The horse gags in the Barbie movie are a cheat for Horse Girls

As a huge Barbie fan, I found Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie Barbie an absolute delight. Barbieland’s details, such as the Barbies moving around in their DreamHouses and the dolls dressed up to represent them are all a tribute to girlhood. But there’s one small detail I just can’t get over.

The Horse Girls: Where are they?!

[Ed. note: This post contains significant spoilers for 2023’s live-action Barbie.]

Warner Bros.

Ken (Ryan Gosling), a handsome, but dim, character, learns very early on in the movie that patriarchy is the dominant force in real life, not Barbies. So about halfway through the movie, he brings what he’s learned about real-world men back to Barbieland, installing a comically exaggerated macho regime in the previously pink and feminine world. This means Barbie’s DreamHouse is now “Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House.” All the Barbies are stripped of their cool jobs, and they just focus on serving the Kens cold drinks. Kens mansplaining has some humorous gags. The GodfatherPlaying guitar You may also like:Barbies as a substitute for The following are some of the ways to get in touch with us: them. It’s all a glorious rendition of the over-exaggerated hyper-masculine world that is Ken-dom — with one glaring exception.

They are horses!

Ken is convinced that horses represent masculinity after he sees some police officers riding on horses in Venice Beach. Ken-dom’s cartoonish macho style includes horse decor, a special hobby horse for each Ken, and hundreds of Casa House videos showing stallions racing, and raising mustangs.

Warner Bros.

Horse Girls, while they are manly in their own right, are so much a part of girls’ childhoods that it is absurd that these animals are immediately hailed as masculine symbols. Equestrian Barbies? Where can you find them in Barbieland. Where are unicorns, horses and white-maned horses with pink stripes coming to tramp down the Ken herds on their sparkling hooves. Justice for the Horse Girls

And it’s not like Ken as a doll has any particular history with horses. There have been many Barbie horses, and they’re usually all packaged with Barbie or her female friends. In the animated movies, she’s had many a horse, from magical unicorns to regular horses. (There was also that one time in 2005’s Barbie and the Magic of PegasusHer older sister had been transformed into a Pegasus. Ken dolls get horses only when Barbies with the same theme already own them. Then, there You can learn more about it here a Horse Lovin’ Ken back in 1982 — but he was just there to round out the Horse Lovin’ Barbie and Skipper dolls.

Admittedly, one of Polygon’s own rules for recognizing a Horse Girl Story is that “Horse Girl” isn’t actually a gender restriction. “Horse Girl” is merely a state of mind, a passion for equines that doesn’t need to be gendered. The end result is that the term “Horse Girl” does not need to be gendered. Barbie, Ken himself admits that he lost his interest in patriarchy when he realized it wasn’t You can find out more about it here.About horses. The fact that horses are so central to Ken’s understanding of masculinity seems like an early indication that he doesn’t really understand patriarchy, and that it was never going to solve his actual problems.

The omission of Horse Girls in the original Barbieland doesn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the movie, where Gerwig and the rest of the filmmakers are clearly celebrating femininity and girlhood joys. Maybe the horse association’s apparent lack of funds in the film is a hint at what could happen to Barbieland one day. Ken, after all, admits at the conclusion of the movie that he has to find out who he is, apart from Barbie. Ken’s identity as a Horse Girl is revealed in the movie. It’s up to him whether he embraces that part of himself. Barbieland is soon to be populated with plastic horses. Kens, Barbies, and their Horse Girls can all let loose and enjoy the ride.