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      ‘Barbie’ Debuts in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Delight, and Anger

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      Denounced in some Middle Eastern countries for undermining traditional gender norms, the hit movie is finding an audience in Saudi Arabia, illustrating the region’s shifting political landscape.On Friday night, Mohammed al-Sayed donned a pale pink shirt and denim overalls to join a friend at a movie theater in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where the men settled in to watch a film about a doll on a mission to dismantle the patriarchy.Similar scenes played out across the conservative Islamic kingdom last weekend, as women painted their nails pink, tied pink bows in their hair and draped pink floor-length abayas over their shoulders for the regional debut of the movie, “Barbie.” While critics across the Middle East have called for the film to be banned for undermining traditional gender norms, many Saudis ignored them.They watched as the movie imagined a matriarchal society of Barbie dolls where men are eye candy. They laughed when a male character asked, “I’m a man with no power; does that make me a woman?” They snapped their fingers in delight as a mother delivered a monologue about the strictures of stereotypical femininity. Then, they emerged from the darkened theaters to contemplate what it all meant.“The message is that you are enough — whatever you are,” said Mr. al-Sayed, 21, echoing the Ken doll’s revelation.“We saw ourselves,” said Mr. al-Sayed’s friend, Nawaf al-Dossary, 20, wearing a matching pink shirt.Watching Barbie’s search for identity and meaning, Mr. al-Sayed said he was reminded of the fraught period when he started college and wasn’t sure of his place in the world. He said he believed that the movie had important lessons for men as well as women.“I felt like my mom should see the film,” he said.“All of our families — all families,” Mr. al-Dossary said, laughing.That this was happening in Saudi Arabia — one of the most male-dominated countries in the world — was mind-boggling to many in the Middle East. When “Barbie” opened on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, it arrived suddenly and overwhelmingly. Moviegoers rushed to prepare Barbie-pink outfits. Some theaters scheduled more than 15 showings a day.Moviegoers wore pink during a screening of “Barbie” in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockA snide headline in the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat declared that Saudi cinemas had become “havens for Gulf citizens escaping from harsh restrictions” — a twist in a country whose people once had to drive to Bahrain to watch movies.Eight years ago, there were no movie theaters in the Saudi kingdom, let alone any showing films about patriarchy. Women were barred from driving. The religious police roamed the streets, enforcing gender segregation and shouting at women to cover up from head to toe in black.Since he rose to power, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, has done away with many of those restrictions while simultaneously increasing political repression, imprisoning conservative religious clerics, leftist activists, critical businessmen and members of his own family.Even now, despite sweeping social changes, Saudi Arabia remains a state built around patriarchy. By law, the kingdom’s ruler must be a male member of the royal family, and while several women have ascended to high-ranking positions, all of Prince Mohammed’s cabinet members and closest advisers are men. Saudi women may be pouring into the work force and traveling to outer space, but they still need approval from a male guardian to marry. And gay and transgender Saudis face deep-seated discrimination, and sometimes arrest.So as word spread through the kingdom that “Barbie” would debut on a delayed schedule — a sign that government censors were most likely deliberating over it — many Saudis thought the movie would be banned, or at least heavily censored. Bolstering their expectations was the fact that neighboring Kuwait banned the film last week.Lebanon’s culture minister, Muhammad Al-Murtada, also called for the film to be banned, saying that it violated local values by “promoting homosexuality” and “raising doubts about the necessity of marriage and building a family.” It is unclear if the government will follow his recommendation.Even in Arab nations that have allowed the film to be shown, it has faced intense criticism. The Bahraini preacher Hassan al-Husseini shared a video with one million Instagram followers calling the movie a Trojan horse for “corrupt agendas.”Even while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done away with many social restrictions in Saudi Arabia, he has increased political repression.Pool photo by Ludovic MarinAnd in Saudi Arabia, not everyone is receptive to the film. To the entrepreneur Wafa Alrushaid, who suggested that the film be banned in her country, its messages are a “distortion of feminism.”“I’m a liberal person who has called for freedom for 30 years, so this isn’t about customs and traditions, but the values of humanity and reason,” she told The New York Times. The film, she argued, excessively victimizes women and vilifies men, and she objected to the fact that a transgender actress had played one of the Barbies.“This film is a conspiracy against families and the world’s children,” Ms. Alrushaid, 48, declared.Many Arab critics of the movie expressed views similar to those of some American politicians and right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male. The tussle in the Middle East over the movie illustrates how battles that sometimes echo the so-called U.S. culture wars are playing out on a different landscape.The animated film “Lightyear,” which showed two female characters kissing, was banned in several countries in the region last year. And six Gulf Arab countries issued an unusual statement last year demanding that Netflix remove content that violates “Islamic and societal values and principles,” threatening to take legal action.In Kuwait, religious conservatives have become more vocal in recent years, Gulf analysts say, broadcasting views that many Saudis would be hesitant to express in public now, fearing repercussions from the government.“Banning the movie ‘Barbie’ fits into a larger tilt to the right that’s increasingly felt in Kuwait,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. “Islamist and conservative forces in Kuwait are relishing in these culture wars to prove their ascendancy.”Some Kuwaitis expressed astonishment that they would have to travel to the Saudi kingdom to watch the movie. Many pointed out the irony that Kuwait and Lebanon, despite objecting to the film, had long provided greater freedom of expression than many other Arab countries.Streaming out of movie theaters in Riyadh, people who watched “Barbie” seemed to leave with their own understanding.Lining up for “Barbie” in Dubai. Many Arab critics of the movie have expressed views similar to those of some American right-wing figures who have castigated the film as anti-male.Ali Haider/EPA, via ShutterstockYara Mohammed, 26, said that she had enjoyed the movie, dismissing the Kuwaiti ban as “drama.”“Even if kids saw it, it’s so normal,” she said.To Abrar Saad, 28, the message was simply that “the world doesn’t work without Ken or Barbie; they need to complete each other.”But to teenage girls like Aljohara and Ghada — who were accompanied by an adult and asked to be identified only by their first names because of their ages — the film felt deeper.“The idea was pretty realistic,” said Aljohara, 14, wearing a hot pink shirt underneath her black abaya. She said she liked that the film ended with a type of equality between men and women.“But it wasn’t nice that it ended with equality,” interjected Ghada, 16. “Because I feel like equality is a little bit wrong; I feel like it’s better for there to be equity because there are things a boy can’t do but you can do them.”Asked if they ever thought they would watch such a movie in Saudi Arabia, both exclaimed, with laughter: “No!”“I was expecting them to censor a lot of scenes,” Ghada said.In fact, it did not appear censors had cut anything major. A scene in which Barbie declares that she has no vagina and Ken no penis remained, as well as a scene with the transgender actress. The Arabic subtitles were rendered faithfully — including the word patriarchy.Hwaida Saad More

