Painting the town pink: Fans hyped for ‘Barbie’ premiere
Katherine Mansfield
Three generations of Barbie girls twin with their dolls on a recent weekday. Sadie Presto, Twila Polen, holding the original Barbie, and Jen Presto are excited to see the “Barbie” movie, which hits theaters July 21, together.
Courtesy of Nicole Malesic
Nicole Malesic used a Barbie AI filter to transform this headshot into a pastel Barbieland portrait. The use of Barbie filters has exploded on social media ahead of the “Barbie” movie.
Courtesy of Nicole Malesic
With the Barbie movie release date nearing, social media profile pictures and posts have become more “Barbie-ized,” thanks to the TikTok-famous Barbie AI filter and the Barbie Selfie Generator. Nicole Malesic is the Barbie version of herself in this profile picture.
Courtesy of Nicole Malesic
On a trip to New York City, Nicole Malesic and her daughters visited the bright pink Barbie section of FAO Swartz. The girls loved it, she said.
Courtesy of Nicole Malesic
Waverly Brooks is all about her Barbie dolls. “It’s pretty cool to see their excitement with it. My daughters are biracial, it doesn’t matter what kind it is, Black, white, Asian, blonde-haired, brown-haired, they just love those Barbies. I love listening to their little conversations whenever they’re playing. Their imaginations are amazing,” Nicole Malesic said.
Courtesy of Nicole Malesic
Zaida Brooks poses with Barbie and friends in the Barbie section of FAO Swartz in New York. Brooks and her sister enjoy playing with Barbies and are excited to see the movie with their mom Nicole Malesic and dad Omar Brooks this weekend.
Katherine Mansfield
Sadie Presto has fond memories of playing with her Princess and the Pauper Barbie dolls, which sang a duet whose words Presto remembers to this day (she’s in her 20s). The dolls are one of many Barbie spinoffs that depict fictional and nonfictional characters, including Amelia Earhart and Frida Kahlo.
Courtesy of Jen Presto
The original Barbie, left, lounges with subsequent generations of dolls, including the Loving You Barbie from 1983, center left, and little Kelly dolls, right. Twila Polen, of Washington, enjoyed playing with the OG Barbie so much she passed the tradition to daughter Jen Presto, and the two in turn shared their Barbie love with Jen’s daughter, Sadie Presto.
Katherine Mansfield
Sadie Presto and her grandmother Twila Polen have a laugh at one of Presto’s childhood Barbie accessories: a dog that actually relieves itself after eating. “This dog’s name is Tanner. It’s so funny,” Presto laughed. “What were we playing with? I don’t know what the point of that was but like, Barbie would just make anything.”
The color of summer 2023 is pink.
Pink nails, pink fro-yo and pink accessories (looking at you, Aldo shoes) are “it.” Progressive’s Flo and friends have been talking in ads about a special client in front of a bright pink house; pink makeup and pink phone cases are everywhere; Pittsburgh eateries and bars are shaking or stirring up rose-colored specials, and Chicco Baccello recently debuted a very pink latte – all in anticipation of the summer’s biggest blockbuster.
“It’s ‘Barbie’ week,” said Twila Polen, of Washington, with a smile. “I’ve been watching the interviews, like (on) ‘Good Morning America.'”
The “Barbie” movie, starring Margot Robbie as the doll and Ryan Gosling as “just Ken,” hits theaters today, but has been causing quite the pink-out from L.A. to Washington, Pa., all summer long.
Polen, her daughter, Jen Presto, and granddaughter, Sadie Presto, are three generations of Barbie lovers who have been preparing for the movie premiere by immersing themselves in Barbieland.
“I’ve been watching so many behind the scenes things on TikTok and on YouTube,” said Sadie, 24, also of Washington. “In the cast, there seems to be at least one person that everybody likes, everybody wants to see it for. We love ‘Saturday Night Live’ so we’re excited to see Kate McKinnon, and Will Farrell as the head of Mattel. It’s gonna be really funny. We’re all super close, so I’m excited to experience it with all of us.”
The trio is making premiere day one to remember. They’re dressing in their best and brightest pinks, going out to dinner and then reclining in theater seats to watch the technicolor dream the “Barbie” movie promises to be.
All this Barbie hype had the three waxing nostalgic earlier this week about childhoods filled with memories of the iconic doll.
“We’re not really collectors because we played with them,” said Jen, gesturing to her 1983 Loving You Barbie, which, despite being played with, is still in great condition. “I have like 20-some, they’re all played with. I had a lot of accessories: the horses, the camper and the pool. I had the townhouse, not the dream home, the wide one, I had the tall one. The other thing was this toilet, it was like from the ’80s. You could put water in it. When you would flip it up and down, it would make bubbles.”
The accessories were cool (especially the pool, which Jen always wanted for herself), but the real joy of Barbie was playing with imagination.
“I’d watch the soaps with my mom and grandma and then I’d make little soap operas,” Jen said.
By the time Sadie began playing with Barbies in the aughts, there was an explosion of dolls and endless ways to engage with all things pink.
