Yes, I know the movie isn’t out yet. For all we know the movie will be Margot Robbie’s best work, will be hilarious, poignant social commentary I actually agree with, cure cancer, and make us forgive Robbie for the terrible Harley Quinn movie that screwed over Cassandra Cain and the rest of the Gotham ladies that were forced into that garbage.
Okay, we know that last part isn’t happening, but I want it to be clear I am NOT judging this movie on quality of the work. It hasn’t come out and I probably won’t go see it when it does. I am not telling you the movie is terrible and I’m tired of critics being accused of that when judging trailers. Trailers exist for a reason! They are supposed to get people hyped for the movie coming out and give you an idea of the tone and style of the film. It’s not supposed to ruin good jokes and shock moments but tell that to the marketing department. So no, I’m not telling you this is a bad movie.
I’m telling you that the trailer already shows signs of Hollywood’s continuing trend of bad adaptations. I’ve seen good adaptations that are bad stories and bad adaptations that are good stories. My favorite movie is in the latter category. Please understand the spirit of this article. I’m looking at what Warner Brothers thinks will get people to be excited for this movie. I’m not even a Barbie fan but the fact that I know more about Barbie than this trailer indicates the movie does should make them feel bad. It doesn’t and won’t but them’s the fact, kids! Now, if that is out of the way we’ll see who actually read this part when I get accused of “hating” something that’s not even released to the public when I’m talking about what they’re telling us we’re in for. With that….
How can you not know at least something about Barbie and her friends. Those toy commercials aired on my shows just as much as it did the girls shows because somebody realized girls might be watching, either to make their brothers happy so she can watch her show or because she’s not limited to “girly” TV. I know Barbie has multiple friends of multiple hair colors and races, that Ken isn’t the only dude in Barbie’s world, that she has two younger sisters (middle child Skipper is the only one I know by name), and that she’s either a model or can’t hold down a job.
Barbie’s purpose is to show girls they can be anything they want. There was even a tagline for awhile: “We girls can do anything, right, Barbie?” and the recent one is “You can be anything”. Of course the surface viewers just see her thin body and perfect bust and immediately go crazy, that it enforces bad body images or something. There is even a negative connotation around the name “Barbie”, applied to girls considered airheads, the same applying to boys and “Ken”.
So I’m watching The Masked Singer last night and finally see a trailer for the live-action take on Barbie and Ken (not to be confused with Ken Jeong) and my immediate thought was…”wow, this is actually stupider than I thought it would be”.
