Barbie's Swan Lake
2026-03-28
The animated Barbie Swan Lake and many of the other ballet movies they produced including the Nutcracker, Rapunzel, and the Twelve Dancing Princesses did real educational wonders for the children who watched them. I know that the movies were only created to sell dolls, but they continue to inspire people to this day, I'm sure numerous young girls went into ballet and became ballerinas because of it. I ended up watching the Swan Lake Ballet because of my love for the Barbie movie.
These early Barbie movies had straightforward plots, but they feel respectful of their young audiences by focusing on female agency and adventure that can inspire girls.
The educational aspect is a bit more in the undertones as the Nutcracker and Swan Lake used Tchaikovsky's orchestral compositions to score the movies, albeit for different scenes. The Nutcracker was more true to the ballet. For example, the Pas de Deux with the Sugar Plum Queen very clearly rotoscoped dancers in order to animate the scene even if they were working with 2000s 3D animation. It was very clear!
For Swan Lake, the story is rearranged to place more emphasis on Odette instead of Prince Siegfried/"Daniel". Instead of the Act I music that has everyone dancing in the garden for Siegfried's party, it turns into a candlelit dance by the lake so that Odette and Daniel can bond together. Similarly, the dance of the princesses in Act III are delegated to the ensemble cast who are children cursed to be other animals including a cygnet, porcupine, and skunk.
The scene with Odile at the ball was portrayed as an enchantment. The viewers could see it was Odile but the camera transitions show that it is Odette to everyone else. Very fun directing magic! The critical change to the story format is that the movie focuses on Odette as the protagonist as opposed to Siegfried's inner turmoil about becoming a future king or his fight with Rothbart. It was such a change in perspective, it made me incredibly surprised how little the ballet I watched focused so little on Odette even! Comparing these experiences have been so interesting and really informed my ballet watching experience. I think I would like to watch the Nutcracker next to see what differences in plot there are, if any, given that the Nutcracker does follow the female protagonist, Clara.
I don't even know if this movie still holds up as an adult, but the nostalgia sure is strong. I may rewatch it one day and re-evaluate my opinions ahaha.