Matthew Osborne
You know the old phrase “Don’t think about pink elephants,” and then that’s all you can think about. Come on, you know you’re thinking of them right now.
On Saturday evening, I was trying to articulate my thoughts on the mega-successful cultural phenomenon that is “Barbie,” which I took my wife to on her birthday.
She listened to my rantings for a while, then said, “You are so writing a column about this movie now.” I protested, noting what a ridiculous waste of ink that would be on such a ridiculous film.
Sigh.
First of all, as I sat there, my first reaction to the film was that I would hate to be the following people: Tom Cruise, the guy who made “The Flash” movie or any executive from Disney.
Why? Because those folks spent a lot of money and put forth a lot of effort to create movie and television content this year, and comparatively, they failed.
All it took to make more than $2 billion was a cartoon about a 40-year-old video game with Jack Black singing about peaches, and a Barbie movie shot 80 percent on a soundstage with no discernible plot of any relevance.
It made me think about just how much effort and money was poured into some of these “blockbusters,” while the makers of these two films based on toys went out and dominated the box office.
It boggles the mind, enough so that this is my third sentence expressing the awe it has inspired. OK, moving on.
The Barbie movie itself is a fantastic trip through the world of every failing foible of men. Rather, it takes the bottom 20 percent of men and extrapolates their behavior, mannerisms, fashion, emotional depth and empathy over the entire gender.
It wavers between sending the message that women are strong and can be anything (which they are, and they can) and the fact that their entire empowered society could be toppled in a day by Ryan Gosling and a hideous fur coat.
That was probably the worst part of the film, other than the dance-off scene. Why would such strong women allow the worst kind of men to destroy their world so easily?
For the social media pundits who are out burning Barbie dolls on a barbecue grill in protest, that’s a little silly. The movie was mostly dumb, but you know what, it’s making more money than your movie.
The marketing for it was tremendous, and the Mattel folks managed to get a mention in every circle of society. They got a buzz going, and they benefited from both name recognition and 60 years of women who played with these very dolls.
While we are on gender studies, the truth is that most summer blockbusters are geared toward men. This could conceivably go down as the most successful film with a female director and a female star in history. For my money, it won’t even be the worst movie ever to do a billion dollars. (Aquaman, I am looking in your direction.)
So it goes down as a win. Like it or not, these folks showed how to move the needle in our what’s-next-on-my-phone culture without jumping off a cliff, creating a CGI lizard, rebooting an old franchise or firing Henry Cavill hours after releasing an awesome after-credits scene solidifying him as our greatest superhero – not that I am bitter about that last one in particular.
Is “Mission: Impossible” still showing? I need to get one last taste of gender-stereotyped summer man movies before school is back in session.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.