Barbie Movie: A Marketing Masterpiece or Genuine Entertainment?
It is safe to say that cinema lovers were the most excited on 21st July as both Barbie and Oppenheimer came to the theater together. Most enthusiasts had pre-planned their entire day of how they would manage to watch both movies. After all the buzz about Barbie vs. Oppenheimer, it was much more obvious that viewers were dying to watch the movie just to see whether they were as good as the trailer showed. But today, we will see specifically whether the Barbie movie is a genuinely good cinema work or just a marketing stunt.
Barbie film has pulled everyone back to their childhood again. Unending videos on social media show people dressing like Barbies in bright hot pink! But is this a motive of the movie to sell more Barbie dolls? Before that, let us see the overview of the Barbie movie plot (not giving any spoilers).
Summary of Barbie Movie
Before speculating and doing a conspiracy theory on the movie, let us see what the plot generally looks like.
Barbie is one of the most popular and desired Barbies in the world of Barbie land. However, like us, she begins to feel an existential crisis in her lovely colorful life. She has to travel to the real world if she wants to know and understand herself much better and to know her life’s purpose.
She jumps into the car and sees that Ken (her situation or boyfriend) is coming along for the ride, too. This is because his entire existence depends on Barbie and her acknowledgment of him; sounds like a simp, doesn’t he? Later, both discover some brutal and harsh truths and make new friends. Finally, they find a road to enlightenment, and this movie ends. These mind revelations from the highly-managed world to real life show that the main character is similar to ‘The Truman Show’ but has a touch of Gerwig’s uniqueness.
Barbie Movie 2023 Review
Many mixed reviews have surfaced about this movie. There is a clear division of people into two sides, whether they like it or it is a boo-show for them.
Positives
The humor of Barbie is on another level, as most people are saying. There are many pop-culture references, making the movie more relatable to the younger generation. Watching all the bright colors at the start is a treat to the eyes. Barbie talks about the body image issue and other important matters as well.
Negatives
Mothers look excited to take their little kids to see this colorful festival in the form of a movie. However, people are saying that it is not suitable for young kids as it is too real. Small children can get affected by this level of reality, and it can break their bubbles. People say it is too ‘woke,’ agitated men complain about the Barbie movie for speaking against patriarchy (laughing out loud).
Barbie Movie- A Perfect Marketing Strategy?
Marketing Strategy
Barbie dolls have been the companion of almost every child and especially girls. The company sold many dolls globally, and it was first started 64 years ago. Mattel is a manufacturing company that makes around $1.5 billion annually by selling only Barbie dolls. They just have a range of 50 products. But what if you want to increase sales in a saturated market?
The answer seems quite simple: you hire a big star known to do such unique roles with a director that makes women-centered films, and voila! Your sales will break all the charts and soar high.
Issues
The film looks quite inspiring for young women and men, showing that the Barbies have been presidents, judges, and doctors. It also addressed issues of unrealistic beauty standards. Most of the concerning issues are not touched by the film. There is no acknowledgment of how women activists protested against the Barbie brand in the 1970s. Many people criticize that the lead white character is complaining about body issues and patriarchy while living in the first world so what about those who are racially different?
Blonde and blued-eyed
Throughout the history of beauty standards, a white child with blond and blue eyes was the prettiest of all. An uncountable number of poems and visual representations through advertisements, movies, and dolls show that white girls are the beauty standard. In Toni Morrison’s book ‘bluest eyes, ‘ the issue of white and fair skin exists as the standard beauty icon among kids was the famous Shirley Temple. The main character in the book goes insane because she does not consider herself as beautiful as the white girls.
Everyone is different, and historically, there was no mention that other beautiful girls have much darker skin. Barbie dolls were made white and labeled as the prettiest of all. Therefore, this gave a lot of superiority to the white skin while the others were considered ugly and not pleasing. Thus there was a rage against the Barbie dolls.
Most women and men of different cultures stopped tolerating discrimination based on color and religion. Hence, they put forth a strong voice against such practices. White women are pretty, there is no doubt, but it doesn’t mean that women of different skin are not beautiful. Barbie included different skin dolls much later when the company received all the rage towards it. This is why many women do not prefer their kids to play with the doll, even today.
Food for Thought
Maybe the Barbie film marketing team wanted to wave their pink wand and make people push past by showing that Barbie cares about the body and skin issues. But does that makes the misery and sadness of torture faced by dark-skinned people disappear? Making amends in the future for the things you did in the past does it make it better? Do people who have hated their bodies and skin because they did not match the ‘beauty standard’ will forget all of it?
Conclusion
Barbie movie has been the talk of the town as women and men are quite excited to see how the doll must be living in Barbie land. There are many issues that the movie addresses and it is why people are coming out of the cinema with a heavy heart. However, there is a possibility that the movie was a marketing strategy to sell more dolls and to attract more people to the Barbie world again.
We hope this blog made you realize the concerning issues and gave you an answer to the big question of marketing strategy. For more such insightful blogs, check out The Voice of Woman and subscribe to the mail.
