Kate McKinnon portrays Weird Barbie in the summer blockbuster Barbie. Her character is introduced to viewers under a veil of mystery and, on account of Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie, trepidation. However, I was introduced to Weird Barbie long before the film. As were many others. We just didn’t realise there was a name for it at the time.
As the younger sibling, I often ended up getting my big sister’s hand-me-downs in the'90s. It’s a rite of passage any kid sibling goes through. I inherited her Walkman when she graduated to a Discman. A few years later, I was given said Discman when she upgraded to a fancier model. But the one thing I never inherited was her Barbie dolls. Why? Well, she had chopped off all their hair some years prior and coloured them in with various felt tip pens. My mother, unwilling to subject me to the sight of these dishevelled dolls, who no longer had use for the Barbie hair brushes we had so many of, opted to buy me new ones. However, a couple of the felt tip pen-adorned Barbies remained in an old toy box. I’d never given them much thought until I watched Barbie the film. It was only then that I came to realise that those neglected dolls I’d ignored were, in fact, Weird Barbies.
The pang of nostalgia was instant, as were the chuckles and murmurs I heard around the screening room when McKinnon’s character made her first on-screen appearance. Weird Barbie is feared and avoided by the other dolls in Barbie Land, but it soon becomes apparent that she’s not frightening, simply different.
When explaining why she looks so unique, Weird Barbie reveals that her owner cut her hair, drew on her face, and put her in flexible positions. She was then somewhat discarded and forgotten about, and is now stuck as “Weird Barbie.” Instead of wearing the stereotypical high heels, she’s in flat shoes, and rather than living with the rest of the Barbies, she’s isolated in a house on a hill. “Come into my weird house. Hi! I’m Weird Barbie. I can do the splits. I have a funky haircut and I smell like basement,” she says, by way of greeting the visiting humans.
Speaking about the inspiration behind the fascinating character, Barbie director Greta Gerwig told Rolling Stone: “I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies that had already gotten a haircut by the time I got them. It was like, ‘Well, we have to do that.’ It felt almost like a spiritual conduit to the world of play through that Barbie.”
Weird Barbie plays an integral role in the film as, spoiler alert, she holds information about accessing the real world that Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie so desperately needs. But her impact transcends beyond the screen. Upon meeting Weird Barbie, viewers took to social media to comment on the character. At the time of going to press, #WeirdBarbie has racked up 53.9 million views on TikTok.
Many fans have made comparisons between the Barbie character and Cynthia, the long-suffering dishevelled doll that belonged to spoiled infant Angelica in the hit children's TV show Rugrats. As someone who immediately thought of Cynthia upon seeing the stills for Barbie, this comparison didn’t surprise me in the least.
Meanwhile, others felt a deeper connection to Weird Barbie who is, undeniably, pitched as an outsider and rebel. “As a self-proclaimed ‘Weird Barbie,’ the character resonated with me,” Career Value Coach Stefanie Ricchio tells GLAMOUR UK. The film personality reminded Ricchio, now a 44-year-old mother, of her former self. “I wouldn’t be who I am today and I wouldn’t show up the way I do today, if not for my really difficult ‘Weird Barbie’ moments,” she tells me. “I could have been watching a little bit of myself on the screen. Minus the splits. That’s a skill I never mastered!”
For Nick Cherryman, a PHD researcher in queer and drag theory, Weird Barbie provided a much-needed humorous element. “Weird Barbie was funny because she was the Barbie that we all recognise, like Cynthia from Rugrats,” they tell me. Revealing they felt an affinity with the character, Cherryman adds: “There was something oddly messy about her. She was almost a spinster character, you know? There's something about the destruction of the 'perfect' Barbie to the ‘weird’ one that I find interesting.”
Another prevailing online discourse has seen a discussion about whether Barbie contains any queer moments, overt or otherwise. Many viewers have adopted Weird Barbie as the film’s unofficial representation of queerness. McKinnon, who is openly gay, hasn’t directly addressed fans’ assertions about her character. The song “Closer to Fine” by lesbian folk rock duo Indigo Girls blares out when Robbie’s Barbie, who has started to malfunction, pays her first nervous visit to Weird Barbie’s house. It's played again later on, too. This could be a subtle sign from Gerwig or simply just the chance to showcase an incredibly catchy song. Much like with any film interpretation, it’s currently up to the fans to decide.
It’s clear that Weird Barbie represents many things to different people. Of all the characters in Barbie, she’s the one that has delivered the most nostalgic feeling to audiences. And while she may be initially disregarded by her fellow plastics in Barbie Land, there’s no denying that off screen, Weird Barbie is arguably the film’s most valued player.
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