'Weird Barbie,' based on Kate McKinnon's character, can now be yours for $50, says Mattel. Is a store-bought mutilated doll missing the point?

Say what you will about the many commercial tie-ins to the billion-dollar blockbuster Barbie movie, with products from pink Birkenstocks to an Airbnb stay at Barbie’s Malibu Dreamhouse generating excitement among shoppers.

But the jury is still out on one product: Weird Barbie, the signature new doll from Mattel, now available for pre-order, that’s based on Kate McKinnon’s character in the film. Why? Well, the whole point of the character was a nod to the widespread practice of girls mutilating their own Barbies, in a DIY-way — not buying ready-made one, for $50, no less.

“That’s like the opposite point of the Barbie in the movie,” pointed out one of many tweets on the topic. Another noted, "This is cute and all but isn’t the point of weird barbie that you make it weird????" and another declaring, “Sorry, weird barbie can’t be bought she must be made.”

Barbie bashing is a common theme

And make her people did, according to those who spoke with Yahoo Life for a recent story about the allure of Barbie destruction.

“I hacked the hair on mine! Right down to the scalp, pretty much,” shared a colleague, with another reporting, “We tore off the face of ‘Kissing Barbie’ and turned her into a demon who would attack with her pucker.” Others shared tales involving Sharpies, nail polish and dismemberment — with similar stories popular on TikTok.

Tanya Stone, author of The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie, confirmed the habit for Yahoo Life, reporting, “Part of my research while writing [the book] came from hundreds of anecdotes that a wide variety of people sent me. Barbie bashing was a common theme and seemed to fall roughly into two categories — pure entertainment, and action that stemmed from something deeper. Many referenced it as a sort of punishment for Barbie looking too perfect. One woman simply said, ‘Barbie was just so bashable.’”

More evidence: A bar in San Francisco for years hosted an annual Halloween party dedicated to “Barbie mutilation.” Jessica Biel 'fessed up years ago to “mutilating them by pulling their heads off, cutting off all their hair, dyeing them with markers and sticking them on the Christmas tree lights.”

Barbie mutilation as art

And plenty of artists have used deconstructed Barbies as their medium, including jewelry designer Margaux Lange, who makes earrings and necklaces out of the ears, eyes and grinning mouths of Barbie, a subject matter she finds “endlessly inspiring.” Lange told Yahoo Life previously that “alteration/destruction of Barbie dolls in childhood” is “almost a rite of passage as a way to play around with altering appearance and/or releasing feelings in a perfectly safe, exploratory way,” and it’s something she did plenty of, with Barbie haircuts and makeovers involving Sharpies.

“Some of it is simply childhood entertainment — because one can, and the curious impulse of ‘what would happen if …’ is quite strong and perfectly natural for kids,” she says. “It can also stem from a desire to destroy Barbie’s perceived perfection and her representation of the impossible standards for women and girls. There’s something very cathartic about expressing frustrations with society’s expectations via altering an inanimate object that never stops smiling at you.”

Studies confirm Barbie torture's allure

There have even been a couple of small studies on the topic, one from 2005 out of the U.K. by Agnes Nairn, now professor of marketing and consumer behavior at the University of Bristol, who interviewed kids ages 7 to 11 about various dolls.

"The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a 'cool' activity," Nairn told the Associated Press at the time, when her research prompted a slew of sensationalist “Barbie torture” and “Die, Barbie, die” headlines. "The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving.”

In response to the study’s theories that the behavior might’ve been a reaction to consumerism or the girls having outgrown Barbie, a 2005 opinion piece in the Guardian said the conclusions “smack of academic overanalysis,” writing that “Seeing how a doll looks minus a limb or two doesn't denote ideological hostility, but rather a sense of curiosity — if a bit morbid (I am now intrigued about what happens when a doll is microwaved).”

Nairn told Yahoo Life for the recent story that she remembered the “huge” reaction to her research when it was released, with “three solid days” of media calls. “It was around Christmas. But also, just this idea of little girls torturing their dolls really upset adults.”

An earlier, smaller and more-broadly-focused U.S. study looking at early adolescents’ views of Barbie found that the suburban girls, ages 10 to 13, reported, “a surprisingly common form of Barbie-related play reported by the participants was torture play. All reported damaging their dolls by cutting off the hair, painting them, or even removing appendages,” noted the findings, which included one girl who switched the heads on Ken and Barbie and another who cut Barbie’s hair into a Mohawk, painting it with purple nail polish.

That type of play wasn’t evident with other dolls — just Barbie, the researchers found, noting that she "is the only one that looks perfect."

So, beware, Mattel: A perfect Weird Barbie may only prompt further destruction.