MEGHAN MCCAIN: Please God, spare me a ‘girl-boss feminist twist’ on Barbie. This movie’s already the most overhyped ever… now it sounds like an episode of Meghan Markle’s podcast
Am I the only one who’s sick to death of the Barbie hype?
For those who haven’t logged on to the internet, watched any television, read literally any magazine or newspaper, or even left the house the past few months – there’s a new film in town.
Actually, it’s not even out yet – and I’m already exhausted!
Feminist fan-favorite director Greta Gerwig’s live-action Barbie movie finally hits theatres on Friday.
But you’d think Margot Robbie, who brings the titular doll to life, was running for President – because the wall-to-wall advertising has been R.E.L.E.N.T.L.E.S.S.
For what feels like an eternity, we’ve been forced to endure a smack-you-in-the-face pink-out blizzard blitz of preposterous promo.
The near-universal reverence for the movie is cult-like – and not a little infantilizing. Fully grown men and women working themselves into a tizzy over a camp movie about a kids’ doll. It’s kind of creepy, no?
Am I the only one who’s sick to death of the Barbie hype? you’d think Margot Robbie (pictured), who brings the titular doll to life, was running for President – because the wall-to-wall advertising has been R.E.L.E.N.T.L.E.S.S.
The near-universal reverence for the movie is cult-like – and not a little infantilizing. Fully grown men and women working themselves into a tizzy over a camp movie about a kids’ doll. It’s kind of creepy, no?
Chatter about the film began way back in 2021, when Gerwig’s directorship was announced following her storming success with Little Women.
Since then, subtlety has not been the memo.
First came the breathless articles about ‘Barbie-core’ fashion and the viral ‘hot pink summer aesthetic’.
Then there were the insufferable think pieces about the ‘problematic’ implications of stick-thin bodies in post-fat-positive America.
And then it went into total overdrive.
A tsunami of teaser clips. Trailers. Robbie’s oh-so-spectacularly-clever arched foot. The star-stuffed cast. Dua Lipa! John Cena (what?). An ‘A-A-A-list’ soundtrack that’s as unoriginal and pedestrian as you’d expect. A tour of the film set for Architectural Digest. Brand collabs with – deep breath – Burger King, Crocs, Ruggable, Forever 21, GAP, Krispy Kreme, NYX Cosmetics, Bloomingdales, Xbox. There’s even a suitably vulgar Barbie mansion in Malibu that you can book on Airbnb.
It doesn’t stop there. There’s Barbie bed sheets, Barbie ice cream, Barbie nail polish, Barbie swimwear, Barbie toothpaste, Barbie fizzy pop.
And in case there was still a single remaining person on Earth who hadn’t heard about the film, Robbie and screen-partner Ryan Gosling (Ken) were shipped off on a world-wide Press tour in recent weeks with a new pink outfit each day.
Don’t you get it – you can’t eat, drink, sleep or think without stopping to pay homage at the altar of Gerwig.
We’ve endured a smack-you-in-the-face pink-out blizzard blitz of preposterous promo. A tsunami of teaser clips. Brand collabs. The star-stuffed cast. Dua Lipa (pictured)! John Cena (what?). An ‘A-A-A-list’ soundtrack that’s as unoriginal and pedestrian as you’d expect.
There’s even a suitably vulgar Barbie mansion in Malibu that you can book on Airbnb.
This is Barbie’s world – and we’re all living in it, whether you like it or not.
If only last week’s preening, performative actors’ strike had come a little earlier, we could have been spared some of the cotton-candy sycophancy.
And whatever happened to a good old-fashioned billboard? A glossy movie poster, perhaps a late-night talk show interview with the headline stars?
Here’s the problem: What if it doesn’t live up to the hype?
Of course, there’s already Oscars talk. How could there not be? How awfully embarrassing it would be if – after all that – it was one giant, sickly pink flop.
Certainly for Robbie, it’s not without its risks.
The Aussie starlet may be among the most stunningly beautiful women in the world, but her on-screen record leaves something to be desired. She’s suffered a string of recent box office duds, including Amsterdam and Babylon.
The latter could face losses reaching into the hundreds of million and is self-described as ‘a tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess’. Sound familiar?
For Barbie, then, there’s a lot to prove – not least because of how iconic the subject matter is.
Hollywood is currently obsessed with reinventing the wheel – reimaging classics that should be left alone.
And, for better or worse, Barbie will now be inextricably tied to this movie.
As someone who had many happy years of enjoyment from the dolls as a little girl, is it so wrong for me to feel anxious about what Gerwig’s ‘interpretation’ will mean for the brand’s future?
In case there was still a single remaining person on Earth who hadn’t heard about the film, Robbie and screen-partner Ryan Gosling (pictured with Robbie) were shipped off on a world-wide Press tour in recent weeks with a new pink outfit each day.
As someone who had many happy years of enjoyment from Barbie’s as a little girl, is it so wrong for me to feel anxious about what Greta Gerwig’s (pictured) ‘interpretation’ will mean for the brand’s future?
Indeed, Robbie and the whole team have gone out of their way to downplay any possible political meddling, but screenwriter Diablo Cody, who was first tapped for the project, may have given the game away.
‘When I was first hired for this, I don’t think the culture had embraced the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes yet,’ Cody said in an interview earlier this month.
‘They wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is,’ she explained.
Valid bimbo archetypes? Sounds like an episode of Meghan Markle’s risible podcast.
It’s not lost on me that Christopher Nolan’s atom-bomb epic Oppenheimer is also due for release on Friday.
By stark contrast, Oppenheimer’s advertising has been refreshingly scant, relying largely on trumped-up social media talk of a war between the two movies.
Nolan’s back catalog – including mega-hits such as The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar and Dunkirk – makes for impressive reading. Perhaps the relatively fresh-faced Gerwig has a thing or two to learn.
Perhaps Barbie will indeed be a runaway success. God knows the beleaguered cinema industry needs a healthy boost post-Covid.
But I’m afraid I won’t be there to see it. The relentless Barbie bombardment has been enough to put me off for good.
I’ll be buying a ticket for Oppenheimer instead. And if I were Gerwig, I’d be hoping my dreams of global domination don’t detonate.
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