Okay, I didn’t want to write this. I didn’t want to write this because it makes me feel like a scold and I also didn’t want to write it because I fear how obvious this all sounds. I fear we all see this elephant in the room but we’d rather just ignore it. We’re all trying to enjoy our evening. Isn’t it more fun to look away, to settle our eyes to the painted pool and the scenic backdrops?1 Also, I didn’t want to write this because, like most of the internet, I haven’t yet seen the fucking movie.2
And yet, here I am, writing this. Hitting send. Because I need to ask one question: can we be for fucking real for a second?
I keep thinking about the climax of John Early’s Now More Than Ever. “I feel like we lean on hyperbole to compensate for the utter emptiness of being alive write now,” he says after lamenting the lack of dance in our current culture and before sending up “all the feels” as a phrase. Would we all care so much about Barbie if we didn’t need something to feel so good about? Would the various pre-movie release moments—insisting how much we love this movie, a movie we haven’t seen—if we didn’t need some padding on our timelines between the reports of Hottest Day Recorded in Modern History and the Yet Another Human Right Rolled Back?
I’d venture a no. I also don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. The joy of the movies for most of us lies at least in part in escapism and I like getting far away from whatever This American Life is as much as the next guy. But at what point do we have to admit that we’re not actually talking about a movie but about an extended ad campaign, of which a Warner Brothers film is just a part?
There’s the Barbie x Crocs. The Barbie Airbnb. The Barbie x Ruggable collection. The Barbie x Swoon.3 There’s also the car Barbie drives in the movie, featured prominently in the trailer and in the truncated promoted Instagram ad, which is in fact an advertisement for Chevrolet, specifically the car company’s electric Corvette. The Russian nesting doll is advertisements all the way down, and the last, tiniest Russian nesting doll? It’s hollow. This is not your regular “one for them, one for me.” Well, most of the American film industry’s land has been ceded to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so maybe that’s not entirely true, but it certainly seems to be on the furthest reaches of the spectrum.
And worse so, the messaging surrounding the movie is that this is an act of artistry like any other. “I’ve never been part of anything like this, but in a funny way, it feels like the fundamentals are the same. Even though it is Barbie and it is an internationally known brand, the movie feels very personal. It feels just as intimate as Lady Bird or Little Women,” Gerwig told Rolling Stone. Her Times Magazine profile ends with her explaining she’d hope that audiences feel as she did when being blessed at Shabbat dinner as a child.
I’m sorry—these statements are deluded. Are they not? How could they not be deluded? Am I the crazy one? It is a director’s prerogative to take a job because of the money. It is splendid for the moviegoing public if a motion picture backed by the unstoppable force that is Corporate America™ actually ends up being entertaining rather than total drek. What seems absolutely absurd is to pretend that a movie abOUT A DOLL created because MATTEL WAS SINKING AND NEEDED TO PIVOT TO IP INSTEAD OF CONTINUING ON AS A MERE DOLL MANUFACTURER is going to recreate the feeling of being blessed ON A HOLY DAY. A person can write absolutely gorgeous ad copy, but it will still be ad copy. American film has been saturated with forced reboots and hollow IP-driven content for practically my entire lifetime. This isn’t new. Gerwig’s “sincere” assertions are simply her route to selling more tickets—why do we have to pretend it’s anything more than that?
Would be remiss to not mention that I was invited to a press screening of the movie but couldn’t attend because it was scheduled for the same day as my breast reduction surgery. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, right?
Collective delusion is fun. Why would I leave? All of my friends are here!
Swoon is a zero calorie canned lemonade. I resent linking here for obvious reasons. I would like to see the financial terms of this agreement.
Genius brain
<3