Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast Barbie.
It's Barbie Mania in Australia and all over the world. It's taken over by storm, which I'm not mad about.
I was loving it in the sense that it's nice to see people be really enthusiastic about stuff. I feel like when it comes to pop culture people the bell curve between like this is really cool.
So this is lame.
It's literally one business day and if you're not on it when it's hot, you don't even get to participate.
Did this gone for a bit too long? Yeah?
Did we need every single store and brand in existence to collab?
We did not.
However, I imagine there's a lot of money to be made, and they made it.
I can see why they did it.
We appreciate that universe.
And I feel like, you know, for a lot of people who have a very close nostalgic relationship to Barbie, it was a nice time to get near it Barby.
No, it wasn't really a.
Dull player Older Brothers, Tonka Truck, No, just I just did what they did. So watch TV and wrestling and stuff, Crash Bandicoot, Yes, me too. Me too, Queen.
So I like hype.
I like mania. I like getting involved in things. I like feeling I'm part of a movement. The thing that I didn't understand about all the Barbie promo is that none of us knew what the movie was about the whole time. And that's what was confusing me about the hype, because initially I was like, Oh, did you see as
Traitler or something that got you all excited? Thus the movie is coming out, And granted, I know people love Margot Robbie, but I didn't know they loved her in the sense where they felt really strongly about her as an actress. I thought they loved her as a personality. So then I was really surprised and people were getting
really excited for Margot to be Barbie. For example, when people get really excited about Meryl Street doing something, it's because you've seen her legacy of creating, so you're really really aware of what she can bring to a role, etc.
I actually believe that Margaret is like Meryl, Like I actually think that people like her as an actor, not a personality, because she doesn't do that much.
She doesn't have Instagram.
That's why I wasn't sure, Like I didn't know that people liked her in that way. I watched ititania, I loved it, you know, but I was like, oh, I didn't know she had hype like this, especially coming off the back of the Internet turning on her for a little bit, which is so strange. It's a discussion happening right now in the in cell community. They're doing all these posts turning on women they once like heralded as gold standard. They're all saying Zendaea as mid, Margo is mid.
Are you people insane?
Yeah?
They literally lost it. That's what took me out of the hype for a second. That I felt like I was getting really excited about something that didn't exist for a moment. And the more you try I tried to seek for information, the more confused it became. Though I did like that a brand like Barbie could generate that much hype.
Nobody even knew what it was about. But everyone was like, this is gonna be sick.
Well pink, pink, beautiful outfits.
Yeah, yeah, I just missed that.
I have not been excited about a film like this.
How did they do it?
I think it's got to do with the idea that Margot Robbie looks like a Barbie. Sometimes, especially in this climate, people get upset and up in arms about diversity and like things look in a certain way.
Let her cook, Let her cook, people get let her cook?
What sin Yeah, particularly no, I'm talking about the in cell community.
Our half of the community of people out there are like the mom mad sor look like this. This does just look like this.
So finally they get what they want, which is Robbie looking like a Barbie.
Yeah. The other thing.
That's really surprised me about the Barbie movie is the phrase marketing budget. You guys have never seen a marketing budget in your life, Okay, and now all of a sudden you know about P and L.
What's the marketing budgets?
And the Barbie movie?
What's the marketing budget above a line, below line.
The thing that I don't think I love about twenty twenty three and beyond is that we don't live in smoke and mirrors enough. I don't want to hear marketing budget when we're talking about seeing branding everywhere.
It's too close to it.
We'll eat at your bottom line. I don't want to talk about it.
Start to my bottom line.
But I just feel like we don't even live in the mystery or the fantasy of something being created and the pandemonium of it. We're not even just sitting at it and enjoying it for what it is. We go straight to logistics. But how does it work? And when do they start talking about it? And like when did they start filming? And what's the budget and what.
Do they get paid.
It's like, also, we don't even know what the movie is about. We have some controversial opinions about Barbie. The thing about seeing a movie before the rest of the world is that I don't want to be the person who throws the first stone. I don't I've seen what the internet does to people. There's glean in your eyes, though smiling as I say, I don't want to be the person who throws the first stone. So I will allude at my feelings as we will do right now.
We recognize that this is a place where spoilers should not be present, so we will agree that on air we will not spoil the movie.
We will, however, give honest opinions. Right now, Let's.
Use three describing terms for how we felt about the movie. Number one, boring, I'm so sorry. Number two confused not confusing, Yeah, but confused.
Okay, Yeah, it's a big difference. Yeah, I agree.
And third, let me actually get up my notes for something that I sense. Oh, there's quite a few words here typing.
In you know, you distributing slander?
Person, I texted, it's going Back's a bit a bit of a text for typing. What did I say right after the movie? I said, contrived?
Do you know what one of my pure joys in life? And I don't think you know this to be true. I'm welling the thought of it. When frooms shares strong opinions, there is nothing like it, because one thing about this girl, she lives on the fence. Ambiguity is her middle name over the sides. And I can't not like you can. I could never.
I'm going to start with three things that I liked about the movie.
Oh good.
The choice of actors for this movie is both a positive and a negative. The positive is they chose so many incredible actors.
The negative is those actors had three lines.
Two actors that I was most excited to see in this film is a Ray Yeah and Michael Sarah.
Yeah.
Her massive Michael Sarah fan. Yeah. He had three.
Lines, maybe maybe three minutes of screen time if that, and a half.
Minute and a half.
Yeah, he ate he loved Alan.
I was very cognizant of the laughter in the room, of which there was not much in the Sydney premiere. Okay, however, the laughs of beast laughs came from two actors, Michael Sarah and is a Ray.
Yeah.
I have a sixth sense.
I knew this timing of Esis is really good.
She had one line in the film near the end, h that had the most last stitches.
