“Life in plastic” — how hyper commercialization is shifting the film industry
Meg Kosefeski / V Mag at UVA
This summer, Barbie gripped pop culture by the throat. Mattel Films joined forces with Warner Bros. Pictures to release the appropriately named “Barbie,” a film that captured the attention of international audiences for months before it even hit theaters.
The colossal hype around the movie was unsurprising — the film's marketing team designed both the film and its explosive initial advertising to tug at the heartstrings of the millions of Americans who played with Barbie dolls growing up. Over $1.38 billion dollars later, the heavy-handed marketing ploy seems to have both resonated with audiences and earned a pretty penny for Mattel. While the intermingling of cinema and brand deals is nothing new, “Barbie”’s extreme success reflects a potential change in focus for the film industry, one embracing partnerships between corporations and filmmakers.
Mattel Films, the studio that produced “Barbie,” is a relatively new branch of the famed Mattel, Inc. Originally created as Mattel Playground Productions in 2013, the corporation’s first in-house production venture presented a chance to diversify their media presence. However, due to its underwhelming release of its first film “Max Steel” in 2016 — with an almost impressive Rotten Tomatoes rating of 0 percent — the studio dissolved. The division was revived in 2018, with “Barbie” as its first project.
Advertising within the film medium is not a new concept. Product placement has played an important role in funding Hollywood projects for decades. From Perrier water in the 1995 James Bond classic “Goldeneye” to the inclusion of a National Geographic issue in the 1946 holiday staple “It’s a Wonderful Life,” brands have long paid fantastic amounts of money to get their product into the public eye. More recently, Hasbro-branded Transformers films have captivated audiences since 2007 and the Marvel cinematic universe still stands strong.
Even the Barbie movie has been done before. The 2001 “Barbie in the Nutcracker” kicked off a sequence of 42 animated Barbie films over the last 20 years.
However, Gerwig’s “Barbie” takes it to the next level. The inclusion of Mattel Films throughout the creative process marks a departure from other movies that simply work alongside toy companies.
Additionally, the film brings Barbie dolls out of Barbie Land and into reality, signaling that Barbie dolls hold a significant material importance in the lives of women. Not only did “Barbie” bring record breaking revenue into the box office, but its focus on feminism and understanding of the female experience portrayed Barbie dolls as symbols of empowerment for young girls — an argument against a common criticism that Barbie dolls are sexist and exclusive.
Product placement typically drives individuals to associate a product with a character or idea presented in the movie before them. By giving Barbie humanity and centrality in the film, the Barbie doll product can take on new meanings and themes, especially in terms of empowerment. Here, film advertising is not so on the nose — it is essential to the fabric of the plot and trickles into the way consumers view the tangible product.
Outside of the actual movie, Mattel Films cultivated a unique excitement around the movie by leveraging prevailing consumer culture trends, drawing out childhood nostalgia and making strategic production decisions to fit the tastes of their intended audience. This level of investment into marketing seems quite novel, as the advertising works its way into the film and outside of it. Now, viewers and filmmakers alike are left with many questions about the future of both the film and advertising industries.
At the end of the day, “Barbie” worked. Whether subsequent films from Mattel films will reach the same box office numbers remains to be seen, but the studio is in full motion. Mattel Films currently has over 45 product-based movies in the works, ranging from an American Girl Doll comedy to a film revolving around the Uno card game. Coming off the tailend of “Barbie,” the group is promoting an upcoming Polly Pocket movie with Lily Collins and Lena Durham.
While the path ahead for Mattel Films and other corporation-based studios that are bound to pop up is unclear, it does seem certain that film marketing will change in a big way. Based on audience reactions over the summer, “Barbie” could be the beginning of a revolution in the way Hollywood and entertainment approach advertising, leading to expectations around corporate-filmmaker partnerships being the norm.
With such a collaborative effort, filmmakers gain financial resources unavailable to them in the independent route. On the other side of the screen, corporations benefit from higher interest in their products and positive public perception. Partnership seems like an obvious choice for many in the film industry, though some critics were at odds with director Greta Gerwig’s decision to work on such a heavily branded film.
When the move to push marketing to the max becomes so high stakes, creative freedom and regard for the avant-garde may suffer. Although Mattel Films let Gerwig get away with some gnarly criticism of their favorite doll, other companies may not be so keen to do the same.
At any rate, as filmmakers shift their creative endeavors to lucrative projects, perhaps the corporate movie offers a unique form of expression. Art deserves to be seen — and if Barbie, Polly Pocket or even Uno cards can fuel that visibility, then so be it.