Barbie's dramatic journey to Weird Barbie's house is a nod to a scene in "The Red Shoes."
In a brief scene, we see Barbie struggle to walk up a big flight of stairs to see Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon).
Gerwig told Letterboxd that the scene was inspired by a scene in Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell's "The Red Shoes," in which Moira Shearer's character walks up a massive flight of stairs to reach a house.
"There's things of 'The Red Shoes' all over the movie," the director said. "There's a shot of her walking up to that house, which I wanted it to feel like that when Barbie walks up to the house."
In a scene later in the movie, Ryan Gosling's Ken dons two sunglasses on top of each other as he shows off how he has brought the patriarchy to Barbie Land. This is a reference to Anton Walbrook's character in the movie.
Gerwig said that "Gosling wears a pair of glasses that are the cat-eye glasses that the director wears" in "The Red Shoes," "because I was like, 'How stylish and bold that that man's wearing cat-eye glasses — it's so fun.'"
"Then Ryan was like, 'Can I wear cat-eye glasses?' and I was like, 'You definitely can,' and then he had two on," she added.
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