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      This Isn’t Barbie’s First Time Onscreen: She’s Been a Movie Star for Decades

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      Before Margot Robbie’s live-action take on the doll, Mattel put out more than a dozen animated films that have an avid following, even now.Every Christmas season starting when I was 5, my sister and I had a go-to movie: “Barbie in the Nutcracker.”We’d pop in the VHS tape and watch Barbie as Clara dance the night away with the Nutcracker on a journey to find the Sugarplum Princess and defeat the Mouse King. We cheered as she landed her prince and consoled each other when she lost him again.It was just the tip of our fandom for the animated Barbie films that Mattel began releasing at a rate of around one per year beginning with “Nutcracker” in 2001 and eventually totaling about 40 films. Our affection came to encompass VHS tapes of the first five princess movies, as well as my “Barbie of Swan Lake” eighth birthday party with an Odette ice cream cake and pink paper-swan tiaras (which my 70-something grandfather gamely donned).Though Greta Gerwig’s new live-action “Barbie,” which just crossed $1 billion at the box office, has been a smash, attracting reams of pink-clad moviegoers to cheer Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie and lust after Ken’s tie-dye “I Am Kenough” hoodie, it’s hardly the first beloved movie to feature the doll, as my sister and I well knew. But until recently, I thought the hold the animated films had on us was unique.And then I learned that there’s a whole generation obsessed with them, drawn perhaps by nostalgia for a simpler time of sparkly princess gowns, beautiful music and, despite a few obstacles, happy endings for Barbie and her friends.On college campuses across the country, 20-somethings host watch parties, mainlining hours at a time of the 90-minute animated adventures, the earliest of which feature classical scores played by illustrious outfits like the London Symphony Orchestra and star villains voiced by name actors like Martin Short (the traitorous Preminger in “The Princess and the Pauper”) and Tim Curry (a conniving Mouse King).There are dozens of TikTok accounts devoted to clips from the movies. On eBay, play sets associated with the earlier films — like the royal music palace from “Princess and the Pauper” — can command upward of $1,000.“There’s so much positivity in the movies, friendship, and love, that people can’t not love them,” said Hannah, a 26-year-old Barbie cosplayer in Neuberg, Germany. (The New York Times agreed to identify her only by her first name because of privacy concerns.) Since 2016, she has run a popular Instagram account in which she posts photos of herself dressed up as the franchise’s heroines, like Odette, Rapunzel and Clara. (“Nutcracker” is her favorite film.) The heroine always had to be portrayed as “kind, clever, brave,” said Kelly Sheridan, who voiced the doll in “Barbie of Swan Lake” (2003) and other entries in the franchise.Artisan EntertainmentOne reason she is so drawn to the early animated films, Hannah said, is the gorgeous backdrops and the fabulous fairy-tale wardrobe.“At first, my idea of making a Barbie ball gown for myself caused a lot of people around me to shake their heads and laugh,” she said. But she wanted to show them “that I could be whatever I wanted.”Even, she added, a princess.The success of the animated films, at first glance, is not obvious: The one regarded as the best, “The Princess and the Pauper,” sits at just 75 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have been lukewarm, with The New York Times calling “Barbie in the Nutcracker,” the first installment, a “pallid but likable” tale for “very small children.” Aspects like the greedy, hooknosed villain of “Swan Lake” have not aged well, provoking criticism for antisemitic tropes.The problems are painfully obvious to me now. But, on a recent rewatch, I also saw what had initially engrossed me and my sister: Barbie is incorruptible, resistant to the human forces of temptation, pride, selfishness. By the rules of fairy-tale logic — good things happen to good people — her happy ending is a foregone conclusion.Kelly Sheridan, the Canadian actress who voiced Barbie in 28 of the films between 2001 and 2015, said the initial mantra for the Barbie character was “kind, clever, brave.”“Barbie was flawless,” Sheridan, 46, said in a recent phone conversation from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. “She could do no wrong.”For instance, in “Nutcracker,” the script initially had Barbie as Clara stumbling when she carried a tray and catching herself before spilling it contents. But a meeting of the film’s producers and Mattel representatives led to a change because, Sheridan said, “Barbie would never stumble.”Another time, when she was recording the scene in which Clara confronts the Mouse King, a Mattel representative asked if Barbie could sound less angry. “Because Barbie would never be angry, even confronting the villain,” she said. “She was always kind, clever and brave.”The reins had loosened, she said, by the 16th film, “Barbie and the Three Musketeers,” in which an athletic, ambitious Barbie engages in sword fights. The studio, she said, realized people actually wanted to relate to her.“She was able to be more silly and goofy and to have more comedic moments,” she said.By the career-focused titles of the mid-2010s, Barbie had shed her princess gowns for pants. Now, she was exploring space, going on spy missions and designing video games.The artist known as Purcy, a 22-year-old illustrator who on Instagram posts her work picturing Barbie as various characters from the animated films, has seen 33 of the films. (She also asked not to use her full name for privacy reasons.) The ones she rewatches the most are set in the modern day, like her favorite, “Barbie: Princess Charm School.”The Barbie of those films, she said, “showed us that we can be kind, caring, feel love, love pink, while also be strong and standing up for ourselves.”For Hannah, the best Barbie animated films will always be the original princess tales.Whenever she attends a cosplay event or posts a photo of her costumes on Instagram, she said, both men and women approach her to share childhood memories they associate with the movies and the dolls.“Barbie connects us,” she said. More

