Air, Tetris, Barbie: Capitalism is the new universal thesis

So far this century, we have gone from Toy Story arrive Barbie. good. From an excellent animated trilogy aimed at a child audience but suitable for the whole family, to a corporate film aimed at an adult audience but with humor and political discourse that a ten-year-old can understand (albeit oddly) Recommended for ages thirteen and up watch, and childhood has been removed from the casting and plot).

Both transmedia projects are talking about the same thing: our need to emotionally engage with things that cost money. Toys are part of a spectrum of consumer products that runs throughout our consumer biographies. We move from stuffed animals and female dolls to other obsessions like sneakers or video games.that’s why Air – Movie Ben Affleck On the gestation of an iconic Nike product, its silhouette Michael Jordan– and Tetris — the story of the creation and international expansion of mobile and digital puzzles — is part of the same narrative constellation Barbie.

They share a new universal thesis: capitalism. Of course, they used common plots: the hero’s journey, good versus evil, the creation of artificial creatures, the restoration of social balance after the emergence of destructive or destabilizing forces. But these narrative schemes are absolutely secondary. Because they always tell the same story: how an object triumphs, becomes popular and survives over time, until it becomes a contemporary myth.

Lego’s audiovisual products point in the same direction. It is another great brand of the 20th century that claims its validity in the 21st century as part of the world’s emotional memory. At the same time, the founding stories of the new economic order continue to emerge, namely those of digital companies that no longer trade in physical objects but in algorithms and data.Therefore, with Social networkof david fincher and Aaron Sorkinabout the origin Facebookthe birth of a trend has told us how Spotify started (playlist), Uber (super pump) and WeWork (we collapsed).

The narrative form of the new universal argument, which could not be otherwise, is the balanced sum of commercial, lucrative, hegemonic mechanisms. The centerpiece of the story is usually a thriller. Surrounding it is an emotional drama full of humor and parody. It’s as if capitalism, on which millions of people live in poverty at its foundation, must wear a comic mask to represent itself.

That’s why when the protagonist leaves Barbieland, a world where luxury reigns supreme, California seems to have a certain sense of reality, until we enter Mattel headquarters, which is such nonsense and a parody so extreme that Streamberry— Last season’s platform mimicked Netflix’s black mirror——In our opinion, this is a plausible mystery novel.

In this form of narrative, it is always important to design contagion from the real world to the fictional world. The three unicorns create their own architecture and aesthetics that add color to the stages of their respective series.exist Air what process Bruce Kilgore Designed aerodynamic shoes. Tetris It has passages designed as video games.And in this case BarbieMost of the footage is plastic, playful, pink, superficial theme park (in Barbie Land, the continents, like the glass or the ocean, lack content).

BarbieHowever, it is a layered film. It’s not a good feature film, but it’s certainly an interesting artifact. Worthy of credit to its screenwriter and director, Greta Gerwigbefore accepting this task, he also wrote and directed ladybug.

The story begins, as always, with a crisis. The doll felt the pain of death for the first time and decided to go to the real world to meet its owner. The origin journey has three surprises: the person who summons her is not a girl, but an adult; the person works at Mattel, its parent company; and the ghost of its original creator still lives inside, Ruth Handler. They are three levels of the capitalist machine, working in reverse: the creative process, the intellect; the business structure; and the users, or customers, who keep the fantasy alive and thus the capital flowing.

The film is actually about the renewal of a contract. Barbie’s crisis is caused by the twin crises of mother and teenage daughter. In the mirror effect, the two poles of the relationship, the object and the person, will restore their mutual trust. They will sign an agreement for the future of the relationship. The consequences extend far beyond Barbieland. Not only are Zara or Primark launching new lines of business in pink, the number of licenses issued to other companies around the world has multiplied, and Mattel is about to create a cinematic universe based on its most iconic toys.

return Air and Tetris They tell the story of a contract. But from a literal contract. Epic temptations and negotiations eventually led to either the Jordan family or the Russian National Video Games Company signing a transfer agreement for its development rights. Barbie goes further: It summarizes the origin myth, ignores its legal complexities, and focuses on the renewal of the promise between the product and its customers in the age of feminism and social media.

Perhaps this is the underlying reason for those audiovisual products that tell the story of capitalism from the inside. Take advertising to new dimensions. It’s a narrative emotional commitment that allows us to connect brands and their objects, which lack faces and stories, to actors and actresses. And through storytelling.

Of course it’s soft. Nothing is too solid, too intense, or too memorable. Because what matters is Barbie.Or Air Jordan (I forgot about it Michael Jordan and sold under the names of other NBA players). Or Tetris. Or Lego. Consumption consumption became a common saying.