[Moviegoing has unquestionably changed a great deal in recent years, but there is still a place for the summer blockbuster, and I believe there always will be. So for the unofficial kickoff of another summer season, I wanted to AmericanStudy a handful of recent such blockbusters!]
On what I
liked a lot about the recent mega-blockbuster, and what I loved.
In lieu of
a first paragraph here, I’m going to recommend that y’all check out an
excellent August
2024 podcast episode, of Liam Heffernan’s America: A
History podcast and featuring guests Jon Mitchell and Vaughn Joy, on both
the 2023 Barbie film and all things
Barbie. Take a listen if you get a chance, and then come on back (or
stay here first, whatever works for ya) for my own thoughts on the film.
There’s a
lot I enjoyed about Barbie, which made me laugh out loud a number of
times (no easy feat, as folks who know me can attest) and ultimately moved me
deeply. The most moving element is the one I’ll dive into in the final
paragraph, so for this one I’ll talk about a corollary to the humor—just how
consistently and thoughtfully the film took me by surprise. I don’t know what I
necessarily expected from a movie about the world of Barbie dolls, but I know
for sure that to my mind virtually nothing in this film was predictable—and yet
as I watched it pretty much every one of those unexpected elements also felt
natural, made sense within the world and story that was being created and portrayed.
I think that’s really a miracle when we’re talking about a film based on a toy,
which is what made it so silly when a ton of other toy-based
movies were greenlit (or at least considered) in the aftermath of Barbie’s
mega-success. Maybe the Polly
Pocket movie will be just as thoughtful and unique and effective, but boy
howdy do I doubt it.
Interestingly
enough, the thing I loved about Barbie, and the element that moved me
deeply, was in fact directly connected to the fact that this was a film
inspired by a toy. Nearly 13 years ago I blogged
about toys targeted at girls, and while I was focused there on new toys
like the girl-centric Legos, the truth is that dolls have been girl-centered
toys for
centuries at least. And at least in American history, no doll has been more
successful and enduring than Barbie, making this particular toy an easy and
understandable target for those who want to critique the gendering of toys and
childhood. That’s a perspective that the film certainly shares at times, but
ultimately it moves in a very different direction, considering how both Barbie
and the film’s human characters (especially the mother-daughter
duo at the story’s center) have to navigate these issues of gendered expectations,
ideals, limits, and more. That led up to one of my favorite movie moments in a
long time, Barbie’s conversation
with her creator Ruth Handler, which, to round off this post, was both
entirely unexpected and profoundly moving.
Last
blockbuster tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Summer blockbusters, recent or otherwise, you’d analyze?
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