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https://nickfthilton.medium.com/billion-dollar-barbie-what-lessons-should-cinema-draw-563c0113c20d>
"In an interview with
Rolling Stone, the actor Randall Park made the
following observation about the success of Greta Gerwig’s
Barbie movie, which
has just passed a billion dollars at the Box Office. “I feel like this industry
is taking the wrong lessons,” he told the magazine. “For example,
Barbie is
this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No.
Make more movies by and about women!”
This came off the back of Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie dolls, announcing
its plans to make more movies based off its existing intellectual property.
And, of course, what else would we expect them to do? Do we really think that a
massive toy conglomerate is going to take any lessons from the success of its
movie based on a toy other than “make more movies based on toys”? After all,
for Mattel the success of
Barbie is a double win: huge box office receipts,
and massively increased cultural salience for its dolls (which were in danger
of being relegated by current social mores). Why shouldn’t it try and do the
same for Polly Pocket or Hot Wheels or American Girl?
But a toy company should be the cultural barometer of precisely nothing.
Instead, I take Park’s comment as symptomatic of a view, within Hollywood,
which I both hugely agree with and hugely disagree with (I am a man of many
takes, after all).
Firstly, it is clear, right now, that you’re dumb if you’re not making movies
that target female audiences. Overwhelmingly, blockbusters are essentially
marketed towards men.
The Avengers,
Fast and Furious,
Star Wars,
Avatar: all these major franchises utilise historically masculine tropes and
women in skin-tight outfits. Sure, plenty of women love them; but the default
consumer is perceived by producers and marketers as a young adult male. If you
look at a list of the highest grossing films of all time, the only entry in the
Top 20 that you could plausibly claim was targeted at adult women is
Titanic
(which was also marketed as being from the director of
Terminator and
featuring a big boat sinking).
Barbie, now the 25th highest grossing movie of
all time, sits just below
Iron Man 3 and
The Fate of the Furious."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
