Did Barbie shade Bratz in the new movie trailer?

Barbie and Bratz dolls have had a long running feud, and is the Barbie movie striking again with the new trailer?

Wrapped in plastic, she’s fantastic, and her movie is looking like it’s going to be fantastic as well. Barbie, the upcoming film by Greta Gerwig, is looking to be one of the most highly anticipated movies of this year.

Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the official synopsis for the film reads: “A doll living in Barbieland is expelled for not being perfect enough and sets off on an adventure in the real world.”

The Barbie franchise has always been well-loved, but while many believe Barbie to be the reigning doll on the market, for a while there was a huge contender in the form of the Bratz. This led to a decades long battle, which now may have made it into the Barbie trailer itself.

Barbie Vs Bratz

The new trailer came out for the Barbie movie, which you can watch below. Set to the music of Dua Lipa and Cass Elliot – aka the song that’s gone viral on TikTok – the trailer shows Barbie’s picturesque life, until she suddenly asks everyone, “You guys ever think about dying?” Yes, she actually says that.

According to the above trailer, “If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.” And this is where the girls with a Passion 4 Fashion come in. As those words play on the screen, we see Barbie interact with four teenage girls, who upset Barbie by dismissively saying, “We haven’t played with Barbie since we were like five years old.”

Now, this could just be a commentary on girlhood, maturity, and dolls in general. However, the appearance of the four girls looks eerily suspicious, to the point that fans on Twitter have noticed it.

Some believe the girls look just like the Bratz, that being Sasha, Yasmin, Cloe, and Jade, who you can take a look at below. They don’t just look similar – the comment on not playing with Barbie after being five does make sense, as Bratz were often seen as the “cooler, more grown-up dolls” that girls would play with until they began hitting puberty.

Bratz was also a much newer and diverse line, as the dolls began releasing in 2001. This doll line spanned into a long running animated series, and they even had their own live-action movie back in 2007, though that was met with much less prestige than Gerwig’s upcoming film.

MGM

The Bratz were popular both in doll and animated form.

Not only were the two doll lines in competition in the market, but throughout the 2010s they were in many a legal battle too. In one instance in 2011, Mattel was ordered to pay MGA Entertainment nearly $310m in damages, according to The Independent.

The legal tides turned in later years, and Bratz began losing its power in the market – for some time it was the only doll line actually competing with Barbie – but now there has been somewhat of a Bratz renaissance, with nostalgia for the brand leading to new video games, and even official Euphoria animations, as seen below:

Perhaps this renaissance has pushed the Barbie movie to strike against Bratz once again. So when the movie comes out, we’ll have to see who wins over pop culture once and for all.

The Barbie reference could actually be My Scene

Now, before everyone starts gearing up for battle, we could be reading this scene wrong. While the moment in the trailer could be a reference to a doll line, it may not actually be the Bratz.

Other fans believe that the four teenage girls are actually a My Scene easter egg. My Scene was actually Mattel’s response to Bratz – and an attempt to make a “cooler” doll line with Barbie still included. The doll line, which began in 2002, consisted of Chelsea, Maddison, Kennedy, and Nolee – Kennedy was essentially a Barbie surrogate.

Not many audience members may be as familiar with the My Scene dolls as Bratz, as My Scene was nowhere near as popular, and discontinued worldwide in 2011. But it would make more legal sense for them to be included, as they are a Mattel property like Barbie.

Perhaps the Barbie movie was hoping audiences would take the Easter egg either way. Regardless, there’s no doubt going to be plenty more fun references throughout the film, and we can’t wait to spot them.

The Barbie movie is set to star Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken respectively. Gerwig will be co-writing and directing the film, with her partner Noah Baumbach also co-writing. Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, and Mattel’s Robbie Brenner and David Heyman are producing.

Barbie will strut into cinemas on July 21, 2023. For more information on the movie, click here.