On Friday evening, as Barbie fever took over movie theaters across America \u2014 and the world \u2014 one scene struck me as romantic, poignant and sort of beautiful. But it wasn\u2019t a scene from the feel-good movie, which was designed to lift spirits while taking some swipes at the patriarchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joanne\u2019s Trattoria, a small Italian restaurant on New York\u2019s Upper West Side owned by Lady Gaga\u2019s family, had gotten in on the Barbie buzz by offering $5 glasses of ros\u00e9 all day long. Sitting at the bar on Friday evening was a 20-something woman dressed in head-to-toe pink. She had already seen \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d the other big movie that opened over the weekend, and was on her way to see \u201cBarbie\u201d at the local AMC It felt like a scene from a rom-com. The outside world faded away, giving us an opportunity to forget about rising prices and interest rates, the red\/blue political divide, the possibility of recession and whatever else is troubling Americans. Movies ask us to suspend our disbelief, but with the help of the color pink as a \u201cBarbie\u201d uniform, fans managed to do that before the opening credits even rolled.<\/p>\n And although this fan was alone, she was joining in a national, even global experience \u2014 one that feels welcome three years after the start of the pandemic, the most traumatic collective experience of her generation. She didn\u2019t need girlfriends for this night out: She would soon become part of a sea of pink in the auditorium.<\/p>\n And she was smiling, even after seeing the dark, three-hour biopic about Robert J. Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb. It felt like Halloween, when people get to dress up, act silly and forget about their troubles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n \u201c<\/span>Movies ask us to suspend our disbelief, but many \u201cBarbie\u201d fans had managed to do that before the opening credits even rolled. It felt like Halloween, when people get to dress up, and forget their troubles.\u00a0\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Her cheerfulness was contagious. I too forgot about my troubles and wanted to find myself in Barbie\u2019s Dreamworld. Tickets, however, were sold out at most theaters, the only available seats in the front row. The pink lady had booked her seat two weeks before and still had to settle for a row near the front. But it was worth it for her to feel like part of something bigger than herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Variety said that Warner Bros. has pulled off the marketing campaign of the year with \u201cBarbie.\u201d But it was even more than that, a campaign of \u201cStar Wars\u201d proportions that found its way into every aspect of American life. Airbnb \u201cBarbie,\u201d directed by Greta Gerwig, glided her way to No. 1 last weekend with $155 million in ticket sales from North American theaters, making it the biggest movie debut of the year and setting a first-weekend record for a movie directed by a woman. For context: Marvel\u2019s The reviews for \u201cBarbie\u201d were mostly positive, with some describing it as a \u201cmiracle,\u201d although others were not quite so enthusiastic. What accounts for the fact that 65% of the opening-weekend audience was female? Barbie is a doll, but she is also emblematic of a different time. Community can create nostalgia, psychologists and social scientists say, but nostalgia can also create community.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe current level of uncertainty and turbulence and anxiety accounts for part of that crossover among genders,\u201d said Nancy Wong, professor of consumer science at University of Wisconsin-Madison. \u201cPeople associate Barbie with a more comfortable, simple and stable time in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Even Comcast Universal\u2019s It doesn\u2019t matter. Gerwig and Warner Bros. \u201cThe marketing for Barbie has been insane,\u201d said Kristina Durante, a professor of marketing and department chair at Rutgers University\u2019s business school.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n \u201c<\/span>\u2018Barbie is taking issues about equity, body image, inclusion, diversity, intersectionality, politics and the patriarchy, all of the stuff we\u2019re dealing with in such a divided country.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p>\n
\n AMC,
\n
\n theater.<\/p>\n
\n ABNB,
\n
\n listed an actual Barbie Dreamhouse for rent. Microsoft
\n MSFT,
\n
\n released a custom Barbie Xbox Series S. Dressed in pink, the ros\u00e9 lady was now part of this cultural phenomenon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n DIS,
\n
\n Black Panther, the first mainstream Black superhero movie, earned more than $200 million in its opening weekend in 2018. The fact that Barbie managed to bring in two-thirds of that revenue is no small feat.<\/p>\nA \u2018goodwill\u2019 double-bill<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n CMCSA,
\n
\n \u201cOppenheimer\u201d \u2014 which opened to $80 million in ticket sales last weekend \u2014 couldn\u2019t stop Barbie in her tracks. In fact, the \u201cBarbenheimer\u201d double-bill phenomenon only added more buzz to a historic opening weekend for the movie industry. Gerwig and \u201cBarbie\u201d star Margot Robbie embraced the #Barbenheimer hashtag and posed in front of a poster for the rival movie, holding their tickets aloft. Was this part of the marketing campaign too?<\/p>\n
\n WBD,
\n
\n did something that few other moviemakers or studios do: lean into the competition and say it\u2019s OK to see another film too. When was the last time you saw such a message of peace and goodwill from Corporate America? The opening weekend is usually a cutthroat business for studios, and trade publications feverishly report on what movie makes it to No. 1.<\/p>\n
\n