Recently a commentor by the name of KT Joy
brought up a movie I haven’t thought about in… jeez, it's gotta be years. This comment sent me down memory lane
and made me realise that yeah actually there is probably something
I could say about this movie. So let’s take a look at ‘Barbie:
Fairytopia’ from a disabled perspective. [intro] Here’s fun fact and a little something that might give you some insight into
the kind of person I am. The height of teenage rebellion for
me was watching the Barbie movies. Because my mom refused to let me watch them as a kid and then one time I managed
to watch one at a friend’s house. It was The Twelve Dancing Princesses, I think? And after that once I grew up enough to have
my own laptop, well… I was off to the races. Just watching those sweet,
forbidden, pink glittery movies. But that was of course years ago and
I’ve since forgotten a lot about them. The only one I watched more than
once was Princess Charm School. I know the Princess and the Pauper
is one of those real popular ones, but honestly if you ask me
Charm School is where it’s at. This video, though, is about Fairytopia. The first one. We don’t need to talk about the sequels, for
reasons which will become abundantly clear. So uh… spoiler warning? I suppose? For
a Barbie movie that came out in 2005? The story of Fairytopia is… well, it’s a
Barbie movie, it’s hardly groundbreaking. It centres on Elina played,
as always, by Barbie herself. Elina is a wingless flower fairy who lives in the
Magic Meadow inside a sentient… possibly tulip? I mean her name is Peony, but this sure
as hell ain’t a peony so who knows. She’s also followed around by the most
annoying Barbie sidekick ever created. I despise this blue puffball. I cannot stand him. His name is Bibble, and wherever
he goes, eardrums are cursed. [high-pitched, nonsense babytalk] When the Magic Meadow is
threatened by a mysterious sickness which is causing people to
lose their ability to fly and the Guardian Fairy of the
Meadow, Topaz, is kidnapped, Elina takes it upon herself to make
the trek to the neighbouring Fairytown to speak with their Guardian Azura. At first her friend Dandelion
tries to accompany her, but she, too, is struck by the sickness
and Elina sends her home. She reaches Fairytown and
manages to sneak past Azura’s shockingly ineffective guards to speak with her. Azura is at first reasonably suspicious, but
notices that Elina ‘has the rainbow in her eyes’ which apparently means she
is destined for greatness. They have a conversation over tea
about the friends we haven’t met yet before Azura announces she’s off to see the dryad
Daliah in the morning to ask her for her help. Daliah was once loyal to Laverna, who is the big
bad of this movie and the twin sister to the… queen? Of the fairies? The Enchantress. So she might have some insight on how to stop her. Azura also gives Elina her
necklace for safe-keeping. As a small sidenote, I could have
sworn before I re-watched this movie that Elina was supposed to be either the
Enchantress’ or Laverna’s long lost daughter but I’ll save you all some time
and trouble because apparently not. Anyway Laverna is the one who’s
been kidnapping all of the Guardians and spreading this green mist
that is making people sick. Her whole plan here is first to gather
the power in the Guardian’s necklaces, gifted to them by the Enchantress, then to weaken the population
of Fairytopia and set herself up as the only source of a cure for them. Which, as far as diabolical plans
from villains in children’s movies go? Not bad. This one actually seems somewhat viable. But of course her henchmen are completely
incompetent… clones? Artificial life forms? They’re all called Fungus and look completely
identical so I’m going to assume she created them. Also… uh. Well. As problematic villain designs
go, this one is rather blatant, isn’t it? Pretty sure I’ve seen this guy’s cousin on
any number of antisemitic propaganda posters. It’s not great. Anyway when Laverna gets her hands on Azura she
notices, of course, that the necklace is missing. You know I can’t help but think that
this might have been easier if she’d just managed to snatch each of the
necklaces, no kidnapping involved. But then I guess she wouldn't
have anyone to monologue at. But without the necklace, the
whole plan is a non-starter, so now Laverna is after this
mysterious fairy with no wings. Meanwhile Elina has met a new
friend, Hue the butterfly- and that's H-U-E, as in a hue of colour,
not H-U-G-H. As in the human name. He has been tasked by Azura to
take her where she needs to go. Which she decides, after discovering that Azura
has been kidnapped, is the Wildering Woods. With a quick pit-stop at a cove with
some merfolk to set up the sequel. Once in the Wildering Woods, Hue begins
to feel the effects of the sickness but is determined to push on because getting
Elina where she needs to be is his job. Elina won’t have that and forces him to
land and actually take care of himself while she continues on foot. She meets a pair of… random,
weird, rhyming gnomes? - Do we know the Wildering Wood?
