Live-Action Barbie Movie Shows How Diversity Is Done!

Posted by Ria, 18 May

The Barbie we all know and love in her pink and plastic world is coming to life in a live-action movie since Warner Bros. announced the film's release!

Margot Robbie posing as Barbie in a pink world

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Barbie was released at Toy Fair New York City for the first time on March 9th, 1959. The famous doll may be the most well-known, but it has had its fair share of criticism. The company has had to face issues such as harming body image and the lack of diversity in their line of dolls.

After 30+ years, the Barbie franchise made a doll with African-American features and characteristics!

Collection of Barbie dolls at the Mattel headquarters

The Cast

We can't wait to watch the movie because the casting looks AMAZING!

We have three different versions of Barbie, which will be played by:

  • Margot Robbie (White Australian)
  • Hari Nef (openly transgender woman)
  • Issa Rae (Black and of Senegalese descent)

Not forgetting the iconic Ken doll, there will also be three different versions played by:

  • Ryan Gosling (White of French Canadian descent)
  • Simu Liu (Chinese-Canadian)
  • Ncuti Gatwa (Rwandan-Scottish, also just announced as the new Doctor in Doctor Who)

About Time

It was about time that predominantly white Hollywood would start casting and mainlining more diverse characters in their movies. Barbie and Ken are very white indeed, as we know. Even though the writers, directors, and everyone involved working on this project had the opportunity to do a 'classic' white Barbie movie. Instead, we get to experience a very forward-thinking and diverse cast, including actors and actresses of color!

1 responses to "Live-Action Barbie Movie Shows How Diversity Is Done!"

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  1.   Ruth116 says:
    Posted: 11 Jul 22

    I read that the "real life Barbie", the woman who went to extremes to look like the famous doll, doesn't like mixed people. She deems thin, white, blue-eyed blondes as THE beauty standard and those who aren't as "inferior" and agents of contamination of the human gene pool; this is shades of Nazism. My mixed, pudgy daughter is far more beautiful than she is and is a real woman.

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