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      ‘Barbie’ Is a Sleeper Hit in China

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      The movie has exceeded box office expectations, as China’s female moviegoers celebrate a film that addresses women’s rights head-on.There were plenty of reasons to think the “Barbie” movie might have a hard time finding an audience in China. It’s an American film, when Chinese moviegoers’ interest in, and government approval of, Hollywood movies is falling. It’s been widely described as feminist, when women’s rights and political representation in China are backsliding.But not only did the film screen in China — it has been something of a sleeper hit, precisely because of its unusual nature in the Chinese movie landscape.“There aren’t many movies about women’s independence, or that have some flavors of feminism, in China,” said Mina Li, 36, who went alone to a recent screening in Beijing after several female friends recommended it. “So they thought it was worth seeing.”Despite limited availability — the film, directed by Greta Gerwig, made up only 2.4 percent of screenings in China on its opening day — “Barbie” has quickly become widely discussed on Chinese social media, at one point even topping searches on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. It has an 8.3 rating on the movie rating site Douban, higher than any other currently showing live-action feature. Theaters have raced to add showings, with the number nearly quadrupling in the first week.Though not nearly as hotly anticipated as in the United States, where it left some movie theaters running low on refreshments, “Barbie” has set off its own mini-mania in some Chinese circles, with moviegoers posting photos of themselves decked out in pink or showing off glossy souvenir tickets. As of Wednesday, the movie has earned $28 million in China — less than the new “Mission Impossible,” but more than the latest “Indiana Jones.” American movies’ hauls have been declining in general in China, in part because of strict controls on the number of foreign films allowed each year.Mia Tan, a Beijing college student, saw “Barbie” with two friends, in an array of festive attire that included a peach-colored skirt and pink-accented tops. During a scene in which the Ken dolls realized that being male was its own qualification, she joked that the characters sounded like fellow students in their major.Theaters in China have raced to add showings of “Barbie,” with the number nearly quadrupling in the first week.Cfoto/Future Publishing, via Getty Images“The movie was great,” Ms. Tan said. “It used straightforward dialogue and an exaggerated plot to tell the audience about objective reality. Honestly, I think this is the only way to make women realize what kind of environment they’re in, and to make men realize how much privilege they’ve had.”The discussion about women’s empowerment that “Barbie” has set off is in some ways a rare bright spot for Chinese feminists. In recent years, the authorities have arrested feminist activists, urged women to embrace traditional gender roles and rejected high-profile sexual harassment lawsuits. State media has suggested that feminism is part of a Western plot to weaken China, and social media companies block insults of men but allow offensive comments about women.Some social media comments have disparaged “Barbie” as inciting conflict between the sexes, and moviegoers have shared stories of men walking out of theaters. (In the United States, conservatives have similarly railed against the movie.)At the same time, public awareness of women’s rights has been growing. Online discussions about topics such as violence against women have blossomed, despite censorship. While many of China’s top movies in recent years have been chest-thumping war or action movies, a few female-directed movies, about themes like complicated family relationships, have also drawn huge audiences.And the Chinese government has proved most intent on preventing feminists from organizing and gathering, rather than stopping discussions of gender equality writ large, said Jia Tan, a professor of cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Even some Chinese state media outlets have offered cautious praise of the movie’s themes. One said that “Barbie” “encourages contemplation of the status and portrayal of women.” Another quoted a film critic as saying it was normal that the topic of gender would stir disagreement, but that “Barbie” was actually about the perils of either men or women being treated with favor.In a sign of how Chinese women’s expectations have shifted, some of the most popular — and critical — online reviews of “Barbie” came from women who said it hadn’t gone far enough. Some said they had hoped a Western movie would be more insightful about women’s rights than a Chinese one could be, but found it still exalted conventional beauty standards or focused too much on Ken. Others said they felt compelled to give the movie a higher rating than it deserved because they expected men to pan it.Vicky Chan, a 27-year-old tech worker in Shenzhen, said she thought mainstream conversations about feminism in China were still in their early stages, focusing on surface-level differences between men and women rather than structural problems. The movie’s critique of patriarchy was ultimately gentle, she said — and that was probably why it had gotten such wide approval in China, she said in an interview. (Ms. Chan gave the movie two stars on Douban.)A display of Barbie toys in Beijing in 2013.Andy Wong/Associated PressSome lingering wariness of feminism and its implications was evident at the recent Beijing showing of “Barbie,” where several audience members — male and female — told a reporter that they saw the movie as promoting equal rights, not women’s rights. Opponents of feminism in China have tarred the movement as pitching women above men.The Chinese subtitles for “Barbie” translated “feminism” as “nu xing zhu yi,” or literally “women-ism,” rather than “nu quan zhu yi,” or “women’s rights-ism.” While both are generally translated as “feminism,” the latter is seen as more politically charged.Wang Pengfei, a college student from Jiangsu Province, also drew that distinction. He had liked “Barbie” so much that he wanted to take his mother to see it, feeling she would appreciate the movie’s climactic speech about the double standards imposed on women.But Mr. Wang also said he was alarmed by what he called extreme feminist rhetoric, with women declaring that they didn’t need men. He liked the movie, he said, because it hadn’t gone as far as some other films did.“If Chinese women are really going to become independent,” he said, “it won’t be because of movie gimmicks.”Vivian Wang More

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      ‘Barbenheimer’ Isn’t a Contest. But if It Were, Which Film Would Win?

