Barbie!

[Prrambulate]

Who’s watching this? I think it’s going to have a massive opening week in the UK.

I’m so intrigued. At once a very subversive film, penned by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach; on another level, a film so heavily marketed that it seems to have entered the cultural mainstream. I wonder how it will straddle those tensions.

I went to see it this weekend. Thought it was a fun fluffy watch. Visually very stimulating, engaging performances from Robbie and Gosling. Story felt a bit clunky and the real world scenes felt a bit below par. Starter feminism stuff but nothing wrong with that.

Enjoyed it but wouldn't be in a rush to rewatch.

Other than being releases on the same weekend, the comparisons to Oppenheimer should end there.

Agree. Find it strange that people are pitting these two verrrrrrry different films against one another.

It is strange. I know it came out the same weekend but I've seen both, plus Mission Impossible, Talk to Me and the Turtles film since, which have about as much in common with Barbie and were showing at the same time.

It's not that they were pitted against each other it's the fact that they were two of the summers big films that came out on the same day and because of their polar opposite subject matters people started comparing them and the studios and fans ran with it - both films got twice as much marketing as they would otherwise have done (without any extra promo costs) due to #Barbenheimer taking over social media, so of course they were going to encourage that as much as possible.

Just read that Barbie has already made a billion in global box office

My middle-aged DH went to see Oppenheimer with my DS this weekend. His film watching is very much in the Rambo, men with guns and explosions type of viewing. They both said that on balance they preferred the Barbie movie.

I’m personally glad the Barbie movie has done well and people have had fun with it dressing in pink etc. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s been great to see people coming together to enjoy something joyful that centres women and femininity.

But then you’ve got the miseries on this thread who refuse to see the bigger context and just want to drain us all with their Debbie downer anti-pink anti-joy. Boo.

The whole point of the Barbenheimer meme is that these are two radically different movies, not that they’re similar (other than each having a highly respected director attached). That’s what made it funny in the first place. Jokes about these being ‘the two sides of someone’s personality’; memes of Goodfellas guys requesting tickets to Barbie / Mean Girls demanding to see Oppenheimer, jokes about one movie being a profound biopic about a key American cultural icon - and the other movie being Oppenheimer. Etc etc

Of course their box office performance shouldn’t be compared at all.

Yes, but there are a lot of people essentially saying they didn't like Barbie because they preferred Oppenheimer. In an "Oppenheimer, now there's a good film" way.

I loved it! Felt almost teary looking at some of the outfits at time and remembering the Barbies I had 😬😂

Thought it was funny, clever, silly, and with a great message for young women.

Yeah, but we don't need everyone to like Barbie. We just need them to think about what they saw there and learn from it.

I am probably one of these people - I saw both films back to back on opening day so naturally I compare the two when talking about it and if people ask "Which was better?" then my honest answer is Oppenheimer, because I enjoyed that film more and is the one I have been to see multiple times whereas Barbie I've only seen that one time.

Yes Barbie was good in places but overall I didn't enjoy the film as much as I thought I would based on the hype/promos etc whereas with Oppenheimer I enjoyed it more than I expected to based on the hype/promos (I fully went in expecting it to drag as it was a 3hr Nolan biopic, but didn't feel that way at all) so when looking at both films then Oppenheimer comes out better ...

Regardless of which, the box office for both films was boosted by people seeing both as opposed to one over the other. They could have set up a dynamic of you see one over the other but they didn't, the embraced the idea of seeing both back to back - even when the casts of both films were asked about whether they would be watching the other film they all, 100% said they would be watching the other film on opening day (and many of them posted on social media when they did so) because they wanted to support each other and show that it didn't have to be either/or, it could be both.

"Yeah, but we don't need everyone to like Barbie. We just need them to think about what they saw there and learn from it"

Learn from it? Dear Lord - I am an educated and informed woman, I learnt nothing (that I didn't already know) from Barbie. The bar is low if this is trumped as a reflective, thought provoking movie.

However, Barbie didn't need to inspire me for me to enjoy it. I would have been happy to simply be entertained, but whilst it was amusing in parts it was overworked, disjointed and just a bit boring

@LimitIsUp - I completely agree. I think
it may have actually set feminism back by emphasising that we all need to be beautiful.
I didn’t like it (other than finding it laboured and boring - especially towards the end) because it didn’t serve either gender well. Had both male and female come together in the end - and run things together- that would have been different.

I really wanted to like it, but I didn’t.

I disagree, but only because the message beautiful is good is so ubiquitous that I don't think one movie makes any difference.

I liked Barbie because I think it will give those who don't normally talk about feminism a vocabulary to do that- 17 year old mixed groups in the cinema I went to were laughing about jokes about the patriarchy...I can't think of any mainstream films that have an equivalent even light-weight feminist vocab similar to that. Also, America Fererra's speech, whilst not amazingly well-written sums up that blame women, can't ever be in the right thing that I see daily on Mumsnet. I think it articulates some issues which are probably banal to those already fluent in that language, but takes everyone else along which I like. Plus it was witty, so laughing + feminism of a sort = different than anything else out there right now.

Loved all the bits of the Barbie movie that didn't have Will Ferrell in. His annoying man baby character has been done to death in every film he has ever made. I didn't think it made sense or served women well to pretend it was an all male board of directors acting in a sexist way. I may need to go out and buy an I'm Kenough t shirt now. The film was just fun and looked amazing, that's really all I am looking for in a Barbie movie.

I didn’t mind it. I enjoyed the Barbie nostalgia (I had lots of Barbies). It was as feminist as a mainstream movie is going to be ie not very.

The most interesting bit was the end. Surprised me very much that a movie in 2023 suggested her first act as a woman was going to a gynaecologist as though having a vagina was the thing that finally made her a woman…….really felt like that was the most controversial bit in the current climate!

Seeing Peaches and Cream Barbie is the one that gave me the whoosh of nostalgia. I think I was about 6 when she was released and she was a big deal that Christmas.

The Barbie with a blonde perm down to the floor nearly gave me a seizure. Had her, loved her, hadn’t thought of her in more than thirty years!

“Ordinary Barbie just wants a flattering top, and to get through the day feeling kind of good about herself”

Best line!

Saw it today with DH and DS(16), all loved it.

Apart from all the other bits already discussed, anyone else think that America Ferrer’s character having sudden dark “thoughts of death and cellulite” meant that peri menopause was the event that caused the disruption in Barbie World?? 🤣

Ferrara! Bloody autocorrect

I havent seen it but I've heard it be described as black panther for white women

Barbie was not a thing where I grew up so the nostalgia was lost on me. I was disappointed and expecting it to be funnier, more intelligent in its messaging and more camp.

I thought the vagina bit was to show she was a real person now, not a doll.

I found it really disappointing. It wasn't a feel-good film, it all seemed terribly self congratulatory to me, lots of jokes and speeches trying to be intelligent and make a point. Except most of the points have been made repeatedly on social media for the last 5 years so they don't feel fresh. Lots of film references but only for people in the know. A lot of the writing and plot seemed lazy, there was no real coherence or imagination about the link between the real and fake worlds. It felt like a film for the people in the film/making the film, rather than a film for the viewers.

I wanted to love it! The marketing machine has been out of this world so they should be congratulated