INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Amy Schumer As Barbie In First-Ever Live-Action Barbie Doll Film: Schumer’s Barbie Deals With ‘Issues Of Self-Image And Race’

By Ven Lanyon
Published on: 10:47 PST, Dec 2, 2016

Barbie is coming to the big screen, and according to E! Online, Amy Schumer is going to bring the famous doll to life. Schumer is known as “the epitome of the female role model” lately, so it might seem a bit weird that she’s playing a “character based around the perfectly proportioned, big-eyed, blonde-haired toy,” but the spin on busty Barbie’s character is taking a whole different direction in this film.

“Apparently Amy Schumer has heard that life in plastic is fantastic.”

Amy Schumer as Barbie will be a modern, updated, “real world” Barbie story, where Barbie learns some lessons about trying to be perfect all the time. Parents won’t mind letting their impressionable daughters watch this PG-rated movie when it comes out in 2018.

The new take on Barbie will see the iconic, shapely doll from the Mattel toy company get “kicked out of Barbieland” because she isn’t up to the standard that’s required for dolls in that “perfect city.” There are another “180-plus Barbie characters” who also live in Barbieland, and they don’t trust Amy’s Barbie, who is “a bit eccentric” and “doesn’t quite fit the mold.

The feature film will deal directly with some of the “issues of self-image and race” that Mattel and the Barbie doll have had to face in the decades since Barbie’s launch in 1959.

It’s a whole new world now, and although Barbie is “one of the biggest toy brands in the world,” and she brings in $3 billion a year for her company, it’s time for Barbie to find out how much things have changed. Back in 1959 when Barbie first hit the shelves, women were expected to look perfect for their men. Amy Schumer is known for “encouraging their imperfections” in her support of other women, and she’s ready to help bring Barbie into the 21st century.

Hollywood Reporter writes that it takes a while for Barbie to realize that “she doesn’t fit in” with the other dolls in Barbieland, and when she finally does come to that realization, everything changes. Schumer’s Barbie is in for a big surprise, but she’s ready for anything.

People magazine reports that Amy’s Barbie will travel to the real world, where she’ll start learning all the life lessons that no one else in Barbieland has ever had a chance to know about. The famous doll discovers what Amy Schumer has been saying for a long time. She doesn’t have to be exactly like everyone else, and it’s okay to be unusual.

Barbie finds out that if she wants to be truly happy, then the only way is to love herself the way she is instead of always running after “an unattainable standard of perfection.” In fact, Barbie finds out that “uniqueness is a positive quality,” and she finds out that she loves her new way of looking at life.

That sounds like a lesson most of us could use. For Schumer’s character, there’s an obvious next step. Even though the other dolls kicked her out and don’t like her, Barbie wants to help them any way she can. She takes her new knowledge back to Barbieland “and tries to save it by spreading the news.”

Schumer, 35, is best know for her “raunchy humor in her stand-up appearances,” her equally raunchy Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, and of course for her 2015 big screen hit, Trainwreck. If producers Walter Parkes, Lori MacDonald, and Amy Pascal allow Amy to bring in some of her trademark edgy humor to this role, it might even launch a whole new Barbie doll collection for today.

What do you think? Will this first live-action Barbie doll film change the Barbie world?

[Featured Image by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for People.com]

Share this article: Amy Schumer As Barbie In First-Ever Live-Action Barbie Doll Film: Schumer’s Barbie Deals With ‘Issues Of Self-Image And Race’
amy schumer Barbie
More from Inquisitr