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      It’s been an epic matchup, but it’s time to declare a victor. We devised nine super-scientific tests to determine whether “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer” rules.The simultaneous release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” captured the pop-cultural imagination because before we had seen either film, it was hard to imagine two features that occupied such distinctly different lanes. But now that audiences have sampled Greta Gerwig’s colorful Mattel comedy and Christopher Nolan’s weighty drama about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb, it’s become clear that for all their tonal differences, each film is a one-of-a-kind auteurist blockbuster pondering some pretty meaty existential questions.All this is a heady way of saying: Let’s pit ’em against each other!Who would win if there were an actual battle of Barbenheimer? To arrive at an answer, I’ve put each film through its paces in nine categories, with tests devised to measure them that are every bit as scientifically rigorous as the experiments conducted during Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project. (Note: This claim has not been fact-checked.)Culpability of protagonistTwo experts in the laser death stare: Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy as the Oppenheimers.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesDo Oppenheimer and Barbie both have blood on their hands? After racing to create an atomic bomb that will end World War II, Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) spends the final hour of his movie haunted by visions of the dead and wondering whether he has unleashed a nuclear arms race that will imperil the future of humanity. Barbie (Margot Robbie) is also forced to face her own complicated legacy: Upon entering the real world, where she expects to be greeted as a benevolent superstar, she is instead dressed down by teenage girls who deride her as a fascist has-been whose unrealistic beauty standards have harmed generations of women. At least Barbie can assuage her guilty conscience with a journey of self-discovery and you-go-girl support from America Ferrera; Oppenheimer has to endure a humiliating government hearing and a series of withering looks from Emily Blunt. Then again, it’s a level of flagellation he feels he deserves, which packs even more of a punch. Advantage: “Oppenheimer”Depiction of governanceMen rule the world in “Oppenheimer,” and their government is filled with vipers: After the war ends, battles are waged on the home front as ambitious apparatchiks scheme to discredit their rivals and formerly jovial colleagues are moved to stab one another in the back. The female-led government in “Barbie” rules over a comparative utopia that subs slumber parties for strife and posits that a dangerous coup perpetrated by angry, addled men can be undone simply by tricking them into a musical number. Who wouldn’t rather live in that world? Advantage: “Barbie”Depth of ensembleThe seeds of Barbenheimer were sown early in production as both films raced to cast half of Hollywood in their ever-swelling ensembles, and each cast came with some notable similarities. Leads Murphy and Robbie have both played Batman villains. (He was Scarecrow in Nolan’s Bat-features, while she was Harley Quinn for DC.) Each film features a hot young auteur in the cast — the “Uncut Gems” co-director Benny Safdie pops up throughout “Oppenheimer,” while “Barbie” has a cameo from the writer-director of “Promising Young Woman,” Emerald Fennell — as well as a next-generation Marvel star (Florence Pugh in “Oppenheimer,” Simu Liu in “Barbie”). “Oppenheimer” flexes a bit harder by filling even its smallest roles with Oscar winners like Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh and Casey Affleck, but “Barbie” had the good sense to wonder what Rhea Perlman has been up to lately, which ought to count for nearly as much. Ultimately, this category is just too close to call. TieFashionTa-da! Margot Robbie’s Barbie pulls off a western look with aplomb.Warner Bros. PicturesBarbie is a famous clotheshorse, and Gerwig’s movie more than delivers on the fashion front: Whether Robbie’s doll is wearing gingham dresses or disco jumpsuits, she takes costumes that could read as cosplay and makes them chic. You might not expect the same attention to sartorial detail from “Oppenheimer,” but 12 films into his career, one of Nolan’s cinematic trademarks has become impeccable suiting: After Oppenheimer is advised by a colleague to level up his look, we watch him don a hat and select a pipe in a sequence that Nolan shoots as portentously as Batman putting on body armor. Still, even though Murphy is striking in period garments, there can be only one victor in this category. We have no doubt that Barbie would look fashionable even in Oppenheimer’s tailored menswear, but could the theoretical physicist pull off her rollerblading look in eye-searing fluorescents? Advantage: “Barbie”CatchphrasesOppenheimer said that after the explosive test of the atomic bomb, a quote from Hindu scripture came to mind: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In Nolan’s film, we hear those words said by Oppenheimer, but the first time he speaks them is in an unusual sex scene with his recurring flame, Jean Tatlock (Pugh), in which she pauses coitus to fetch a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, then asks Oppenheimer to translate the famous quote from Sanskrit, sans clothes. (Kinky, yes, but Tatlock clearly knows that the way to this man’s heart is to first admire his bookshelf.) “Barbie” has its fair share of quotable lines — two Ken catchphrases, “I’m just Ken” and “I am Kenough,” have already set social media ablaze — but were any of them translated from the original Mattel? Advantage: “Oppenheimer”Usage of the color pinkIf anything pink has ever appeared on the set of one of Nolan’s films, it was only because Harry Styles hadn’t changed out of his concert wear before shooting “Dunkirk.” Meanwhile, “Barbie” features more pink than a clone army of Jigglypuffs downing rosé on the set of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” You knew who would win this category going in. Advantage: “Barbie”Usage of the color blueThink of the hat as a shield … to protect the audience from those baby blues.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via Associated Press“Oppenheimer” is about the moral cost of unleashing upon mankind the most terrifying and powerful weapon it has ever known: Murphy’s gigantic blue eyes. (Can you get radiation poisoning from a pair of peepers? If you watch “Oppenheimer” in IMAX, you may want to take precautions by gazing upon the screen through a pane of dark glass.) The beautiful cerulean sky of Barbie Land simply can’t compare to what Murphy is serving up: Even in the black-and-white portions of “Oppenheimer,” the actor’s eyes still feel bright blue. Advantage: “Oppenheimer”Sound designIn recent films, Nolan has employed a “wall of sound” approach that hits its apex in “Oppenheimer”: Every single minute is soundtracked by Ludwig Goransson’s propulsive score, while set pieces like the Trinity test and Oppenheimer’s foot-stomping gymnasium rally employ so much thunderous bass that they threaten to shake the entire multiplex. Though the film is a three-hour drama about men in lecture halls, classes and courtrooms, its soundscape blares with the blockbuster momentum of an action film, and for all its sonic sophistication, “Oppenheimer” is surely the front-runner for this year’s best-sound Oscar. Still, “Barbie” has a Dua Lipa song. Advantage: “Barbie”Box officeThe rising tide of Barbenheimer has lifted both films to smash-hit status. “Barbie” scored the biggest opening weekend of the year with $162 million, barely faltered in its second week, and is now on track to pass more than $1 billion worldwide and potentially dethrone “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as the year’s top grosser. And though other prestige dramas have struggled to connect at the box office since the pandemic, “Oppenheimer” has been thriving: Its $82 million opening weekend far surpassed any of Nolan’s non-superhero features, and the film’s final worldwide total could top $800 million, a stunning finish for a super-long biopic. Though “Barbie” is the clear winner here, this is a race with no loser. Advantage: “Barbie”Final resultThink pink! In the battle of Barbenheimer, Gerwig’s comedy ekes out a victory over “Oppenheimer,” proving that some fights can be finished with no nuclear escalation whatsoever. (But how would Gerwig’s “Little Women” fare against Nolan’s previous film, “Tenet”? Watch this space: If the strikes continue, I may have to write that.) More

