Billion Dollar Barbie: what lessons should cinema draw?

This piece first appeared on my newsletter, <a href="http://futureproofnews.substack.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Future Proof.</a> You can <a href="http://futureproofnews.substack.com/subscribe" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">subscribe for free</a> — and if you enjoy it, maybe you can take out a paid sub. Paid subscribers are, famously, more successful and attractive. In<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/randall-park-shortcomings-interview-asian-americans-hollywood-diversity-1234802802/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">an interview with Rolling Stone</a>, the actor Randall Park made the following observation about the success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, which has just passed a billion dollars at the Box Office. “I feel like this industry is taking the wrong lessons,” he told the magazine. “For example, Barbie is this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No. Make more movies by and about women!” This came off the back of Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie dolls, announcing its plans to make more movies based off its existing intellectual property. And, of course, what else would we expect them to do? Do we really think that a massive toy conglomerate is going to take any lessons from the success of its movie based on a toy other than “make more movies based on toys”? After all, for Mattel the success of Barbie is a double win: huge box office receipts, and massively increased cultural salience for its dolls (which were in danger of being relegated by current social mores). Why shouldn’t it try and do the same for Polly Pocket or Hot Wheels or American Girl? But a toy company should be the cultural barometer of precisely nothing. Instead, I take Park’s comment as symptomatic of a view, within Hollywood, which I both hugely agree with and hugely disagree with (I am a man of many takes, after all). <a href="https://nickfthilton.medium.com/billion-dollar-barbie-what-lessons-should-cinema-draw-563c0113c20d">Read More</a>