![]() ![]() “This movie is a goddamn miracle,” she says. Whatever audiences ultimately think of Barbie, Gerwig still can’t seem to believe she got away with making this version. (Though, as a Mattel executive reminds me, Barbiecore “didn’t just happen.”) Other moments suggest a snowball effect: Kim Kardashian recently threw her daughter a Barbie-themed birthday party, and celebs are stepping out in hot pink designer minidresses. Mattel has engineered some of the hype by launching Malibu Barbie cafés and announcing partnerships with Bloomingdale’s, Crocs, and Hot Topic. Anything associated with the film-a rare blockbuster catering directly to women-has been breathlessly received, from paparazzi photos of Robbie and co-star Ryan Gosling (as Ken) skating down Venice Beach in fluorescent spandex last summer to a teaser that cleverly parodies 2001: A Space Odyssey. If projections of a $55 million opening weekend prove out, it will be thanks to Barbie mania. Barbie’s move to Hollywood is the brainchild of Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, who came into the job five years ago with a vision to leverage the company’s intellectual property into a cinematic universe based on Mattel toys.īarbie will be the proof of concept when it hits theaters on July 21, but first it has to go up against Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible) and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) in the busiest summer movie season in years. After a period of declining sales, a recently reinvigorated Barbie is ready for her big-screen debut. Not just for Robbie and Gerwig, neither of whom has ever produced a movie on this scale, but also for Mattel. ![]() It’s also the most anticipated movie of the summer- if not the year-which means a lot is riding on Barbie. ![]() If you are wondering whether Barbie is a satire of a toy company’s capitalist ambitions, a searing indictment of the current fraught state of gender relations, a heartwarming if occasionally clichéd tribute to girl power, or a musical spectacle filled with earworms from Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa, the answer is yes. But like Barbie, the movie’s existence is an exercise in contradictions. Maybe the movie would be an idiosyncratic, subversive, even feminist take on the doll, not just a commercial for Mattel. When it was announced in 2021 that Greta Gerwig, who directed the Oscar-nominated coming-of-age stories Lady Bird and Little Women, would helm Barbie, fans were confused, surprised, and delighted. ![]()
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