12/15/2023 0 Comments Image original monopoly piecesMuch like Hasbro, Mattel’s big first film success came from adapting its most famous toy line chock full of rich mythos and established characters (Optimus Prime and Bumblebee=Barbie and Ken) for a feature adaptation to draw from. The many problems faced by Hasbro in getting any of its films even made, let alone making movies people want to even see, should be an ominous sign for Mattel. But just ask Hasbro…chasing the box office glory of Transformers didn’t work out well. At the time, it seemed like the perfect way to cash in on the success of 2007’s equivalent to Barbie. Not so long ago, Mattel’s biggest rival saw a film adaptation of one of its toys turn into a pop culture phenomenon and, thus, embarked on plans to make a slew of features based on its various board games and action figures. The strangest part about Mattel deciding that Barbie’s success means audiences want nothing but toy adaptations is that it’s following the very grave missteps of another toy company. Mattel mistakenly thinks that throwing a toy adaptation on the big screen is enough to get audiences pumped when, in reality, it’s all a lot more complicated than that. Cameron’s warning of how people were misinterpreting the success of Avatar in digital 3D is now happening with Barbie as well. The New Yorker article even ends with an account of a writer being hired to try and crack the story of a potential Uno adaptation. Instead, the idea now is that Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots can totally become a motion picture property, ditto everything else in the Mattel library from Polly Pocket to the Magic 8 Ball. None of that nuance or sociopolitical timing seems to have registered with Mattel executives if that New Yorker piece is any indication. People have been engaging in this style of feminism for a while before the cameras even began rolling on Barbie, but this movement coincided perfectly with the bright-pink aesthetic of Greta Gerwig’s feature. Meanwhile, the 2020s have seen a rise in “bimbo feminism”, a movement that emphasizes inclusive and often leftist ideology within high-femme fashion and sensibilities. There’s also been the dearth of female-skewing big-budget movies in 2023, which has also allowed Barbie to cater to an under-represented demographic. There are lots of reasons this specific toy adaptation has become a pop culture phenomenon with people, including the fact that it being the first live-action Barbie movie makes it feel extra special to people. It’s clear Mattel is already hopping into this approach with all the hype surrounding Barbie. Hollywood studios have a bad habit of just mimicking the shallowest interpretation of what made a big hit movie successful rather than considering the deeper intricacies of why a feature resonated with people.
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