Mattel had originally wanted to make a series of Barbie princess animated films where Barbie plays a different princess each movie from a classic fairytale (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, etc.), but out of fear of copyright with Disney, these plans were abandoned. This is where this film materialized, as Disney (at the time of this film's release) had not yet made a Disney Princess movie based on Rapunzel. Ironically enough, Disney's Tangled (2010), which is based on Rapunzel, took a lot of inspiration from this film.
Rapunzel's paintings seen in her tower are real paintings created by artist Amanda Dunbar, digitally inserted into the film. Dunbar agreed to lend the filmmakers permission to use her works because she "liked that the movie encourages art as a use of expression."
In an attempt to heal the nation, on February 14, 2021, podcast hosts Richard Martin and Alexander "AJ" Jones of the Cult Popture Podcast released an 18+ hour comprehensive podcast reviewing the 37 Barbie films. The retrospective took over a month to prepare and features numerous guest speakers as well as an original song created specially for the podcast.
This isn't the first time Barbie has been depicted as Rapunzel. Prior to the movie dolls, there had been 4 other dolls (6 if you include the African American versions) where Barbie was depicted as Rapunzel, playline and collector.