Pronoun Trouble

Still making my way gradually through Barbie movies. I've managed to get over whatever snobbery was holding me back from the early stuff, and have started watching in release order, as well.

Anyway, I just finished Barbe and the Magic of Pegasus, and, well.

Cloud Queen: To make the McGuffin that will save your kingdom, you will need to find a measure of courage, a gem of ice lit by hope's eternal flame, and a ring of love.

Barbe Princess Annika: Hey, that's only three things! This'll be easy!

Me: ...😐

(This one and one other so far have bloopers at the end, like Pixar used to do (but stopped for some reason). Also, just so I'm sure, I'm guessing there's a popular telling of Rapunzel that calls the witch Gothel and has the title character interested in painting? One that's been around considerably before Tangled? 'Cuz right now I'm about fifty-fifty for both Barbe as Rapunzel (2002) and Tangled (2010) drawing from that vs Disney having slightly more motivation than you might think for changing their original Mother Gothel design to the horrible antisemitic caricature she is today. (Understandable is not excusable, of course; they still should've workshopped a non-horrible design.) Just... two similarities are a coincidence, three's a pattern and all that...)

With the Barbie Official playlist deleted from YouTube, I went to a different source and decided to try watching Barbie movies more from the beginning. Mistake! Mattel started making them in 2001, and the computer animation is very much of its time. I managed to get through Fairytopia okay, buuuut am still pretending that the end wasn't as ablist as I predicted it would be less than five minutes into the film. I got fifteen minutes into the direct sequel, Fairytopia: Mermaidia, when the most godawful uncanny valley human-faced sea turtle was introduced. I just... why? Animals do not need to look like humans to be cute!

I think I'm going to keep watching this one for now, though if it gets too unbearable, I have permission from myself to skip to whatever the next movie that catches my interest is. I know they have a fairly radical change in style by 2011, at least, by which time the animation improves pretty drastically.

Edit: The role of Humanface Turtle turned out to be mercifully brief. On to Fairytopia 3!