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      How ‘Barbie’ Set Designers Brought Those Dreamhouses to Life

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      To make their Barbieland sets a reality, the movie’s production team embraced the surreal, going big on bright pinks and shrunken proportions.While working on films like “Atonement,” “Anna Karenina” and “Darkest Hour,” the production designer Sarah Greenwood and the set decorator Katie Spencer, both Oscar nominees many times over, had to turn soundstages into period-accurate sets, using their extraordinary attention to detail to embroider these spaces with texture and soul.And while those jobs were demanding — if even one thing looked wrong, it could dispel the film’s period illusion — they proved to be no match for the bright-pink studio comedy that is Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”“It was one of the most difficult philosophical, intellectual, cerebral pieces of work we’ve ever done,” Greenwood told me last week during a video call with Spencer. “How can that be? It’s ‘Barbie.’ But it really was.”Then again, since the film works on several levels, many things about “Barbie” are headier than you might expect: Though it’s a big-budget film based on a Mattel toy, Gerwig and her co-writer, Noah Baumbach, pose plenty of significant questions about life and womanhood throughout. And in the visually dazzling Barbie Dreamhouses that Greenwood and Spencer designed — where Margot Robbie, as Barbie, and Ryan Gosling, as Ken, performed — even the smallest details in the background required many months of existential pondering.“Everything is considered,” Spencer said. “Absolutely everything.”Though Gerwig came on board the project as a bona fide Barbie aficionado, Greenwood and Spencer had no personal history with the doll. “Neither of us had Barbie growing up,” Spencer said. “I suppose we were like a lot of the population, quite judgmental about Barbie in a way.”The film’s primary color was a vivid fuchsia. The production cleaned its paint supplier out of every pail they had.Warner Bros.Still, captivated by Gerwig’s enthusiasm, the two women threw themselves into intense research. Their directive was to preserve a sense of play, which is why Barbie’s home has no stairs: Why would a doll deign to descend a flight of steps when she could take a circular pink slide or, even better, float gracefully down from the roof as if guided by the invisible hand of a child?“We all had to believe in it as much as if it was a space movie or period movie,” Spencer said. “We had to research it as though it was set in 1780.”First, the designers studied a vintage Barbie Dreamhouse, finding it to be much more cramped than they anticipated: A classically proportioned Barbie could graze the ceiling of each room with a simple upward swivel of her arm.To simulate that feel, “the Dreamhouses in the film are 23 percent smaller than they would be, as are the cars and roads,” Greenwood said. “When you scale the house down, you make the actors like Margot and Ryan seem bigger, which makes the whole thing seem ‘toy.’”Instead of adapting the Dreamhouses to feel more real, Greenwood and Spencer played up their surreality. When Barbie opens her refrigerator, most of the foods are simply flat cartoon decals. Her oversize cup contains no liquid — why should it, when Barbies don’t drink? — and the size of her toothbrush is even more exaggerated, since it’s the kind of prop a child might find included in a dollhouse.“Once you’ve done that once or twice, those moments of dollness, it makes the whole thing believable,” Spencer said.With few walls to speak of, Barbie Dreamhouses are the definition of “open plan,” which presented its own logistical problems. “You’re designing something that isn’t there, in effect,” said Greenwood, who drew inspiration from museum dioramas to conjure layers of background that would help fill each shot. Since our main Barbies live in a cul-de-sac — in fact, it’s the dot of the “i” in the cursive roads that spell “Barbieland” — each Dreamhouse looks out into several other Dreamhouses, while the blue sky and mauve mountains that surround them were hand-painted onto an 800-foot-long backdrop meant to recall old-fashioned soundstage musicals.If it feels artificial, that’s the point: Why preserve the fourth wall for homes that barely have any walls to begin with? “It’s fake-fake, which is perfect,” Greenwood said. “It was almost Brechtian, the way Greta approached it.”Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. Her home stands in contrast to the style of the film’s Barbie Dreamhouses.Warner Bros.There is no actual fire in Barbie’s fireplace, nor water in her pool, since Barbieland is devoid of all elements and is as hermetically sealed as a toy box. There aren’t even whites, blacks or browns: Anything in a Dreamhouse that would typically be those colors is just a different shade of pink, with a primary fuchsia so vivid that the production cleaned its paint supplier out of every pail they had.“All the other colors, like the blues, had to up the ante,” Greenwood said, referring to their intensity.The cul-de-sac Dreamhouses were designed in a midcentury-modern style that evokes the time period when Barbie was invented. “We kept coming back to the aesthetic of Palm Springs,” Spencer said. In contrast to those homes, distinguished by clean and simple lines, was the postmodern house on a hill owned by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) — a riot of weird angles and clashing colors, as if Pee-wee’s Playhouse emerged in the middle of a carefully constructed pop-up book.“It was once a Dreamhouse, and it all went a little bit cockeyed, like her,” Greenwood said. “Nothing there was straight, in any sense of the word.”Like its owner, whose face is covered in scribble marks, the walls of Weird Barbie’s house are adorned in doodle patterns and swirls, and there are plenty of other colors on display besides pink. (The primary color on one wall is even, gasp, green.) The other Barbies treat her domicile as if it were a witch’s house, but you can’t deny that Weird Barbie has an eye. Greenwood and Spencer singled out her irregular rainbow rug as a favorite that everyone hoped to take home.“We all wanted her rug, but it’s gone into the Warner Bros. vault of goods,” Spencer said. “But I love the fact that in this vault where you have to go through so much security, you have the Batmobile and then you have Barbie’s car.”Weird Barbie’s house isn’t the movie’s only deviation: Later in the story, after a trip to the real world tips off Ken to the power of the patriarchy, he returns home and exhorts the other Kens to turn the pink and girlie Barbieland into their own personal “Ken-dom.” Soon enough, they’ve staged a hostile takeover of the Dreamhouses — rechristened the “Mojo Dojo Casa Houses” — and given those buildings a man-cave makeover replete with La-Z-Boys, mini fridges and appalling equestrian lampshades.From left, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ryan Gosling and Ncuti Gatwa, three of the film’s Kens.Warner Bros. “We had to keep going back to Greta and saying, really? Really ugly?” Greenwood said. “But there’s a purity to the ugliness as well, because it’s a limited palate.”That’s because these himbos aren’t sure where all of their purloined swag ought to go, or even what most of it does. Barbecues have been placed haphazardly onto ovens, the juicers are filled with Doritos, and flat-screen TVs in every Mojo Dojo Casa House are tuned to the same hypnotically banal clip of a horse in eternal gallop.”He’s no interior designer, Ken,” Spencer said, chuckling. “But can I just say, a lot of the crew wanted to buy things from the Ken-dom. I’m not saying who, but a lot of them did.”The film was shot last year at Warner Bros.’s Leavesden Studios, about 20 miles northwest of London, and as word of the colorful sets spread, the production quickly attracted its fair share of visitors. “We were filming in an English winter, gray and black with snow,” Greenwood said. “So everybody would just come in there for an injection of light and summer.”Added Spencer: “It made people happy. You couldn’t help but smile.”And what of its makers? Did all that time spent on these “Barbie” sets affect their personal palette? Yes, confessed Greenwood.“I’ve painted my bedroom pink, literally,” she said. “I’d never painted anything pink before. I love pink now!” More

