She Don't Need No Man because... that's literally what her life has revolved around, presumably for decades.

Now I hear you call out in confused anguish "Bella," you cry "How is Gothel the only woman in a position of power if there's a Queen in the movie too?" I'm glad you asked, Nobody. The answer lies in how we know she's the Queen. She doesn't speak and is on screen for maybe 30 seconds tops, at the end of the Heterosexual Marriage Sequence. We can tell she's the Queen because she's wearing a tiny crown and standing next to King Wilhelm. There is no evidence she holds any power at all, that's an assumption based on a title we can deduce she holds, yet even that is derived solely from her proximity to a powerful male character; even if she holds power, she most certainly doesn't exercise it.

Gothel's use of intelligence and intimidation to solve her problems in particular is portrayed as unnatural and evil by contrasting it with Rapunzel's use of Other People and Not Much Else to prevail. I'm not here to deny that Gothel's actions are cruel and evil and selfish, I'm saying that by association, the movie portrays what's adjacent to that (her power, her intelligence, her having the audacity to age) as also being wrong; that because the movie forgives these traits in male characters, we can only assume her true crime is being a woman who's not like Barbie I mean Rapunzel.

On the subject of Rapunzel, I don't think it's all bad. It's mostly bad, but not all bad, and there's one character point in particular that I think brings up an interesting argument, that being Rapunzel's moral code. It's a major plot point that she's honest, it ends up letting her bypass a spell aimed at liars. The message is nice enough, be good and good things will happen to you, it's nice. However, if Rapunzel had just made something up when interrogated, she wouldn't have had that spell put on her in the first place, in fact it could have sent Gothel on a goose chase for long enough to maybe even orchestrate another more permanent escape. I think as a whole, the portrayal of all lies as bad in children's animation is well-intended enough but it sweeps under the rug the fact that sometimes making life easier for everyone by lying is an ok thing to do, especially in a case like Rapunzel's where she's trapped by an abuser.

From a moral perspective you could also say that if she'd lied and if she didn't have that moral high-ground, Gothel would have been right to treat her with suspicion. This brings up another interesting question, what moral obligations do we retain when it comes to our abusers? Where do we draw the line between self-preservation and perpetuating the cycle of narcissism? These aren't questions I'm equipped to answer right now, they're actually questions I've personally struggled with for a long time. I believe morals and morally motivated actions are inherently valuable and admirable but in terms of practicality and the greater good as it were, I'm not sure. Rapunzel is completely non-violent. She defeats Gothel by using a portal to put her into a prison of her own creation. The most bloodless of bloodless villain "deaths" imaginable. But if there were no deus-ex-magic-portal, if there was no way out other than bloodshed, would that have detracted from the value of her victory? From the achievement of escaping her lifelong captor, both physically and by breaking those mental chains we all know so well that bind us to the ones who hurt us most, would that have counted for nothing, if she had used her raw physical strength as opposed to her luck, her privilege even. Would it still be hailed as a victory for Rapunzel, for two whole kingdoms, two monarchies, two dragons and a bunny? Or would such an act taint her victim-hood such that the stain would make it too unsightly to be portrayed as a true happy ending?

A quick rapunzel 💜 fanart this time! I really love Babie’s first movies and she and Erika (from the princess and the pauper) are my fave characters <3 I love her kindness and the love she have to her friends even when her life is resume as to be in prision, and I feel the same when I was in my puberty. Also, she love  paint as I do <3