How did we end up in a Barbie world?

24:59How did we end up in a Barbie World?

There's no mistaking that in 2023, we are living in a Barbie world.

From Ken Street W signs along King Street in downtown Toronto, to a Malibu Barbie mansion popping up on AirBnB, to Barbie-branded clothing, pillowcases, toothbrushes and video game consoles, it seems like the marketing campaign for Greta Gerwig's upcoming Barbie movie is unavoidable.

Ahead of the movie's release, culture critics Niko Stratis, Gabrielle Drolet and Jason P. Frank join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about the massive film marketing campaign that's unlike anything we've seen before.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: There was this recent piece in The New Yorker where Alex Barasch interviewed the head of Mattel Films, Robbie Brenner, who said, "In the world we're living in, I.P. [intellectual property] is king. Pre-awareness is so important." And awareness is this gross industry term that suggests by the time you show up to see the movie, you're kind of already familiar with something that has to do with that world — thinking like Transformers, Marvel movies…. There's some kind of pre-existing base to jump off of. Jason, can you unpack that idea of how important pre-existing intellectual property is?

Jason: I think it's huge because we're living in a time when movie theatres are dying. No one's going to them. And so the solution that a lot of studios have looked to is that we need to make event films, right? We need to make it so that going to the theatre is an event for people, because that will actually get them out of the house and going to the theatre as opposed to just waiting for the movie to show up on streaming. How do you make it an event? You have a pre-existing relationship to the thing that already is in theatres. It's much harder to create an event that someone is going to move out of their house for if they don't have a pre-existing relationship. And so this kind of idea of IP is really driving the movie industry right now because it's the only thing that they look to that will get people spending movie theatre-level money, rather than waiting for it to come up on streaming where you can rent it for $4.

Elamin: Niko, I remember when the first stills from Barbie came out last year, and that we sort of found ourselves at the start of this marketing campaign that had these little trickles of information…. There's something about the fact that because I already know what Barbie is, I have an interest in this marketing campaign. Lots of movies release stills of what's happening on set before, [but] you don't really end up caring about them — but in this particular case, you do.

Niko: The Barbie movie has done something incredibly smart, which is when they first announced it, you ride this wave of, "Well, what are you going to do with a Barbie movie?" And you trickle out these stills. We saw the still of [Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling] on a beach wearing this fluorescent clothing and rollerblading with no context. And every time it becomes a cycle of memes, because you're relying on people wanting to create content for a little bit of social media fame, right? So you're riding these constant waves where every time you can change the narrative a little bit. You can release a trailer that plays on 2001: A Space Odyssey — a movie which a lot of people haven't even seen.

Elamin: Exactly right. It's a meme of a meme, right?

Niko: It's that same thing of pre-awareness: if you've never seen 2001, you probably might still get that reference. And then you find these rolling hills of content and discourse, so you can sort of keep this conversation alive and you can really build this to this crescendo of this moment of the first time we saw a trailer that had actual story in it. You've been waiting all this time. You've been building to this moment.

WATCH | Official teaser trailer for Barbie:

Elamin: Gabrielle, when you look at this mountain of marketing that's kind of been building up for the last year or so, would you say it's working for you?

Gabrielle: Absolutely. I mean, I bought this Gap x Barbie collaboration. It is interesting because when the Barbie movie first started being marketed, I was right in the beginning of my being-obsessed-with-Barbie phase. But a lot of people who are really into this movie and really excited to see it … have never really owned Barbies. They're not super into Barbie. But, there's something really nostalgic and fun about it. The movie feels like it's winking at us, like it's a joke that we're in on it. It's silly, it's fun, it's bright — and I think that is something we're missing from a lot of movie marketing or movies generally, is just fun. At this movie, the stakes feel low. It's just silly, it's bright, it's actors we love. And every single time people start to lose interest — "Oh, they built a Malibu Barbie house. Oh, Ryan Gosling said something about Kenergy." It's like they're really finding the right things to hook even people who don't care about the brand necessarily.

Jason: And I think that's super intentional. I mean, the tagline in the trailer is, "If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you don't like Barbie, this movie is for you." That's played out on the screen. And to me, the first thing — when we talk about that first little drip of content that we got — to me, it wasn't even when we got the photos on the beach; I think it was when Greta Gerwig was announced as the director. Because we're used to seeing actors kind of be like, "I guess I'll go do this toy movie over here." If Margot Robbie was starring in it without Greta Gerwig, I think it would just be like, "Oh, OK, this is happening." But suddenly there's Greta Gerwig, who's known for movies like Little Women and Frances Ha and Lady Bird, which are prestige pictures, and suddenly you're getting a combination of prestige artistry combined with the low culture of Barbie. I feel like that was the first thing that really made people sit up and go, "Oh, this could be interesting," even if Barbie wasn't something that they necessarily had fond memories of.

WATCH | Official trailer for Barbie:

Elamin: Niko, I'm interested in this particular thread because at that point, when Greta [Gerwig] was announced, she was coming off Oscar nominations for Little Women, for Lady Bird; she had this pre-established indie credibility and sensibility…. But how do you feel about the idea that if you make a compelling film that is an independent film or a relatively cheap film, and it's a big cultural hit, we go, "Wow, you're an auteur; you are an established filmmaker, and you can really make movies. Your reward in this cultural moment is a massive franchise."

It used to be the case that if you made, you know, Donnie Darko, they'd be like, "OK, go make that but more expensive." And then they would give you $40 million to make your next weird little dark idea, and they would sort of take a risk on you. But now it seems that if you make a successful movie for a cheap amount of money, they go, "OK, now you get to take $200 million — and you get to direct a Marvel movie. Or in this particular case, you get to direct a Mattel movie." How do you feel about rewarding our auteurs with a franchise film?

Niko: I mean, if this was happening in fits and starts, it would be one thing. Like if it was a Greta Gerwig Barbie movie, and then we didn't immediately get the new Greta Gerwig Narnia movie. Now we're taking Greta Gerwig off the table, right? The market response from Greta Gerwig, Barbie movie and Greta Gerwig Narnia movie has been probably very different. But the MCU-ification of the movie industry has been a thing that sort of happened slowly over time. We saw this with Robert Downey Jr.; he was an actor that everybody had written off because he had struggled with addiction and he had all these problems — and they made Iron Man and he redeemed himself. Taika Waititi was a beloved indie filmmaker who made these beautiful films, and then he made a Thor movie. I thought, "Great, he'll make his money, he'll get his cheque and he'll go back to auteur stuff." But instead he made another Thor movie, and it was not good.

So, there is this concern of Barbie as the opening salvo. Now, Daniel Kaluuya is going to make a Barney movie that's just Death to Smoochy, 20 years later. But do we want this from all these people? Do we want all our auteurs and all these interesting filmmakers, even if they're doing these sort of winks and nods in their filmmaking? Do we want them to be taking existing IP, or do we want them to be given the resources and the support they need to make compelling movies?

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.