Sigh…
So there’s going to be a Barbie movie. Normally we’d preface that with some sort of amusing observation or context, but frankly, this is just what the world has come to. There will be a live-action movie based on Barbie, the plastic doll with grotesque proportions that has created an unreasonable standard for both beauty and esoteric gender roles for decades.
While we here at CraveOnline strive for healthy skepticism when it comes to these types of things, it’s hard to imagine Mattel, who made the announcement yesterday, transforming the Barbie brand into the kind of self-effacing satire that would probably be necessary to make it palatable to any outside of the doll’s existing target demographic. Not that this wouldn’t necessarily be a sound business model, except it sure as hell didn’t help Bratz make more than a paltry $26 million when it opened in 2007, far closer to its pop culture zeitgeist than Mattel’s 55-year-old toy franchise.
The film will be written by Jenny Bicks, whose previous credits include the god-awful Rio 2 and HBO’s “Sex & The City,” a popular series that in many respects already seemed like a live-action Barbie to begin with. Of course, the best Barbie movie has probably already been made by Todd Haynes, who used the popular toy line to illustrate the rise and fall of anorexic pop star Karen Carpenter in Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, a brilliant drama and simultaneous satire that is currently unavailable on home video due to disputes over the use of The Carpenters’ music. She also appeared in a slightly comical fashion in the acclaimed and enormously sequel Toy Story sequels, voiced by Jodi Benson, who also played Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
We do suppose that is possible to take Barbie and transform her into a positive role model for young women, despite numerous critical claims to the contrary. We sure as hell hope Mattel can prove our skepticism wrong, since – as film critics – we’re going to have to see this movie eventually either way. Sigh…
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
