It’s a movie about a fucking doll. Can a movie about Barbie that’s financed by Mattel be anything but a very long product placement that has ticky contemporary aspects to it? “Oh look, Barbie, she can be cool too!” I think it’s awful, the more I think about it the worse it gets.” — Amy Taubin
That’s an excerpt from Amy Taubin’s “Barbie” rant via her appearance on Nicolas Rapold’s excellent “The Last Thing I Saw” podcast.
Meanwhile, Paul Schrader believes that “Barbie” is a “wonder” and that Barbieland should be renamed “Gretaland.” I don’t know what he’s been smoking of late, but I want some of it.
The masses have been fed the thought that they absolutely need to go see “Barbie.” You Google “Barbie” and pink glitter starts sparkling all across your screen. I’m not even joking. I don’t know how Warner Bros convinced Google to pull this off.
Of course, the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon on social media has encouraged audiences to see both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” as a double feature, and I believe we should be thankful for that because Nolan’s talky film would have likely never made half as much as it did this past weekend at the box-office.
I do have to commend Warner Bros for the masterful marketing campaign they threw at us with “Barbie.” Variety reported that Warners spent $150 million on marketing alone for the film—more than the $145 million budget to produce the film.
In the months leading up to the release of the film, you couldn’t escape “Barbie.” Even folks who don’t go to the movies, and have absolutely no interest in going, we’re convinced with various “Barbie” branding from the likes of Airbnb, Bloomingdale's, Burger King, Forever 21, Gap, Xbox and many others. Additionally, studio parent company Warner Bros. Discovery promoted the film via its TV channels.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the film’s first hour for what it was, a campy romp with beautiful production design and Rodrigo Prieto’s wonderful colors. However, at some point, the film totally lost me in its insistence to hammer down an artifice-driven message. Gosling’s Ken was a nice addition. Margot Robbie is always great. I just didn’t get sucked up in the commerciality of the whole thing.
Despite the mostly positive reviews from critics, you’ve had some big-name critics resisting the temptation: The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw, Film Comment’s Nicolas Rapold, Time’s Stephanie Zacharek, Wall Street Journal’s Kyle Smith, The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane, ReelViews’ James Berardinelli, and a few others.
As Taubin so eloquently says, “it’s a fucking doll!” It's Barbie. The toy is stupid popular and the marketing was great. The average person who went to see this film had no idea who Greta Gerwig was. It's all about the marketing and a multi-generational piece of pop culture.
What depresses me most about “Barbie” is that you have two genuinely talented artists — co-writers Noah Baumbach and Gerwig — leaving the indie-world of artistry to join Hollywood’s elite.
