Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex
Speaker 1: and Frooms catch up podcast Barbie.
Speaker 2: It's Barbie Mania in Australia and all over the world.
Speaker 2: It's taken over by storm, which I'm not mad about.
Speaker 3: I was loving it in the sense that it's nice
Speaker 3: to see people be really enthusiastic about stuff. I feel
Speaker 3: like when it comes to pop culture people the bell
Speaker 3: curve between like this is really cool.
Speaker 4: So this is lame.
Speaker 3: It's literally one business day and if you're not on
Speaker 3: it when it's hot, you don't even get to participate.
Speaker 4: Did this gone for a bit too long? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Did we need every single store and brand in existence
Speaker 3: to collab?
Speaker 4: We did not.
Speaker 3: However, I imagine there's a lot of money to be made,
Speaker 3: and they made it.
Speaker 4: I can see why they did it.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that universe.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, you know, for a lot of
Speaker 3: people who have a very close nostalgic relationship to Barbie,
Speaker 3: it was a nice time to get near it Barby.
Speaker 4: No, it wasn't really a.
Speaker 3: Dull player Older Brothers, Tonka Truck, No, just I just
Speaker 3: did what they did. So watch TV and wrestling and stuff,
Speaker 3: Crash Bandicoot, Yes, me too. Me too, Queen.
Speaker 4: So I like hype.
Speaker 3: I like mania. I like getting involved in things. I
Speaker 3: like feeling I'm part of a movement. The thing that
Speaker 3: I didn't understand about all the Barbie promo is that
Speaker 3: none of us knew what the movie was about the
Speaker 3: whole time. And that's what was confusing me about the hype,
Speaker 3: because initially I was like, Oh, did you see as
Speaker 3: Traitler or something that got you all excited? Thus the
Speaker 3: movie is coming out, And granted, I know people love
Speaker 3: Margot Robbie, but I didn't know they loved her in
Speaker 3: the sense where they felt really strongly about her as
Speaker 3: an actress. I thought they loved her as a personality.
Speaker 3: So then I was really surprised and people were getting
Speaker 3: really excited for Margot to be Barbie. For example, when
Speaker 3: people get really excited about Meryl Street doing something, it's
Speaker 3: because you've seen her legacy of creating, so you're really
Speaker 3: really aware of what she can bring to a role, etc.
Speaker 2: I actually believe that Margaret is like Meryl, Like I
Speaker 2: actually think that people like her as an actor, not
Speaker 2: a personality, because she doesn't do that much.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have Instagram.
Speaker 3: That's why I wasn't sure, Like I didn't know that
Speaker 3: people liked her in that way. I watched ititania, I
Speaker 3: loved it, you know, but I was like, oh, I
Speaker 3: didn't know she had hype like this, especially coming off
Speaker 3: the back of the Internet turning on her for a
Speaker 3: little bit, which is so strange. It's a discussion happening
Speaker 3: right now in the in cell community. They're doing all
Speaker 3: these posts turning on women they once like heralded as
Speaker 3: gold standard. They're all saying Zendaea as mid, Margo is mid.
Speaker 3: Are you people insane?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They literally lost it. That's what took me out of
Speaker 3: the hype for a second. That I felt like I
Speaker 3: was getting really excited about something that didn't exist for
Speaker 3: a moment. And the more you try I tried to
Speaker 3: seek for information, the more confused it became. Though I
Speaker 3: did like that a brand like Barbie could generate that
Speaker 3: much hype.
Speaker 4: Nobody even knew what it was about. But everyone was like,
Speaker 4: this is gonna be sick.
Speaker 1: Well pink, pink, beautiful outfits.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just missed that.
Speaker 1: I have not been excited about a film like this.
Speaker 4: How did they do it?
Speaker 2: I think it's got to do with the idea that
Speaker 2: Margot Robbie looks like a Barbie. Sometimes, especially in this climate,
Speaker 2: people get upset and up in arms about diversity and
Speaker 2: like things look in a certain way.
Speaker 4: Let her cook, Let her cook, people get let her cook?
Speaker 2: What sin Yeah, particularly no, I'm talking about the in
Speaker 2: cell community.