Are you aware?
Yeah, she says, and the Mattel logo goes over her mouth, and I said, that.
Is she is?
Yeah, I need to go into a negative here. Timney cooks in the kitchen.
Yeah.
And when did I know that? I knew that in the first one minute when produced by XOZ, Produced by XOZ, there was five yeah that popped up and we're.
Still at the black screen. The movie I haven't even started.
It got produced by Heyday Productions. Mattel this this okay, should we know these?
I was you remember me?
I laughed at that time. I thought everyone else was sart giggling. I was like, is this part is this, I was like, so that's a negative and a positive. I love Greta Gerwig, the director. I think this is actually a good thing for her. Sure, I didn't like it.
I didn't like the choices. However, she has so many positive runs on the board as someone who I don't even take notice the direct and I like Greta girwek all right, riddle me that even if I don't think this movie eight, the fact that it's going to be so high grossing, I say, go all the way off, Gretagwig, because you deserve this money, and I'm sure you will have many more projects in which to bring your weirdness,
your wackiness that I so much love. I did see segments of it in the movie, but I think it was the other people's contribution that muddied the waters.
I did hear as some devil's advocate everyone, but I did hear in the grapevine that Mattel was a notoriously difficult client, and there was a lot of pushback and they had a lot of just a lot of critique about how Mattel is represented, which you can now see after watching the movie, how they might have got their grabby little mits on a few of the bits and stuff. My three positives is that I feel as though it's
a beautiful watch. Like the set design, the costuming I felt was so cute and camp and like in the day and age of an indie film where everything is like seep your tone and grain and like raw and filmed on film. It's nice to see some like camp. If I want to see a really saccerin sweet color movie, I can't like what I'm gonna want to watch Wes Anderson and that's it. So that I really enjoyed. There are a few subtleties and referential quips that were really
sharp that I felt like that was really fun. But I was laughing when nobody else was laughing, which confused me. The third thing I really liked is the first thirty minutes of the film. I felt as though like exploring this idea of like Barbie gaining sentience and awareness I felt could have been so powerful in the way that they explored what is this like doll, what is her idealization of being a person, then being a woman and then interacting with the world around her? That could have
been really sick. It went from like profound to daft very quickly. So every moment where I thought they were gonna be like, Oh, this is gonna be like a really interesting take on like what womanhood is, what feminism is or is not, what a matriarchy is versus a patriarchy, it just got really flat, which brings me to my cons on my confusions is I don't know who the movie is for, Like I don't know if it was a kid's movie. I don't know if it's peopleho used
to play with barbies, so like did you play with barbies? Yeah, so let's take me twenty five to forty five.
Yeah, right, because I'm forty two.
So I couldn't tell if this was like nostalgia core or if it was like for gen Z, because my first thought was like, gen Z's gonna hate this movie.
There were Brat's community.
Yeah, I was like, gen Z's gonna hate this.
But I felt like they were trying to get that angle in with like the little girl Daughter, But I just couldn't tell who was made four And that reflects in the disjointed humor, the disjointed approach to discussing real issues, like it was such a watered down white feminist take on like what it is to be a woman, and like her first moment of being a woman was.
Like, oh my god, I've got to tell you, like like it was just it.
Was so I was like different, Okay, great, like we're taking this angle, or like her realizing that the aren't of what Barbie did like obviously platformed or created space for like a varied cool woman, but then inadvertently created this like unrealistic beauty standard or whatever.
I'm like, let's talk about that. Let's find a way to make that interesting.
All this idea of like women can be everything, Barbie existed in a very racist time and we're just like women are whatever and whatever. And then Ken discovering the patriarchy that could have been so cool, but it was like about horses haha. Also, I felt it was camp in a straight way. Ooh, and I think that might have been the issue for me. And I think that camp in a straight way is actually cringe. There are a lot of elements where I'm like, this is a
little bit cringey. Let me say on record, I enjoyed the movie. I giggled in the movie. I was like, this is cute. I enjoyed myself. The one thing that took me out of it every time was the way they set up jokes. They couldn't just like a joke be a joke. It was always like, ah, a joke is being made.
We made a joke.
Isn't this funny? Isn't this silly? We're making a joke now, just let it be part of the dialogue. Everything was so like, point to the funny thing, keep bringing up this like one bit that should have died. It was kind of like when a toddler's like, look at me, jump, look at me, jump again, looking at me like we got it the first time, Like it's like here, we get it. Patriarchy is funny, and like men like horses? Why are we still tking about horses? Let's do two lines closing thoughts each.
You go first.
Overall, I think if you shut off your brain and just enjoy a silly, fun movie, you'll get a lot out of it.
There's a lot to look.
At, great outfits, great costumes, like a lot of really easy to comprehend humor if you bring your critical analytical brain into the elements that it encourages you to do so. When it's talking about feminism and patriarchy, matriarchys beauty standards. You're going to pull yourself out of the movie and it won't be enjoyable at all. And that's where the movie pales. It's very like entry level white feminism. Women can do it all or can't they do it all?
Type vibe, and it's not saying anything though. I don't think the movie has to say anything. I just think for the target audience, which feels like twenty five to forty five, you could have said something.
Kind of wish they just went full silly.
Yeah, you kind of can't win when you're starting from Barbie, Like that's a hard article. This is a movie about Barbie with Mattel having a major share in it, Like how far down the critique of Barbie are we really going to go? My one liner is that the hype was worth it. I loved the pre Barbie thing. I love seeing Margo's outfits. I like that it's going to be one of the highest grossing films, Like I'm glad
for that shout out to Chicks So Slay. My second thing is I don't want to watch people cry that much on screen. There was fifty percent of it was like sad and crying. Oh yeah, I hated a.
Lot of crying. You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
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