CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Matell, the toy company that owns the rights to the barbie doll, is legendary for safeguarding their patents and trademarks. If you create a song or write a poem that makes reference to Barbie, you’ll get a cease and desist from their lawyers. Post something on social media that has a Barbie doll in it, watch how quickly it gets flagged.
Barbie dolls have been popular since her debut in 1959 because the girls who played with them could imagine themselves as anything that Barbie could be. She was, in many ways, the first feminist, at a time when the life choices fir girls were: nurse, teacher, secretary, or housewife. Barbie, in the hands of a child with an imagination, could be anything. That was, indeed, groundbreaking.
And yet all the other mass-media Barbie stuff… there have been songs, cartoons, and earlier movies… have all been unimaginative schlock. The new Barbie movie, which is supposed to be one of the big summer hits, is getting horrible reviews. The criticism is this: that the Barbie movie doesn’t deliver to the target audience – young girls who might play with a Barbie doll. And parents may not want to take their kids to a movie that confuses childhood joys. It’s the same reason no one went to see the movie that turned Winnie the Pugh into a serial killer. Trashing a beloved, iconic character just for the heck of it is pointless.
Simu Liu, one of the several actors who plays Barbie, said in a pre-publicity interview that “Barbie dolls come in all sizes, colors and gender expressions.” Simu, a guy playing Barbie, gets it all wrong. No one is interested in a gender-bending Barbie. Girls who are Barbie fans will be saddened that a movie wants to tell them their thoughts are wrong while they play. And their moms also had Barbie dolls (and every girl who sees this movie will be brought their by their mother) may simply decide to stay away.
The movie cost $145-million to make. Its premiere is next week.
This has the look of the biggest flop of the summer. Put it in the go-woke, go-broke file.
Chris Conley
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