‘You can stay if you want, as my bride wife’: mapping Barbie Land onto Bachelor Nation

I identify key tropes in the television franchise The Bachelor/ette (2002–), mapping the reality TV dating narrative onto Barbie Land and examining the ways in which Barbie (2023) parallels and/or subverts these constructs. Ryan Gosling's remarks that The Bachelorette informed his portrayal of Beach Ken provide a starting point for analysing the ways in which a lack of heteronormative temporality in Barbie Land renders the Barbies free from the burden of patriarchal domesticity. I also consider Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) as reflective of a traditional Bachelorette series lead, and the shortcomings of the TV franchise in terms of platforming people of colour and casting racially diverse leads in the series. I juxtapose these two texts to highlight the ways in which Barbie offers an antithetical microcosm that challenges the heteronormative reality TV dating format and conservative conceits perpetuated by the Bachelor/ette franchise.