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      How the Indigo Girls Brought Barbie ‘Closer to Fine’

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      A 1989 song about soul searching has maintained cultural relevance for three decades, but the band has also long been the target of homophobic jokes. Fans are savoring a moment of vindication.In Greta Gerwig’s Barbieland, where every day is the best day ever, pop stars like Lizzo, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX provide a bouncy soundtrack as the live-action dolls go about their cheery, blissful lives. That is, until Margot Robbie’s “stereotypical” Barbie cues a record scratch with a rare and shocking existential query: “Do you guys ever think about dying?”To resolve this disruption to her otherwise perfect life, she hops in her pink Corvette and belts along to a track filled with strummed acoustic guitars and close harmonies. “There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line,” she sings with a smile, before thrusting a manicured pointer in the air.Barbie’s song of choice on her way to the Real World is the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.”The Indigo Girls, a folk duo from Georgia who have released 15 studio albums since 1987, featured “Closer to Fine” as the opening track on their self-titled 1989 LP. Emily Saliers wrote the song after she and her fellow singer and guitarist, Amy Ray, graduated from Emory University in Atlanta and were regularly playing a local bar called Little Five Points. It became a staple of the Girls’ live show that spread thanks to college radio play and an opening slot on tour with another Georgia band, R.E.M.It’s a song about seeking, Saliers said by phone this month: “I searched here and I searched there, and if I just try to take it easy and get a little bit of knowledge and wisdom from different sources, then I’m going to be closer to fine.”“Closer to Fine,” with its four-chord verses, octave-jumping chorus and slightly inscrutable lyrics, has been a staple of dorm room singalongs, karaoke excursions and car rides for years, and it is the Indigo Girls’ most identifiable tune. “Indigo Girls,” their first album for a major label, went double platinum and won a Grammy.“It’s got a very easy melody and really easy chorus, and the chorus repeats,” Saliers said. “When you get to a chorus of a song that you’re into and you can just sing it at the top of your lungs, I think just structurally, melodically, it’s really a road trip song and I think that’s why you see it in those kinds of scenes.”Ray said “Closer to Fine” represents 80 percent of the band’s licensing, but the duo are generally told very little about how their music will be used. They don’t allow commercials, but have had successful soundtrack and onscreen placements in films like “Philadelphia” and TV shows including “The Office” and “Transparent.” In 1995, the duo starred as Whoopi Goldberg’s house band in the movie “Boys on the Side.”“I think it was really important at that time for us to reach more people,” Ray said in a phone interview. “Those kinds of things are just invaluable for an artist.”The Indigo Girls have a similar hope for “Barbie,” already a global phenomenon with powerhouse marketing and intergenerational brand recognition. A “Closer to Fine” cover by Brandi and Catherine Carlile appears on the expanded edition of the movie’s soundtrack.“I always felt that song was really defining of who they were in that era,” Brandi Carlile said in an interview. “That, even more than lesbians, what they were was intellectuals. They were offering up a life beyond the life that young people knew. And it’s a very young person’s song,” she added. “It’s about seeking out more than you thought you believed.”Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in the movie. “It’s really a road trip song,” Saliers said of the band’s most recognizable tune.Warner Bros. PicturesStill, given little context in an initial call from their manager, Saliers said she was nervous. “I didn’t know who was directing it or anything, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is about Barbie? We better check to make sure this is kosher,’” she recalled. “But as it turned out, it’s in the hands of Greta and it’s just this amazing thing that happened. It was a complete surprise to me and Amy.”Ray called it a gift: “It’s just absolutely wonderful that they’re using it.”“Closer to Fine” recurs in the film three times and appears in its official trailer, but it’s been recirculating in pop culture organically, too. In March, a video of the comedian Tig Notaro singing it on a party bus alongside a crew that included Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Sarah Paulson blew up online. The band’s latest album, “Long Look,” arrived in 2020, and they have been on a tour (typically closing with the tune) that touches down in Ireland and Britain next month.“You don’t imagine a folk lesbian duo to be in this hot-pink Barbie movie,” said Notaro, who has been a fan since seeing the “Closer to Fine” video on MTV’s alternative rock show “120 Minutes.” “Kind of just selfishly and personally, I feel like, ‘Yeah, we were onto something all these years,’ you know? It’s validating. Obviously it’s been a huge hit forever, but this is so next level.”“When I hear a song like that,” she added, “it feels like just my chest bursts open with joy and hope.”The Indigo Girls are also the subject of a documentary, “It’s Only Life After All,” directed by Alexandria Bambach, which premiered at Sundance in January. The film serves as a reminder of how Saliers and Ray, both openly queer and from religious Southern backgrounds, endured scrutiny and prejudice as “Closer to Fine” put them in an early spotlight.“For the longest time I always felt we were the brunt of lesbian jokes in kind of a lowest common denominator,” Saliers says in the documentary. Ray echoed those sentiments in the film, saying, “It seemed like the most derogatory thing you could be is a female gay singer-songwriter.”Critics would refer to them as too earnest or overly pretentious, if they covered them at all. The duo were used to comic effect on “Saturday Night Live” and “South Park”; even Ellen DeGeneres employed them as a punchline after her character came out on national television on her sitcom “Ellen.”“That time period that really was just so critical of women — of queer women, of women that didn’t present the way that a patriarchal system wanted them to,” Bambach said. “I think it’s a really critical time for us to be looking back at, you know, just things that we scoffed or laughed off or said were OK.”Brandi Carlile said after watching the duo take so many shots over the years, the “Barbie” moment is extra sweet. “The real injustice of how the Indigo Girls have been treated throughout these last few decades is that they’ve been used as kind of this dog whistling acceptable way to sort of parody lesbians, and I always felt destabilized by it,” she said. “And so seeing something like this happen for them on this scale and watching them and that iconic kind of life-affirming song make its way to new ears is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in years.”The singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt, 29, found the Indigo Girls in high school but further embraced them in college, when she said their music gave her the confidence to write personal and descriptive lyrics from her experiences as a gay woman.“Representation in culture is the biggest, the single most important thing I think for people to fully embrace themselves,” she said. “You need all these different examples of who you’re allowed to be, and the answer is anybody — you’re allowed to be anybody.”Pruitt called “Closer to Fine” the “northern star” of songwriting. “It’s incredible that it’s having a resurgence in 2023” in “a franchise that I grew up associating with extreme heteronormativity,” she said. “I love how now they’re rebranding it as something incredibly inclusive.”Bambach, who discovered the Indigo Girls during singalongs led by counselors at youth summer camp, saw “Barbie” on opening weekend in Atlanta and said there were screams of joy and recognition when “Closer to Fine” played onscreen.“It’s very gratifying to think that there’s something that this very fine director saw in the song that had cultural relevance in this day and time,” Saliers said. But above all, she appreciates that time has allowed listeners to step back and appreciate the band’s music as simply music.“We’re finally allowed to just be us,” Saliers said. “I guess we’ve stuck around long enough and it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just Amy and Emily.’ We no longer are the brunt of a joke and we’re flourishing in certain ways in terms of this relevancy, which is gratifying. It’s strange, you know, to watch culture change and move — and it really has changed for us.” More

