![]() I could master bug hunting while ignoring girlier minigames. I could shun the game’s overwhelmingly pink wardrobe and stick to a black coat. When these minigames weren’t enough to make Barbie feel relatable, I could bend her to my will through customization and headcanons. Polygon’s guide to the canon of Horse Girl stories When I played this at 7, I was amazed, thinking, They’re entrusting? Barbie? A girly girl? With a hammer and nails? Barbie was clearly not afraid of anything - she could even get her hands a little dirty! The most surprising minigame becomes available after Barbie’s horse kicks down a wall and she’s asked to repair it. Its minigames feel rugged, too, with Barbie catching fireflies or stargazing or cleaning dirt out of her horse’s hooves. Each day, Barbie rides through a remote forest or beach. In Barbie Horse Adventures, though, I could do everything that Boy Scouts did (just with a horse) without being a boy. The answer was, of course, no, and I was subjected to years of volunteering and making blankets in Girl Scouts instead of setting up tents and starting campfires in forests. During one school assembly that featured a Boy Scout leader discussing the troop’s annual camping trip, I asked if girls could join. This was especially important because, throughout my childhood, it felt like the world did not want girls to go outside. It’s such a simple licensed game, but the way it represents Barbie (who I previously viewed as a perfect, one-dimensional girl) felt revolutionary to my outdoorsy 7-year-old self. During her week-long stay, she learns how to ride horses, helps out at the stable, and eventually competes in a riding show. Most importantly, though, its character customization and gameplay (paired with my own imagination) showed me that gender roles are meaningless, and helped change what femininity means to me.īarbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp follows Barbie on a trip to her family’s stable. Its intuitive arrows that pointed toward objectives made it one of the first games I ever beat. But I was also newly 7 and terrible at gaming, so when I ran into roadblocks in every other game, I hesitantly picked it up. So when I was inducted into gamerhood with a light blue Nintendo DSi, I was baffled by my parents’ decision to include Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp among my starting roster of games. It made me afraid that, if I wore pink, I’d be seen as nothing more than “like other girls.” Committing to girlhood felt like surrendering to a life of limitations. The Pink Aisle’s dolls and kitchen sets imposed the patronizing idea that girls were fragile and sensitive and destined for motherhood, while boys were tough and adventurous and could play with anything. In some ways, I was admittedly afraid of femininity. Float into our DreamHouse: Barbie World is Polygon’s dive into everything Barbie, from her legacy as an iconic toy to her presence in games and movies.
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