Speaker 1: Our half of the community of people out there are
Speaker 1: like the mom mad sor look like this. This does
Speaker 1: just look like this.
Speaker 2: So finally they get what they want, which is Robbie
Speaker 2: looking like a Barbie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing.
Speaker 3: That's really surprised me about the Barbie movie is the
Speaker 3: phrase marketing budget. You guys have never seen a marketing
Speaker 3: budget in your life, Okay, and now all of a
Speaker 3: sudden you know about P and L.
Speaker 4: What's the marketing budgets?
Speaker 1: And the Barbie movie?
Speaker 2: What's the marketing budget above a line, below line.
Speaker 3: The thing that I don't think I love about twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three and beyond is that we don't live in
Speaker 3: smoke and mirrors enough. I don't want to hear marketing
Speaker 3: budget when we're talking about seeing branding everywhere.
Speaker 4: It's too close to it.
Speaker 1: We'll eat at your bottom line. I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it.
Speaker 4: Start to my bottom line.
Speaker 3: But I just feel like we don't even live in
Speaker 3: the mystery or the fantasy of something being created and
Speaker 3: the pandemonium of it. We're not even just sitting at
Speaker 3: it and enjoying it for what it is. We go
Speaker 3: straight to logistics. But how does it work? And when
Speaker 3: do they start talking about it? And like when did
Speaker 3: they start filming? And what's the budget and what.
Speaker 4: Do they get paid.
Speaker 3: It's like, also, we don't even know what the movie
Speaker 3: is about. We have some controversial opinions about Barbie. The
Speaker 3: thing about seeing a movie before the rest of the
Speaker 3: world is that I don't want to be the person
Speaker 3: who throws the first stone. I don't I've seen what
Speaker 3: the internet does to people. There's glean in your eyes,
Speaker 3: though smiling as I say, I don't want to be
Speaker 3: the person who throws the first stone. So I will
Speaker 3: allude at my feelings as we will do right now.
Speaker 3: We recognize that this is a place where spoilers should
Speaker 3: not be present, so we will agree that on air
Speaker 3: we will not spoil the movie.
Speaker 4: We will, however, give honest opinions. Right now, Let's.
Speaker 2: Use three describing terms for how we felt about the movie.
Speaker 2: Number one, boring, I'm so sorry. Number two confused not confusing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but confused.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, it's a big difference. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: And third, let me actually get up my notes for
Speaker 2: something that I sense. Oh, there's quite a few words
Speaker 2: here typing.
Speaker 4: In you know, you distributing slander?
Speaker 2: Person, I texted, it's going Back's a bit a bit
Speaker 2: of a text for typing. What did I say right
Speaker 2: after the movie? I said, contrived?
Speaker 3: Do you know what one of my pure joys in life?
Speaker 3: And I don't think you know this to be true.
Speaker 3: I'm welling the thought of it. When frooms shares strong opinions,
Speaker 3: there is nothing like it, because one thing about this girl,
Speaker 3: she lives on the fence. Ambiguity is her middle name
Speaker 3: over the sides. And I can't not like you can.
Speaker 3: I could never.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with three things that I liked
Speaker 1: about the movie.
Speaker 4: Oh good.
Speaker 2: The choice of actors for this movie is both a
Speaker 2: positive and a negative. The positive is they chose so
Speaker 2: many incredible actors.
Speaker 1: The negative is those actors had three lines.
Speaker 2: Two actors that I was most excited to see in
Speaker 2: this film is a Ray Yeah and Michael Sarah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Her massive Michael Sarah fan. Yeah. He had three.
Speaker 3: Lines, maybe maybe three minutes of screen time if that,
Speaker 3: and a half.
Speaker 1: Minute and a half.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he ate he loved Alan.
Speaker 2: I was very cognizant of the laughter in the room,
Speaker 2: of which there was not much in the Sydney premiere. Okay, however,
Speaker 2: the laughs of beast laughs came from two actors, Michael
Speaker 2: Sarah and is a Ray.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a sixth sense.
Speaker 4: I knew this timing of Esis is really good.
Speaker 2: She had one line in the film near the end,
Speaker 2: h that had the most last stitches.
Speaker 1: Are you aware?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she says, and the Mattel logo goes over her mouth,
Speaker 2: and I said, that.
