Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling isn’t just glamorous. Behind the fluorescent pink world of the most iconic (and controversial) doll ever brought to the big screen, lie geopolitical, economic, and social issues. Facts, Numbers and Curiosities
The highly anticipated $100 million Warner Bros. film about Barbie, to be released in Italy on July 20, directed by American director Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the ever-present Kane, is not just lightness and memories of childhood , but it also has geopolitical, economic and social implications.
Indeed, Vietnam has banned it because of tensions with Beijing over the South China Sea, apparently the pink color shortage has affected the paint industry worldwide, and Feminism and Capitalism between Gerwig and Robbie with Mattel Films But the debate has started. executive producer Robbie Brenner.
Geopolitics Question: The Ninth Line
The Barbie movie will not land in Vietnam. to deliver news, as reported quartzhad a local website vnexpress Who reported the words of V Kien Than, head of the country’s Department of Cinema, the government body in charge of licensing or censoring foreign films.
The reason is a scene in the film in which a map appears with the so-called “nine lines” (in English). nine-dash line), which first appeared in 1947 and was created by the Kuomintang Party, which ruled China at the time. Indeed, this line of contention reflects Beijing’s unilateral claims on the disputed waters of the South China Sea, which have been opposed by various governments, including Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
V Kien Thanh said, “We are not licensing the release of the American film Barbie in Vietnam because it contains an objectionable image of the Nine-Dash Line.”
Map showing line of nine segments, accurate quartz, was declared unusable in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Beijing categorically rejected the sentence but Hanoi cannot ignore the fact that China is also removing from the map areas it considers its continental shelf and where there are concessions for oil extraction. He says the Southeast Asian country reutersChina has repeatedly accused Chinese ships of violating its sovereignty.
But before Gerwig, other directors had already gotten into it. In 2019, the Vietnamese government withdrew the animated film. Disgusting Action One was banned from DreamWorks and last year unknown For the same reason from Sony. Even Netflix Shelved Australian Series In 2021 pine gap,
Supply chain disruption and a world without pink
Apart from the geopolitical aspect, the Barbie film has created another “crisis”. Rosco’s fluorescent pink dye. In fact, as set designer Sarah Greenwood pointed out, such a quantity was needed to put the sector into crisis, causing a worldwide shortage and for a time “the world was out of pink”.
However, in an email CNNLauren Proud, vice president of marketing and digital experience at Roscoe, said the problems were also related to supply chain difficulties: “The sets were developed at a time when we were still facing global supply chain problems (due to the pandemic ) Ed), and paint supplies were particularly badly affected. We gave everything we could and they got everything. We can’t wait to see how it looks in the movie!”.
This also Los Angeles Times Reports that the company was still recovering from the deep freeze that hit Texas in early 2021 damaged materials used to make the paint.
a feminist film? maybe but not only
“If you’re wondering whether Barbie is a satire on the capitalist ambitions of a toy company, a scathing indictment of the current state of gender relations, a sentimental tribute to girl power, or a music show full of Nicki Minaj and dua lipa pillow kalam, the answer is yes. all these things. and not only that,” wrote Time,
Robbie, who is a producer as well as a star herself, told the British magazine that “It’s not that it is or it is not (a feminist film, Ed, This is a movie. It’s a film that covers a lot of things.”
Number of film and metal
Meanwhile, US estimates suggest the film will gross $55–85 million in its opening weekend and $120–226 million in the States.
But the film’s success or otherwise will probably also determine the success of Mattel, the American toy company whose profits are tied to its most iconic and controversial Barbie doll, which has had to be refurbished to keep up since its debut in 1959. Overcome time and stereotypes.
Just imagine Barbie sales fell to $900 million in 2015, the lowest in 25 years, reports Time, This necessitated a change in behaviour, and after introducing a wider range of skin and hair colors to the dolls, three new body types including the curvy Barbie were launched – sales soared and before the small industry declined last year, In 2021, the record reached $ 1.7 billion. ,
And, so, like it or hate it, as the trailer says, this movie still seems to be working for each and every one of us.