Mattel exec dared to question Margot Robbie’s take on Barbie
The tragic story of the Mattel President who hopped a plane to London to challenge final boss Margot Robbie
Aux News Mattel
The moment we saw Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling rollerblading through an eye-piercing dayglow Malibu, we knew the Barbie movie was in good hands. No one was sure how to make a Barbie movie, but with a few still photos, the world unanimously agreed that Robbie and director Greta Gerwig sure did. Unsurprisingly, though, Mattel’s executives were a little bullish on the idea of a funny movie about a doll that appealed to a broad audience as opposed to a movie about an action figure that, um, wears clothes? Again, we have no idea what a Barbie movie can and should be. In a Time cover story about one-half of the double feature everyone, including Tom Cruise, plans on having this summer, writer Eliana Dockterman relays the initial reaction to Greta Gerwig’s playfully subversive take on the plastic symbol of impossible beauty standards.
“You’re just gonna white-knuckle it the whole time,” Robbie Brenner, executive producer of Mattel Films, told the company’s higher-ups. Nevertheless, all the white-knuckling in the world couldn’t stop Dickson from hopping a plane to London to argue what is and isn’t on-brand for his blonde plaything. Then he met Robbie. Though we like to imagine Robbie and Gerwig giving this millionaire a wedgie for his troubles, all they had to do was perform the scene for him. “When you look on the page, the nuance isn’t there, the delivery isn’t there,” Robbie said.
This nuance required some finessing and was also central to the product. In her first meeting with Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, Robbie “impressed” upon the exec that taking a self-reflexive approach to adapting a toy was the way to go. “We are going to honor the legacy of your brand, but if we don’t acknowledge certain things—if we don’t say it, someone else is going to say it,” she said. “So you might as well be a part of that conversation.”
While Kreiz and Dickson want to protect the time-honored tradition of Barbie that the marketing of this movie insists we all have and share, the last decade of films based on toys shows a split between approaches. Sure, the post-modern Lego Movie was a hit—and only burned out when Warner Bros. went wild with spin-offs and sequels—but the few Transformers that were released made money too. Though none topped the billion-dollar grosser, Age Of Extinction, they did well enough to continually thrust the ongoing saga of the All Spark on audiences for the next decade.
So will Barbie be more Lego or Transformers? We’ll know for sure on July 20, when we’re all finished throwing up after seeing Oppenheimer.
34 Comments
Nevertheless, all the white-knuckling in the world couldn’t stop Dickson
from hopping a plane to London to argue what is and isn’t on-brand for
his blonde plaything
Who? This is the first mention of this person in the article, and typically you’d include a first name and title for readers who are not familiar with the executive team of Mattel.
Copy/pasting all the info is hard, ya’ll!
Thank you! I re-read the first paragraph 5 times because I assumed no one would be dumb enough to do this and I must be the idiot. The good news is I am not the idiot… other than continuing to come here out of some unbreakable morning work habit.
I don’t want to make this weird, but you posted at 3:31 p.m. Unless you’re a morning person in Australia! 🙂
I live in Hawaii
Ah ha. Very good for you.
Noted that too. Crack staff is crackin’ again
Oh, you hadn’t heard? The AV Club is written by an actual middle school AV Club.
The word is bearish. Bullish means you support. And who the fuck is Dickson?
I honestly cannot figure out which one they intended to use. This sentence makes absolutely no goddamn sense either way: Unsurprisingly, though, Mattel’s executives were a little bullish on the idea of a funny movie about a doll that appealed to a broad audience as opposed to a movie about an action figure that, um, wears clothes?
It’s the famous ‘Gawker Snark’!
Yeah it really isn’t a very clearly written article. It’s not even clear what they asked Robbie to do and what happened?
I fucking hope this movie flops now. I’m over it.
Not only does it make no sense… it is extremely reductive in its questioning of what Barbie does. ALL ACTION FIGURES ONLY “wear clothes.” If you accept that G.I. Joe figures are out there fighting Cobra, then Barbie is out there holding down 50 fucking jobs. She busts her ass all day and gets questioned by some half assed copy/paster’s male gaze as a thank you? Is it goddamn 1950 at the AVC today?
hell yeah. i am now barbie-pilled
Iusually stop reading when people write “um.”
Methinks The A.I. needs to be disciplined.
Also, should this: In her first meeting with Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, Robbie “impressed” upon the exec that taking a self-reflexive approach to adapting a toy was the way to go.be “self-reflective”?
Probably. Or just reflective. Or just… not fucking write this story. AND WHO IS DICKSON!!!!
You mean you don’t know Dickinson???? Hmmmph!*Adjusts monocle*
They’re different concepts.Self-reflective: marked by or engaging in self-reflection
Self- reflexive: marked by or making reference to its own artificiality or contrivance
Definitions from Merriam-Webster.com
Actually “self-reflexive” is fine here. That actually made sense.
Maybe they were sheepish
it’s gonna be really funny if this movie sucks. all the free (?) publicity it’s getting from the entire social media landscape is atrocious
Settle down, Christopher. Oppenheimer will do just fine.
I hope it doesn’t suck because I want to see women creatives succeed. But personally I won’t be able to watch anything with that much pink in it. Allergic to it or something.
Are the Gizmodo family of websites hiring children to write their articles, or did they go all in on AI? Who is Dickson?
“Unsurprisingly, though, Mattel’s executives were a little bullish on the idea of a funny movie about a doll that appealed to a broad audience as opposed to a movie about an action figure that, um, wears clothes?”
I have no idea what you mean, but I am guessing you are using the term bullish wrong. Bullish vs Bearish are stock terms. Imagine a fight between a bull and a bear, the bull uses its horns to attack upwards, and the bear swipes downwards.
It makes a lot of sense to me that Mattel’s execs would think a movie appealing to a broad audience is a good thing, but I cant tell if that is really what you are trying to say because your writing is so bad.
*Law and Order guy loading boxes on a thing.Dickson? Yeah, I’ve seen that guy before. He seemed upset. Don’t know his first name, though.
Dickson refers to Richard Dickson, the COO of Mattel Corporation. Mattel Films was at odds with Mattel as a whole (aka the toys and where “Dickson” was concerned about the film potentially tarnishing brand integrity) over the script, as they had difficulties understanding the nuance of the delivery until it was performed for them. You’re welcome.
But will Mattel release new Barbie dolls/action figures with Robbie’s likeness and proportions? Asking for my perky collector friends.
I mean I guess some of the writers around here can be replaced with AI with nothing lost. If this writer even exists in the first place.