“My playroom was just all Barbie, all everything. We had Barbie karaoke. Barbie has a lot of spinoffs and movies and whatnot. I had the Princess and the Pauper Barbies – a blonde one and a brunette. You click the back of them and they sing this song from the movie,” Sadie said, reciting the song. “I would sing it all the time. It was like my favorite.”
Also a favorite: online games.
“Besides the dolls, that was the next thing that I loved so much were the online games. You’re babysitting Kelly, you feed Kelly. You paint Barbie’s nails and do her hair. Endless hours,” said Sadie.
Twila remembers passing younger days playing with her Barbie dolls in much the same way her daughter and granddaughter did.
“We all taught our Barbies very well. They were quite educated girls,” she laughed, explaining all three generations played school, with Barbie dolls as their students.
Her generation’s Barbies had fewer outfit choices and accessories, but was nevertheless entertaining. When Twila started playing with Barbies, there was no doll on the market quite like the bathing suit-clad blonde bombshell.
Twila owns the very first Barbie, the one in a black and white striped swimsuit that Mattel Inc. debuted in 1959. The doll was based on a racy German doll named Bild Lilli and named after Mattel cofounder Ruth Handler’s daughter, Barbara.
“I was born in ’52, so it was just the right time,” Twila said, holding the original Barbie. “In the beginning we all had good memories about playing, so then we had to get it for our daughters.”
She was amazed, she said, when Mattel expanded Barbie’s universe to include different nationalities and careers.
The diversity of Barbie is something Nicole Malesic, of Washington, admires about the brand.
More than 300,000 Barbies were sold the year the doll debuted. Within two years, Mattel introduced Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, a dashing, blue-eyed blond or brunette. Midge, Barbie’s freckled bestie, hit shelves in 1963, and her little sister Skipper appeared the following year.
Since then, Barbie’s friendship circle has expanded to include the first Black doll, Christie, which debuted in 1968; Teresa, a Latina doll that joined the clique in 1988; and Ella, a Barbie doll undergoing chemotherapy, released in 2012.
“I think Barbie really hit the nail on the head. We even had the Barbie in the wheelchair (Becky). My girls loved that. If we go out in public, they don’t look at (someone in a wheelchair) weird; my doll has the same thing,” Malesic said. “It didn’t just stay one Barbie, one Ken, blonde, blue eyes. It’s evolved and adapted with the times, and I really feel like that’s why it lasted.”
Evolution also came in the Barbie body type (for years, people vocalized concerns about the doll’s unrealistic, and potentially unhealthy, proportions, and today Barbie dolls are confident in their varied shapes and sizes) and career.
Since her inception, Barbie has excelled in more than 250 careers. She’s been a babysitter and an astronaut, a film director and a department store worker, an Air Force pilot and a figure skater. She was an Olympic swimmer and a soccer coach, and she’s worked as a variety of chefs, including a pancake chef (who knew that was a career?! Barbie did!).
“I remember having a nurse one. You look at it, you think, ‘I’m gonna be a nurse when I grow up.’ I think it helps young girls have dreams. Barbie gives them that hope of something better, or an ideal situation to be in. It gives hope to little kids: this is a doctor, I can be a doctor, I can be a scientist,” Malesic said.
Barbie also inspires adults. Malesic, who cofounded the nonprofit PA Vet Pets with her husband, Omar Brooks, and works for Realty One Group Gold Standard, was so inspired by the Barbie-themed houses popping up on Airbnb and across the country and the movie’s hype that she’s launched her own hot-pink campaign.
For every sale Malesic has this year, she’s buying a Barbie doll.
“We decided every sale I have this year, we’ll go back to the beginning of the year, at the end of the year right around Christmas, I can donate all those Barbie dolls to (a local nonprofit),” she said.
Barbie encourages niceness, for lack of a better word, which is something Jen loves about the doll.
“Barbie’s always a nice girl. She’s positive,” she said.
Sadie agrees.
“I think every person, not even just girls, can probably relate to Barbie or Ken or someone in the Barbie family tree in some way. Especially over the years, they’ve gotten more inclusive with body shapes and race and different careers. I think that’s pretty cool. Everybody can relate or see themselves in some way,” she said. “I just love Barbie. Whatever Barbie can do, you can do.”
While Presto and the Polens head to the theater for Barbie’s opening night, Malesic, her daughters, Zadia and Waverly, and her husband are waiting until Sunday to see the show. Being hyped about a Barbie movie is something Malesic could never have imagined, she laughed.
“I wasn’t a huge fan when I was little. I was kind of a tomboy and … the Barbies didn’t really look like me,” she said, noting she did, like other girls her age, have some Barbies. “I always pictured myself having boys and being the football mom. Then I had my first daughter. She’s very girly, she loves the bows, the earrings, the makeup. I kind of have grown to love Barbie, especially because of my girls. They absolutely love Barbie dolls. They’re all over the house. I like how they’ve evolved to be more inclusive of the real world.”
She’s been counting down the days to the movie and is excited to see how director Greta Gerwig brings the doll to life.
“I haven’t been to the theaters in a little while. This one, I thought, would be a cool one to take everyone to just to see it on the big screen,” Malesic said.