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      ‘Barbie’ Fans Show Up in Style

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      Fans nationwide shopped their closets for the rosiest interpretations of the Barbie ethos: sparkly bags, open-toed pumps, stretchy headbands and more.Karma Masselli woke up Thursday morning knowing it was a special day. The “Barbie” movie was finally here.Masselli, 26, and her group of about 25 friends began the festivities by rummaging through their closets for sheer pants and polyester shirts and pink Crocs to assemble their outfits, each representing a different doll: Cowgirl Barbie, Sporty Barbie, Vintage Barbie, Malibu Barbie, Mermaid Barbie and more.Next was “Barbie brunch” at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, featuring an array of pink foods, including pink deviled eggs, pop tarts, pasta salad with beets and pink salsa.“It felt like it was the Super Bowl at our ‘Barbie brunch,’” Masselli said. “It felt like we were getting together and having a holiday about girliness.”By afternoon, the group arrived in Manhattan, at the AMC in Kips Bay, to watch the long-awaited film. The screening was delayed for 25 minutes, but once the film started the packed theater erupted in applause. People clapped and cheered and guffawed as the Warner Bros. logo — in pink — appeared onscreen and when Barbie was introduced.“It was amazing,” Masselli said, emerging from the theater. “I cried.”Accessorizing, à la Barbie.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesRocking the orange midriff look with a little pink purse.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesStephen Solomon, Ezra Weingartner, Katy O’Connell, and Xandra Abney show off Barbie-inspired outfits outside the AMC Lincoln Square theater in Manhattan on July 20.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesMasselli, who wore a hot pink tank top with sparkling pink pants, was one of many New Yorkers who turned out for the opening weekend of “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken.Starting Thursday afternoon, at theaters across the country and even overseas, seats were sold out to crowds brimming with color — one color in particular. Some clutched their favorite dolls, while others greeted friends with, “Hi, Barbie,” grinning.Many fans also chose to see a double feature by watching both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb. The unlikely pairing of these two smashingly successful films resulted in the movie event of the summer and the biggest box office weekend since 2019.“You could just feel the excitement, the energy and the joy in the theater,” said Stephen Solomon, 24, who saw “Barbie” at the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side. “It felt like an event.”Mary Albus, 28, entered the AMC Kips Bay theater holding a vintage Barbie doll, which she got on her 21st birthday. Albus shares the doll with her group of friends — the “sisterhood of the Traveling Barbie” — passing it around from friend to friend. Vintage Barbie was at one friend’s wedding in North Carolina; she has also been to Chicago, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.Mary Albus, 28, carries a Barbie doll outside the AMC Kips Bay theater.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesIt just happened that the “Barbie” movie premiered during Albus’s turn with the doll.“They were like, ‘You have to take her to the Barbie movie,’” Albus said.May Haaf said seeing the movie with her 9-year-old daughter, Arya, was a bonding event and a way to celebrate female empowerment. Both wore matching white and pink “Barbie” T-shirts.“It’s like a new generation of movies where women can be individuals and not be married, and you don’t have to settle for anything,” Haaf said.Other fans who watched the movie also related to the film’s themes of female empowerment.Zoila Morillo, with a President Barbie sash, outside AMC Kips Bay theater.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesMay Haaf saw the movie with her 9-year-old daughter.Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“You could just feel the excitement, the energy and the joy in the theater,” one fan said. “It felt like an event.”Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“The movie especially was a really great commentary on the difficulties of being a woman but also how beautiful it is at the same time and the dichotomy that exists in womanhood,” said Sadie Veach, 23, who was wearing a pink pantsuit and pink eyeliner. Veach’s friend, Taylee Mathis, 25, was wearing a pink shirt and pants and carrying a skateboard. She said she grew up loving Barbie dolls, watching the Barbie animated movies and dressing like Barbie.“She’s more than just pink,” Mathis said. “With Barbie you can be anybody you want to be.”Maansi Srivastava contributed reporting. More

