Barbie Trailer Recreates The Matrix’s Red Pill/Blue Pill Scene
Written by on May 29, 2023
The live-action Barbie movie has been in the works for many, many years, but it’s finally happening. As the release date comes closer, fans are given more and more glimpses into the Barbie world. The most recent of these is a new trailer that features a surprising callback to the action movie The Matrix and its most iconic scene.
The latest Barbie trailer shows off the titular Mattel doll in her perfect Barbie world. But, despite the pretty plastic life she was given, Barbie doesn’t feel like she’s supposed to. Her reality doesn’t seem right to her, an idea that has been frequently explored in other movies, like Barbie‘s inspiration, The Truman Show. The trailer shows Barbie’s inner turmoil leading the doll to Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie, who provides her with a couple of options.
The Barbie Trailer Shows Barbie at a Crossroads
The first of these options is for Barbie to remain in her perfect Barbie world with her friends and keep living her manufactured life. This option is aptly represented by a high-heeled shoe, one of Barbie’s many fashion staples. But another option would change Barbie’s life as she knows it. That is, of course, to enter the real world and experience life among the imperfect human race. Instead of a heel, this option is represented by a Birkenstock, which references real-life fashion styles. Not only is this a cute scene that’s pretty self-aware, but it’s also a pink glitter-drenched callback to one of the most referenced action movies in history: The Matrix.
Barbie Homages The Matrix… With Shoes
From the trailers and plot information released about the upcoming Barbie movie, it’s fair to assume that Margot Robbie’s Barbie is simply aware that her reality is off. Barbieland is like a simulated or manufactured existence, and it’s so perfect that most of the diverse array of Barbies and Kens living there are oblivious. While this general idea has been explored in recent utopia-focused dramas like Don’t Worry Darling, the most well-known and beloved simulation movie was released in 1999 with The Matrix.
All these years later, The Matrix references are everywhere. Even those who haven’t seen any of the movies are likely to know about the red pill/blue pill scene that’s been relentlessly memed for years. In the scene, The Matrix‘s main character Neo, played by John Wick‘s legendary Keanu Reeves, approaches an all-knowing man named Morpheus to gain some insight into the world around him. Morpheus then gives him a choice between two pills, one red and one blue, that carry drastically different side effects. Taking the blue pill would seemingly have no effect, as Neo would return to his normal life, having his mind altered to the state in which he was oblivious to the Matrix and any illusions throughout his life. On the other hand, the red pill would allow him to fully understand what the Matrix is and what the illusions were hiding about life outside the Matrix. The red pill would make him completely self-aware of the simulation he’s in and, in theory, allow him to escape the manufactured reality.
Barbie’s choices of shoes perfectly encapsulate that scene in a perfectly Barbie vibe. Given the Barbie movie’s synopsis and the information fans have received, it’s likely that she takes a path similar to Neo’s by choosing the “red pill” and leaving her Barbie world, even if she still gravitates toward the high-heeled shoe. But fans will have to wait for the movie to drop to see this iconic reference in full.
To see The Matrix turn into the sparkly pink Barbieland, Barbie is set to drop on July 21.
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