Barbie Sequels

“As the secrets of the film are slowly stripped away, there’s a case for maintaining the debate over Barbie’s true intentions.” — ELLE

Given the success of Barbie’s first blockbuster hit, the Mattel team has already mapped plotline options for the penultimate Barbie sequel*.

1. Barbie: End Times

Setting: A desolate cityscape ravaged by war and climate catastrophe. Piles of rubble contrasted by thick vines hugging skyscrapers; dirty rivulets flow through abandoned streets. A hot pink plastic house juts out from the skyline.

Plot: Barbie is a Lara Croft-esque survivalist. She dons hot pink cargo pants with a utility belt that sags from a plethora of tools. A hunting knife shimmers in her holster. Streaks of pink flank her short, choppy blond hair. Ken is her sidekick; he cleans the kill and follows Barbie’s orders, albeit doesn’t always get them right (like the time he accidentally invited the Neo-Nazi gang posing as innocuous vagabonds over for dinner). There is no mushy love between Barbie and Ken; just unrelenting plotlines filled with near-death experiences. Reprieve comes in the form of a milky pink Cosmo that Ken whips up each evening — the one thing he does well.

Rating: PG-13 (violence, foul language, mature apocalyptic themes)

2. Barbie: Mobile Living

Setting: A mobile home community in the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. A brown stream runs through the foreground at the edge of the lot, large stained white underwear and loud-patterned muumuus hang from slack clotheslines along the water’s edge. A faded pink doublewide with bricks stacked in place of two missing wheels sits in the middle of the compound, broken toys strewn in the dirt lot in of the trailer.

Plot: Barbie is a stay-at-home mom of six living in a trailer park, perpetually disheveled and nine months pregnant. Her husband Ken, rocking a well-quaffed mullet, works in the nearby sardine canning factory. Barbie spends her days screaming at the kids, who run around in various states of cleanliness and clothed. She dons a pink house dress that she bought on sale at Walmart as a Christmas present to herself, swapping it for ratty pink leggings and a “Woke is a joke” t-shirt only when one of the kids barfs on her and she has to change. When she’s not yelling at the kids, she’s yelling at Ken for shooting his rifle into the old pecan tree behind their trailer or at the raccoons that steal the sardine heads out of their trash at night. They are both big fans of Donald Trump and watching old reruns of “Wicked Tuna.”

Rating: PG-13 (foul language, adult themes, questionable politics)

3. Barbie: Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Setting: Glass, high-rise office building in a mid-size city. Open workspace on the 19th floor with florescent lighting and glass offices dotting the perimeter, with one large conference room in the center with a big, oval oak table and 12 chairs.

Plot: Barbie had high hopes after finishing her MBA at Wharton. She landed an entry-level job in the marketing department at a fintech firm that got acquired by big tech and worked her way up to director. Despite her success, corporate Barbie recognizes that her blond hair, button nose and missing ribs have helped her more than she would care to admit. She is often the only woman around the table. No one listens when she speaks, and a male executive often repeats the idea she had just expressed four minutes earlier, and he gets pats on the back and extra bonuses. The only acknowledgement comes in the form of compliments to her hot pink leather skirt suits, or when they ask her to get coffee. To make matters worse, Barbie’s husband of eight years, Ken, begins a sordid affair with Barbie’s executive assistant, Brandon. An ugly separation ensues, not least of which includes a custody battle over their Pomeranian, Snickerdoodle.

Rating: PG-13 (romance, corporate bureaucracy, a soul-suck for anyone who has not yet entered the workforce)

4. Bobbie: The Big Transition

Setting: A shared fourth-floor walkup apartment in an old brownstone in the hipster neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn.

Plot: After illuminating conversations with her queer, “starving artist” transplant friends from the Midwest who live off their parents’ trust funds, Barbie realizes she was assigned into the wrong gender at birth and has long overcompensated by adopting a hyper-feminine, hot pink cishet-normative expression. Barbie transforms into Bobbie, the hot, albeit still fairly feminine and pink-clad, dude. Ken realizes why, as a gay man, he had long been attracted to Barbie, and settles in for a happy LTR with Bobbie.

Rating: PG-13 (romance, adult language, inappropriate for anyone under the age of right-winger who can’t handle basic conversations about gender identity and expression)

5. Barbie: Suburban Sprawl

Setting: Manicured estate in Greenwich CT.

Plot: Barbie lives a life of luxury in the elite suburbs while Ken moves invisible money around on Wall Street. The nanny and au pair watch the kid and dogs, and Barbie spends her days getting facials and planning dinner parties and charitable fundraisers with her gal pals. But one day something breaks. She can no longer handle the upkeep — the plastic smile she is expected to wear at all times; the impeccable spreads she must order her chef to arrange; the inability to repeat an outfit or eat carbs. Barbie has a nervous breakdown at a PTA dinner and ends up at a Zen recovery center in Middletown, Connecticut where she learns invaluable life lessons like it’s OK to wear sweatpants on the weekend.

Rating: PG-13 (foul language, sexual content, privilege)

*This was the brainchild of Gus the janitor given all the creatives are on strike.