Speaker 1: Is she is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to go into a negative here. Timney
Speaker 2: cooks in the kitchen.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And when did I know that? I knew that in
Speaker 2: the first one minute when produced by XOZ, Produced by XOZ,
Speaker 2: there was five yeah that popped up and we're.
Speaker 4: Still at the black screen. The movie I haven't even started.
Speaker 3: It got produced by Heyday Productions. Mattel this this okay,
Speaker 3: should we know these?
Speaker 1: I was you remember me?
Speaker 2: I laughed at that time. I thought everyone else was
Speaker 2: sart giggling. I was like, is this part is this,
Speaker 2: I was like, so that's a negative and a positive.
Speaker 2: I love Greta Gerwig, the director. I think this is
Speaker 2: actually a good thing for her. Sure, I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: I didn't like the choices. However, she has so many
Speaker 2: positive runs on the board as someone who I don't
Speaker 2: even take notice the direct and I like Greta girwek
Speaker 2: all right, riddle me that even if I don't think
Speaker 2: this movie eight, the fact that it's going to be
Speaker 2: so high grossing, I say, go all the way off, Gretagwig,
Speaker 2: because you deserve this money, and I'm sure you will
Speaker 2: have many more projects in which to bring your weirdness,
Speaker 2: your wackiness that I so much love. I did see
Speaker 2: segments of it in the movie, but I think it
Speaker 2: was the other people's contribution that muddied the waters.
Speaker 3: I did hear as some devil's advocate everyone, but I
Speaker 3: did hear in the grapevine that Mattel was a notoriously
Speaker 3: difficult client, and there was a lot of pushback and
Speaker 3: they had a lot of just a lot of critique
Speaker 3: about how Mattel is represented, which you can now see
Speaker 3: after watching the movie, how they might have got their
Speaker 3: grabby little mits on a few of the bits and stuff.
Speaker 3: My three positives is that I feel as though it's
Speaker 3: a beautiful watch. Like the set design, the costuming I
Speaker 3: felt was so cute and camp and like in the
Speaker 3: day and age of an indie film where everything is
Speaker 3: like seep your tone and grain and like raw and
Speaker 3: filmed on film. It's nice to see some like camp.
Speaker 3: If I want to see a really saccerin sweet color movie,
Speaker 3: I can't like what I'm gonna want to watch Wes
Speaker 3: Anderson and that's it. So that I really enjoyed. There
Speaker 3: are a few subtleties and referential quips that were really
Speaker 3: sharp that I felt like that was really fun. But
Speaker 3: I was laughing when nobody else was laughing, which confused me.
Speaker 3: The third thing I really liked is the first thirty
Speaker 3: minutes of the film. I felt as though like exploring
Speaker 3: this idea of like Barbie gaining sentience and awareness I
Speaker 3: felt could have been so powerful in the way that
Speaker 3: they explored what is this like doll, what is her
Speaker 3: idealization of being a person, then being a woman and
Speaker 3: then interacting with the world around her? That could have
Speaker 3: been really sick. It went from like profound to daft
Speaker 3: very quickly. So every moment where I thought they were
Speaker 3: gonna be like, Oh, this is gonna be like a
Speaker 3: really interesting take on like what womanhood is, what feminism
Speaker 3: is or is not, what a matriarchy is versus a patriarchy,
Speaker 3: it just got really flat, which brings me to my
Speaker 3: cons on my confusions is I don't know who the
Speaker 3: movie is for, Like I don't know if it was
Speaker 3: a kid's movie. I don't know if it's peopleho used
Speaker 3: to play with barbies, so like did you play with barbies? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so let's take me twenty five to forty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, because I'm forty two.
Speaker 3: So I couldn't tell if this was like nostalgia core
Speaker 3: or if it was like for gen Z, because my
Speaker 3: first thought was like, gen Z's gonna hate this movie.
Speaker 1: There were Brat's community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, gen Z's gonna hate this.
Speaker 3: But I felt like they were trying to get that
Speaker 3: angle in with like the little girl Daughter, But I
Speaker 3: just couldn't tell who was made four And that reflects
Speaker 3: in the disjointed humor, the disjointed approach to discussing real issues,
Speaker 3: like it was such a watered down white feminist take
Speaker 3: on like what it is to be a woman, and
Speaker 3: like her first moment of being a woman was.
