So the Dreamhouse Adventures episode "Spirit Week" dropped a pretty interesting revelation. At the beginning of the episode, Teresa says to the student body (mainly the freshmen) how she's student body president. You're probably wondering "Wait what? She's student body president?". It's definitely a surprise to just casually reveal this, but looking at her character throughout the entire series, and even a bit after it, you'll see that this is possible. Generally speaking, holding some kind of high position of power over others means following a few requirements.
1. You should have a real passion for the job and be able to strategize. Having a strong sense of focus and organization means a greater chance of success.
2. Knowledge is key. Knowing the history behind what you're representing means being able to tackle any situations that have similar circumstances.
3. You should be able to hype people up and be able to lift their spirits in order to get them motivated or get them out of some kind of jam.
Teresa has followed each of these three ideas to some capacity ever since her first appearance. Let's dive into this.
1. Let's start with the show's second episode, "Clubhouse Remix". It's about Barbie wanting to fix up Chelsea's clubhouse for her 6th birthday. Besides her sisters and Ken, she also gets Teresa and Nikki to help out. When it gets taken away, she gets the latter two to help her get it back. We get to see her intuitive side and how she can use the world around her to get the information she needs. Case in point, she's the one who's able to spot that the tow truck comes from Ben's Junk It. When at her junkyard, she says Ben can help out by giving her Ang's number and locating where she is. She says this in technical jargon before getting straight to the point. You get a subtle hint of how she plays a bigger role by how she sits in the passenger seat alongside Barbie, as if she's the second in command.
2. Now let's jump ahead to episode 13, "Time Will Tell". It's about Barbie, Ken, Teresa, Nikki, Renee, and Daisy taking part in an escape room challenge where they have to get out within a set amount of time. The former two end up inside a tunnel when they put the hands on the clock in the wrong position. While everyone else is above ground, she shows the most initiative in trying to solve the riddle, such as bringing up the connection to Leonardo Da Vinci and noticing the repeated pattern of 2's. Daisy does make her contributions, but in mainly a supporting role, and Nikki and Renee flip flop between helping out and panicking. It's ultimately a group effort that gets them out of there, but her major contributions helped out.
3. "Virtually Famous" gives her a pretty big role as co-lead, and helps show both the positives and negatives of her drive to succeed. The episode is about Barbie and her friends making funny online videos in order to get more views even though she mainly just wants to do videos on her life. As early as 2 minutes in, we see how smart and strategic Teresa is. She's able to look up all sorts of trends for the group to try out, and later makes herself the group's manager in order to ensure they create the best content possible. She's able to get all sorts of weird stuff like giant bowling pins and approve various endorsement deals for them to try out, such as pork on a fork. Of course, we see the negative side to this because of how she relies too much on data, thinking that it's the absolute word of law on what they can do. Of course, she's eventually brought down to earth when Barbie says she likes to do the vlog because of how she just wants to show people what her life is like and make people feel better.
4. Now we move onto season 2 with "Magical Mermaid Mystery". I'm going to be talking about parts 2 & 3 here. In part 2, Chelsea is determined to make sure that mermaids are real, and she falls asleep at one point. In the dream, she's in mermaid form and asks a pod of a whales where the secret cave is, but they don't understand her, and only speak Spanish. Teresa comes in as a mermaid and helps her out, saying how she got a job as a translator and can figure out what they're saying. Dreams can be a gateway into one's psyche and can involve pulling from one's personal life. Teresa would definitely be someone who would take the initiative to learn multiple languages. In part 3, after the girls angrily leave the house, thinking that Barbie purposefully threw a party and didn't invite them, she then has a nightmare. In the dream, she's talking to Teresa while they're both in mermaid form, and she talks about the pressure she feels to be independent. She then tells Barbie that she's stronger than she realizes. Barbie must have felt so much pressure that she must've subconsciously dreamt of Teresa being encouraging to her, as if her words specifically would help her feel better.
5. This entry is more for smaller moments in two episodes since it's not as focused on, but I want to talk about it. In "Barbie's Dance Dilemma", she and Barbie are the only two named characters that are auditioning kids to be the entertainment for the school dance. In "The Sportathon Part 2", she's specifically in charge of donations and pledges, all sorts of financial stuff. She's the one who helps Barbie determine how much more money they need to earn for the water park and the library, and is able to do all this while also doing her gymnastics.
6. Now let's go to "Spirit Week" and see how she shows off her presidential prowess. She starts off in being able to hype up the audience in how important Spirit Week is, such as winning the coveted victory bell and how their rivals at Empire Coast High (where Tammy used to go) have been winning for 5 years. She places more emphasis on the strength they possess that could help them win this, which really gets the audience excited. She also briefly goes off on a tangent saying how the class of 1996 did really well and produced a lot of students working big name jobs. That would totally fit her lovable nerd side. She's also the person who updates the team on their progress in how far they've come during the competition.
7. Knowing this information helps put some of her behavior in two later episodes in a stronger light. There's the episode "Close Knit Friendship", where she and Barbie get into an argument over the type of song they should do for Friendship Day at school. Knowing that she's student body president makes this conflict more meaningful. It's not just a fight between two best friends. It's about a fight between two best friends, and one of them has a position of power over the other. The brief time we see the lyrics to her original song, they're based more on academics and that's it, fitting how she puts greater emphasis on knowledge and data. While we don't really hear Barbie's initial song, we know she likes to pull more from her heart and her personal life. This also makes the song they do sing at the end more meaningful, since it shows clips from episodes that have both school related events and just casually hanging out with friends. Of note, the episode "Dude Fight" is the only Golden Beach High episode she's not in, and that's only because there isn't some kind of school related event. Now we talk about "It Snows In Malibu", where everyone is escorting her to a statewide spelling bee. It's never stated that it's for Golden Beach High, but it makes sense that she's rather worried about doing well because of high expectations even if the focus of the episode is on Tammy. The fact she got second place is definitely something of note.
8. Now we talk about two of her most notable appearances after the show ended. The first is in Barbie: Princess Adventure. While Barbie does much of the heavy lifting in saving the day, she gets some moments to shine. You see this in the song "Somewhere New", where (besides Barbie), she's the first person to sing, and talks about how excited she is to soak in the history of Floravia. She talks about being amazed by the history again when everyone is inside the limo. This pays off well with the climax, where she drives a speedboat and is able to get Barbie and Amelia. It's apparently an old Floravian tradition to borrow someone's boat and pay with goats. It's some obscure trivia that she would definitely read up on because of her love of history. The second is with "Cupid Shuffle" from Barbie: It Takes Two. Barbie helps encourage everyone to attend the spring dance at Golden Beach High even without dates. While it's definitely a major motivator, the fact that Teresa specifically says how love comes in different forms, including friendship between themselves, really gives them the motivation to go ahead with this. It's very much like that of a leader who wants to set an example.
And that's all I have. What do you think?
