Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via AP Images
At the pop-up Malibu Barbie Cafe in New York, August 7, 2023
News item: Mattel Unveils Weird Barbie Doll based on Kate McKinnon character
News item: ‘Barbie’ Surpasses $1 Billion at the Box Office
Greta Gerwig: Thank you for giving us this meeting.
Robbie Brenner, Executive Producer, Mattel Films: Happy to take it. So let me get this straight, you want do a product placement deal for Barbie?
Gerwig: Not a product placement. Think of it as one giant informercial, with a couple of reverse twists.
Brenner: Okay …
Gerwig: The first reverse twist is that we retroactively turn Barbie into a feminist icon, so that you can sell more Barbies to the next generation of little girls, with the approval of their feminist moms.
Brenner: That would take some doing.
Gerwig: And the second reverse twist is that the movie makes Mattel look ridiculous.
Brenner: Seriously? We would want script approval.
Gerwig: Of course. Actually, Mattel will be underwriting a lot of the cost of the movie.
Brenner: That would really take some doing. So, uh, how do you turn Barbie feminist?
Gerwig: The happy Barbies live in Barbie Land. It’s sort of a naïve female paradise where there’s a role reversal. The Kens are like subservient wives, almost extraneous. We rebrand Barbies as proto-feminists. We give them agency. When the credits roll, we show historical Barbies dressed as doctors, astronauts, and so on. As you know, all this came well after second-wave feminism led the way, only in the ’80s and ’90s, but the viewer won’t know that.
Brenner: That’s it?
Gerwig: There’s more. After the basic exposition, the lead Barbie has a depressing thought, and she is sent to the Real World to make amends. She comes back to Barbie Land joined by a renegade Mattel woman, to find that the Kens have taken over. But they organize and reverse the coup. And along the way, they spout a lot of feminist rhetoric, reinforcing the revisionist rebranding of Barbie.
Brenner: And they live happily ever after?
Gerwig: There’s one more twist. Think Pinocchio. First, Barbie has to become a Real Girl. At the end, we trot out Barbie’s Geppetto, the Mattel executive who created her, Ruth Handler. The movie ends with Barbie getting a vagina.
Brenner: You really think this will revive the Barbie brand and make Barbie feminist? I mean, generations of moms wouldn’t let Barbie in the house. Not only did she reinforce traditional girl stereotypes. Her figure was preposterous, an invitation to anorexia.
Gerwig: No problem. Now there can be all sorts of Barbies, thin, fat, even weird. Feminists will love it. They’ve won. Even Barbie is a feminist, and always was.
Brenner: Will we have plenty of lead time to plan the marketing campaign, so that we can launch right when the movie opens?
Gerwig: Of course, that’s the whole idea. Mattel will make billions with Feminist Barbie. So what do you think, Robbie, can we do it?
Brenner: Yes. We can. Yes we can! The movie will make billions, too. Sisterhood is powerful.
Gerwig: Capitalism is more powerful.
