"Gay Ken", And Four Other Iconic Discontinued Barbie Dolls That Were Referenced In The New "Barbie" Movie

In the '90s, Barbie was finally given a voice box! Each Teen Talk Barbie had the ability to speak four sentences; unfortunately, much of the dialogue was labelled as sexist. Barbie would speak phrases such as "math class is tough", "will we ever have enough clothes?", and "let's plan our dream wedding".

Educators criticised the doll for insinuating that girls were unable to be good at maths, going against the Barbie philosophy of "girls can do anything." Mattel didn't discontinue the doll, but they did remove the phrase from its dialogue. In the movie, this doll makes a small cameo and is played by Marisa Abela, but she definitely doesn't talk about maths!