11 Barbie Easter Eggs

The Barbie movie begins with a shot that is clearly based on the ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ film. Playing both openings side by side, the resemblance is uncanny. 

Instead of apes, there are girls; instead of the monolith, it is Barbie in front of the sun and crescent moon; and instead of an ape smashing bones onto the ground, it is a little girl that smashes her baby doll onto the ground. 

In ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ an ape throws a bone into the air, and the scene jumps to a satellite as the bone spins. In ‘Barbie,’ a girl throws her baby doll into the air, and as it spins, the scene jumps to the Barbie logo that was present from 1975 all the way to 1991.

In the opening scene, where Barbie is introduced to the little girls, she is wearing the same outfit that the first original Barbie doll ever made: a black and white striped one-piece bathing suit, black heels, and of course, her white sunglasses. Even her iconic curly blond hair stays the same. This doll was made by Mattel in 1959.

Gloria, also known as Sasha’s mother in ‘Barbie’ is proven to be the girl who made weird Barbie “weird.” We get a shot of Gloria in the flashback scene cutting up the doll’s hair as well as throwing her around. In the girl’s bedroom we can see Gloria’s name spelled out with the board game’s “Scrabble” pieces on a pole in her room.

In Barbie Land, the name “Barbie Land” is spelled out when looking above Barbie Land. Barbie’s dream house is the “I” in Barbie Land when looking above Barbie Land.

When traveling to the real world and back to “Barbie Land”, in the space scene, Barbie is seen wearing her career Barbie astronaut suit. She is seen wearing brown boots and her white space suit.

Barbie floats down from her roof at the beginning of the movie, symbolizing that she is being played with by a child and is being lifted down from her roof onto the ground. 

Later in the movie, when the person playing with her becomes unhappy, we see Barbie falling from her roof instead of floating down gently.

‘Barbie’ has a “red pill or blue pill?” scenes like ‘The Matrix.’ Except in the ‘Barbie’ movie Barbie has to choose between pink heels or Birkenstock sandals instead of two different colored pills.

Even when Barbie is not traveling with Ken when he is making his way back to Barbie Land, Ken still hangs off of the rocket, and he still sits at the back of the boat, afraid of the seagulls

When Barbie and Ken get arrested in the real world, Barbie's sign reads “Barbie” while Ken’s reads “And Ken.” This refers to Ken’s whole arc, as it revolves around how he isn’t his own piece; he is something that comes with Barbie.

John Cena plays the merman at the beach in Barbie Land. His casting wasn’t exactly intentional. 

At the time that ‘Barbie’ was in the works, Cena was working on the movie ‘Fast X’ across the street. He presented himself to Margot Robbie for a cameo, and she accepted. Cena describes this as a “happy accident.”  

He also stated in “Today” back in May of 2023 that “I haven’t worked with Margot before,” John Cena also expressed how he thinks that “Barbie and Fast X share a lot of parallels. The Barbie cast list is amazing. The Fast X cast list is amazing. It was a chance to say, ‘Hey, would you guys be willing to have me if I could do something?’”