Barbie: When Marketing Exhausts You
I will still be seated tomorrow, though
So the long-awaited and long overdue Barbie movie is hitting theaters tomorrow, and as a child who grew up with the dolls, cars, dream houses, cruise ships, direct-to-DVD movies, and the website when it was at its peak, I will be seated opening day in a theater that serves alcohol.
What a time to be an adult doll fan.
But something that I’ve begun to notice with my own excitement is that I’m not as enthusiastic as, in theory, I should be. I say ‘in theory’ because it’s more than obvious that Warner Bros. really wants as many people as excited as possible to see what will hopefully be the lighthearted summer blockbuster we so desperately need as a nation. So, as soon as the first teaser trailer dropped, with Margot Robbie standing tall and effortlessly as the first iteration of Barbra Millicent Roberts herself, the world suddenly became bright, hot pink.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very much excited and know we’re in for a delightful time, but I’m also kind of exhausted from the media coverage of this movie.
I noticed this with myself the last time I did some light window shopping in Hudson Belk’s, a department store that’s prevalent in the south. In the Juniors section, they had a whole display of Barbie merchandise. It was nothing but pink and white, and I couldn’t help but quickly walk by it.
I was tired of seeing the promotion for this movie, promotion we’ve been bombarded with for three months now.
Late-stage capitalism is interesting. From a rhetorical standpoint, to better influence people to consume a given product, that product has to have a strategic, clever, and pervasive marketing strategy that can really reach and relate to people. This is a given since in this era of consumerism, there are going to be a lot of competitors. Some markets are even oversaturated, so you have to be creative to really stand out.
Creative, or have enough resources to run a marketing campaign as expensive as any politician running for a national office. This is the approach for Barbie.
From a stacked movie soundtrack with an admittedly catchy single from Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice to a special pink, sparkly animation you get after searching ‘Barbie’ in Google, the marketing for this film is insane. I don’t even think Avengers: Endgame (2019) was promoted as hard as Barbie. Multiple brand tie-ins across markets, social media trends, a special Barbie doll line for…Barbie? It feels like the late stage is approaching midnight.
But really, the overhype is kind of necessary at this point. A given, even. A toy line that is storied and deeply impactful on modern culture, and it is just now getting a movie on the big screen. Remember, this is in a world where franchises G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Battleship have all gotten their own films. But Hasbro is a different beast when it comes to their IP. Mattel, in fact, is like Nintendo in being highly protective over its brands. It can’t just be any studio, cast and crew handling the image of Barbie.
And the movie had been in the works since 2009, bouncing from studio to studio and morphing under creative differences and various actors until director Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. struck gold. So this movie has to be big.
Honestly, it’s given us something good to latch onto in some sucky times. I’m sure everyone is going to find something to love about Barbie, whether it is Margot Robbie’s promotional looks or Ryan Gossling’s take on Ken, the ultimate accessory. I’m certainly excited to identify every piece of Barbie trivia and easter eggs as I can! But truly, I will be glad when the media frenzy finally dies down.
It’s looking like movies about toys and iconic, cultural staples are poised to be the portals of escapism for us like movie musicals during the Great Depression. The only difference is these films are a new iteration of nostalgiacore that have us reminisce deeply about the past as a form of comfort. To remember when things were “simpler.” To remember when things were new. As opposed to the optimism and hope for a happily ever after is the stuff that helped us escape into the musical.
These brief pilgrimages to “simpler times” serve a deep purpose, as they create a respite for dealing with day-to-day life in these bleak times. But meditating on the past for too long, or being surrounded by it, can become exhausting even when it keeps us in place. And in that exhaustion, we could become complacent too.
It makes sense for ‘midnight stage’ capitalism to play on our want to leave this current reality. To reconnect to our inner child and nurture them in this concrete world. But it cannot be the end all, be all. Truly, this cannot be the end of history.
