I’m Barbie-pilled, it’s true. I’m a sucker for a meta-comedy – a meta-anything, really. I think movies are most interesting when they’re self-conscious, hyper-aware of the choices being made in their creation and how those choices are being perceived. I love when directors play with genre, subvert expectations, and go out of their way to surprise audiences. It reminds me that though it’s too easy to fall into the trap of making rote, formulaic movies as cash grabs, there are still directors and artists out there who want to make work that is unlike anything else currently in theatres. I have high hopes that Barbie will be exactly that. But I still have to acknowledge that it’s an IP movie, and that sucks.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how Mattel has decided to make movies out of all their IP in a targeted, conscious move towards planting themselves squarely in the pop culture realm. Toys have always responded to cultural events – how else would they keep up with trends closely enough to keep making money? Barbie is on track to be a summer blockbuster, and will likely be followed by a Daniel Kaluuya-produced Barney movie. There have been 13 more movies publicly announced, and 45 are rumoured to be in development.
Nobody asked for this, but then again, nobody asked for a highly self-aware Greta Gerwig Barbie movie. If every movie is in the same vein, as stylised, and treading the line of self-satire, I might be interested in seeing them. I am tired of IP movies that aren’t critical of themselves or where they come from. I simply cannot deal with another Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise focused entirely on producing mediocre movies to keep cashing cheques.
That’s what IP tends to be, by virtue of having an existing brand that movies can’t diverge too far from. There’s little room for creativity, risk-taking or big swings. I admire that Gerwig is trying to complicate and interrogate the concept of Barbie at all. That may make it the first IP movie, apart from Into The Spider-Verse, that has a selling point apart from being recognisable. I fear it will be the last.
I find it extremely troubling that so many top-grossing movies of the last decade have been franchise films – actually, all of the ten top-grossing films of the last three years have either been existing IP or Chinese films. All of the top 50 as well, apart from Elvis (a biopic), Tenet, Suzume, and Free Guy. I don’t think films should be glorified marketing for corporations, to sell more dolls, more comics, more video games.
I’m the kind of idealist that thinks art shouldn’t be tied to KPIs or branding guides, that artists shouldn’t have to create around mass-produced products to succeed in their business. But they do have to, and that makes me deeply, profoundly sad. No matter how cheeky the Barbie movie is, and the rest of the Mattel movies may be, they are still branded content. Even when its creators fight with the corporation to keep nuance in the project, it is branded content. I think Barbie will be the best live-action IP movie we’ve seen in a long time, but it’s still marketing.