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      ‘Barbenheimer’ Is a Huge Hollywood Moment and Maybe the Last for a While

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      The big launch of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” should have been a celebratory moment, but an industry on pause has darkened the mood.Margot Robbie in “Barbie” and Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer” will help bring hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts this weekend.Warner Bros Pictures/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressThe film industry’s happiest weekend in a long time may also be its last happy weekend for many months.With the dual opening of “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s comedy based on the Mattel doll, and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the mastermind behind the atomic bomb, the pop culture phenomenon of “Barbenheimer” is upon us. Though the movies are wildly different in style and tone, by helpfully landing on the same day, the buildup has so captured the public consciousness that many movie fans, who have been slow to return to theaters at all, are eager to watch two of the year’s most anticipated titles back-to-back.Analysts have predicted a record-breaking box office weekend: “Barbie” will debut well north of $150 million domestically and may even top the opening gross of this year’s champ, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Oppenheimer,” also in its first weekend, is set to make more than $50 million, a thunderous achievement for a dense, three-hour drama. For a theatrical sector still battered by the pandemic and diminished by the rise of streaming, this potent double win would normally presage popped corks all over Hollywood.But any champagne will come with caveats, as the two movies open during a dual strike that has brought the industry to a near-standstill.On Friday, the Hollywood actors’ strike reached the one-week mark, after the 160,000 members of the SAG-AFTRA union joined members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since May. Both labor actions are expected to last for months, scuttling plans to put new studio films into the pipeline and jeopardizing the ones already set to come out, since actors have been ordered not to promote them during the strike.“It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times,” said Michael Moses, who oversaw the release of “Oppenheimer” in his role as the chief marketing officer for Universal Pictures.He noted that in the past few weeks, as the “Barbenheimer” hype grew, so did the animosity between the guilds and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios. With both sides entrenched and the strikes expected to continue into the fall, the mood for many in Hollywood this weekend will shift between joy and unease.“Celebrations are tempered,” Moses said. “But we still need a healthy business on the far side of this.”Even those cheering the success of “Barbenheimer” fear this weekend’s box-office sugar high might be short-lived. There are no other “Barbie”-level blockbusters on the release calendar until “Dune: Part Two” on Nov. 3, and even that sci-fi sequel could be delayed until next year if the actors’ strike persists, since stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Austin Butler would be forbidden to take part in the film’s global press tour.Already, some upcoming films have had their release plans modified as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The Helen Mirren drama “White Bird” and A24’s Julio Torres comedy “Problemista” were supposed to launch in August and are now without an official release date, while “Challengers,” a tennis romance starring Zendaya, on Friday abdicated its prestigious slot as the opening-night title at the Venice Film Festival, which begins Aug. 30. That film, like the Emma Stone comedy “Poor Things,” had been set for theatrical release in September in order to capitalize on a starry press push at Venice. Now “Challengers” has moved to April 2024, according to Deadline.Venice and the Toronto International Film Festival will announce their full lineups next week, and though those slates have the chance to build on the movie-loving momentum offered by “Barbenheimer” weekend, many wonder if they’ll be lacking the starry prestige titles studios normally send there. “If ‘Oppenheimer’ were a fall movie and I was taking it to Toronto, I think we’d probably at this point have decided not to take it,” said that film’s awards strategist, Tony Angelotti, citing the cost of reserving travel and lodging for the cast and makers of a major movie: “Would they refund your money if the strike continues?”While Hollywood braces itself for the next strike-related shoe to drop, Scott Sanders is feeling an unwelcome case of déjà vu. As one of the producers of a new movie-musical adaptation of “The Color Purple,” Sanders has spent months poring over a meticulous release strategy for the Fantasia Barrino-led film, due in theaters on Christmas Day. But all of that hard work could be dashed if Warner Bros. delays the movie, as it did three years ago with another Sanders-produced musical: “In the Heights” was pushed a full year to June 2021 because of the pandemic, and then released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.Sanders said the studio has assured him that, so far, no discussions have been had about bumping “The Color Purple” into 2024. Still, he said, “If the other big tentpole holiday movies or awards-bait films start to shift, frankly, I’m going to be nervous.” He added, “The optimist in me thinks we have six or seven more weeks before we have to start taking Pepto Bismol.”The hype around “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” could rekindle a love for moviegoing, Sanders said, but there might be few titles left to capitalize on it. “Are we going to keep the momentum going from this weekend?” he said. “Or are we going to suddenly pull the emergency stop in the next month or two and go back to square one again?”If that cord is pulled, it will have a significant ripple effect. Theaters that are barely back from the brink since the pandemic would be tested once again, while the films that were already dated for 2024 might be forced to free up space. And without the usual influx of year-end prestige films, this year’s awards season could look very different — and, in another way, all-too-familiar.“Worst-case scenario, every studio on the planet decides to move their fourth-quarter movies into next year,” Sanders mused. “Suddenly, the last contenders for awards are ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’ Then what happens?” More