Speaker 4: Like, oh my god, I've got to tell you, like
Speaker 4: like it was just it.
Speaker 3: Was so I was like different, Okay, great, like we're
Speaker 3: taking this angle, or like her realizing that the aren't
Speaker 3: of what Barbie did like obviously platformed or created space
Speaker 3: for like a varied cool woman, but then inadvertently created
Speaker 3: this like unrealistic beauty standard or whatever.
Speaker 4: I'm like, let's talk about that. Let's find a way
Speaker 4: to make that interesting.
Speaker 3: All this idea of like women can be everything, Barbie
Speaker 3: existed in a very racist time and we're just like
Speaker 3: women are whatever and whatever. And then Ken discovering the
Speaker 3: patriarchy that could have been so cool, but it was
Speaker 3: like about horses haha. Also, I felt it was camp
Speaker 3: in a straight way. Ooh, and I think that might
Speaker 3: have been the issue for me. And I think that
Speaker 3: camp in a straight way is actually cringe. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of elements where I'm like, this is a
Speaker 3: little bit cringey. Let me say on record, I enjoyed
Speaker 3: the movie. I giggled in the movie. I was like,
Speaker 3: this is cute. I enjoyed myself. The one thing that
Speaker 3: took me out of it every time was the way
Speaker 3: they set up jokes. They couldn't just like a joke
Speaker 3: be a joke. It was always like, ah, a joke
Speaker 3: is being made.
Speaker 4: We made a joke.
Speaker 3: Isn't this funny? Isn't this silly? We're making a joke now,
Speaker 3: just let it be part of the dialogue. Everything was
Speaker 3: so like, point to the funny thing, keep bringing up
Speaker 3: this like one bit that should have died. It was
Speaker 3: kind of like when a toddler's like, look at me, jump,
Speaker 3: look at me, jump again, looking at me like we
Speaker 3: got it the first time, Like it's like here, we
Speaker 3: get it. Patriarchy is funny, and like men like horses?
Speaker 3: Why are we still tking about horses? Let's do two
Speaker 3: lines closing thoughts each.
Speaker 1: You go first.
Speaker 3: Overall, I think if you shut off your brain and
Speaker 3: just enjoy a silly, fun movie, you'll get a lot
Speaker 3: out of it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot to look.
Speaker 3: At, great outfits, great costumes, like a lot of really
Speaker 3: easy to comprehend humor if you bring your critical analytical
Speaker 3: brain into the elements that it encourages you to do so.
Speaker 3: When it's talking about feminism and patriarchy, matriarchys beauty standards.
Speaker 3: You're going to pull yourself out of the movie and
Speaker 3: it won't be enjoyable at all. And that's where the
Speaker 3: movie pales. It's very like entry level white feminism. Women
Speaker 3: can do it all or can't they do it all?
Speaker 3: Type vibe, and it's not saying anything though. I don't
Speaker 3: think the movie has to say anything. I just think
Speaker 3: for the target audience, which feels like twenty five to
Speaker 3: forty five, you could have said something.
Speaker 1: Kind of wish they just went full silly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you kind of can't win when you're starting from Barbie,
Speaker 2: Like that's a hard article. This is a movie about
Speaker 2: Barbie with Mattel having a major share in it, Like
Speaker 2: how far down the critique of Barbie are we really
Speaker 2: going to go? My one liner is that the hype
Speaker 2: was worth it. I loved the pre Barbie thing. I
Speaker 2: love seeing Margo's outfits. I like that it's going to
Speaker 2: be one of the highest grossing films, Like I'm glad
Speaker 2: for that shout out to Chicks So Slay. My second
Speaker 2: thing is I don't want to watch people cry that
Speaker 2: much on screen. There was fifty percent of it was
Speaker 2: like sad and crying. Oh yeah, I hated a.
Speaker 4: Lot of crying. You've been listening to The Flex and
Speaker 4: Froom's daily podcast.
Speaker 2: For more, Tune into GAT on DAB or stream it
Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.