- Well we live here, ma'am, we certainly should! who take her to Dahlia, who lives
inside of a tree because she’s a dryad. And I guess I’m the fool for expecting a dryad to
look any different from your bog-standard fairy. Elina manages to convince Dahlia to help
and makes her way to Laverna’s palace. Unwittingly giving Laverna the one
thing she needs to complete her plan. Laverna casts a spell, using Elina’s social
ostracisation as a link between them and prodding at all of Elina’s insecurities, promising
her wings of her own if she just cooperates. The spell takes root, presumably because Laverna’s hit close enough to the truth
for it to worm its way in. But just as all seems hopeless Azura manages
to break through to Elina and this happens; - I don’t need your wings, Laverna! [splintering, cracking sound] And that’s that, right? Bravo, good show,
round of applause, let’s all go home, right? Well yes and no. The final scene of the movie sees Elina returned
to the Magic Meadow, this time as a hero, greeted with joy by her former bullies,
all the stuff you’d expect and then… Then the Enchantress shows up and says
that for her bravery Elina deserves a gift. Does she give Elina a choice on this gift? No. She just clips a butterfly
necklace around Elina’s neck which grants her wings and flies off
without so much as a by-your-leave. And that’s the movie. That’s where it ends. So let’s talk about that, shall we? Obviously, it’s a Barbie movie,
and it’s a Barbie movie from 2005. I don’t think I need to go into
the regular critiques around how the animation looks weird and very cursed in
places, or the sometimes awkward voice acting. What I will do is talk about how it
handled disability, because everything else is ultimately surface-level,
representing a marginalised community, even when you’re doing it through means
which do not exist in our world, is not. And yes I'm serious, Elina spends… well, the entire runtime of this film,
honestly, as a disabled protagonist. She’s a fairy. The standard able-bodied body
for a fairy is one with functional wings. She does not have wings. Ergo, she is disabled. Early on we see the pixies mock her
for it, but we also see that she’s clearly comfortable in herself. Their remarks slide off her and she’s
obviously quite comfortable navigating the Magic Meadow on foot, because
she’s had to do that all of her life. Even her home, Peony, seems perfect
for her accessibility needs, extending down a leaf to serve as a
ramp for her to enter from ground level. It’s a solid start. And... then there’s
Elina’s relationship with Dandelion. They’re obviously friends, but even so,
when Elina suggests she go to Fairytown, Dandelion immediately questions her
ability to make the journey on foot. It’s only when Elina begins to take her seriously
that Dandelion backs off and changes her mind, determining to come along and help her. Then, when Elina actually gets to Fairytown, they
have probably inadvertently put a scene in here which is so god damn relatable to me
despite the obviously fantastical setting. This god damn town hall entry desk. God if that visual doesn’t perfectly
encapsulate how it feels to be a wheelchair user in a place where all the customer
service stations rise above your head. Further in we get abruptly confronted with just how inaccessible this
world is to someone like Elina. She’s apparently lucky to have grown up in the
Magic Meadow, because Fairytown is a deathtrap for anyone who can’t fly. It’s only because she got the bright
idea to use a flower as a parachute that she was even somewhat able to
navigate and find her way to Azura. And Azura’s home? Once again a nightmare as far
as accessibility is concerned. Sure, Azura has magic which allows
her to entertain flightless guests, but this layout very clearly hammers home that
this world is built for people who can fly. Then we have Elina, as the local disabled person,
having to take charge and talk sense into people when they’re getting sick and
still trying to push themselves. When Dandelion starts losing her
ability to fly she says she’ll walk, but Elina reminds her that while she herself
is used to walking, Dandelion is not. It would be too hard for her. When Hue tries to keep going despite
becoming ill, Elina has to pull the breaks. She’s used to taking her limits into
account and planning around them, so she speaks with a certain weight
when it comes to not pushing oneself. The concept of a story wherein suddenly everyone
has a disability, so only the character who’s lived with it for their entire life can save the
day is one I’ve never known how to feel about. Sure, I love stories that centre disabled
protagonists, but it feels kind of… weird and bad? When our only opportunity to be heroes comes after literally everyone around
us has been taken out of the running. But all of this, ultimately, is small potatoes compared to the last and
greatest sin of this movie. Giving Elina wings at the end. The message of this movie is ‘what
makes you different makes you special’. Which is… fine enough as far as
simplistic messages for kids go. But of course it does feel a little bit
gross, too, because I prefer to think that what makes each of us special has nothing to do
with the immutable facts about our own selves. But either way this ending goes
directly against that message, and utterly ruins Elina’s triumphant moment
in the final conflict against Laverna. Even if we ignore the
disability aspect for a moment, it utterly ruins the emotional impact
of Elina rejecting Laverna’s wings. From a disability perspective this is
awful because we have someone coming in and ‘curing’ a disabled person without
even talking to them about it first, just assuming that naturally this
is what they want and going for it. The only possible saving grace is
that the spell comes from a necklace, meaning Elina could take it off, so it
kind of serves as an assistive device? If I am feeling incredibly generous,
which to be honest I am not. From a purely analytical story
perspective it’s also complete garbage, because it ruins the impact of Elina
giving up her one chance at having wings in order to save her home
and everyone she cares about. Essentially it doesn’t matter. No matter
what she’d done, she’d have gotten wings. It’s an extremely flat, disappointing ending
even without the unfortunate implications. And of course in the sequels her wings
are hardly ever touched upon again. There is some drama in the direct sequel where
she has to risk possibly losing her wings again to save the mermaid kingdom, but
arguably the higher stakes there are that she might permanently become a mermaid
and have to leave her life on land entirely. She’s just able bodied now. That is her reward for saving Fairytopia. She doesn’t get to choice in what her reward
should be, it is forced upon her with no explanation, simply the assumption that it
is what’s right for her and what she wants. Once again, able bodied people thinking
they know what’s best for us. Lovely. And honestly the worst part is that I
don’t even think this was malicious. I honestly don’t think the creators of this
movie even realised what they were doing. It’s entirely possible that they
never even considered Elina disabled. After all, from a human perspective, she’s not. But within the story they wrote she is, and
it’s made for a truly unfortunate portrayal. Thanks for watching this video, if you liked
it consider liking it and maybe subscribing. I will be back here Thursday after next. Bye. [rustic music]
