Per the Guardian:
The film, to be released in summer 2018, is an Enchanted-style mix of animation and live action which sees Schumer evicted from Barbieland for eccentricities.
‘She then has an adventure in the real world, and, according to Deadline, realises that “perfection comes on the inside, not the outside, and that the key to happiness is belief in oneself, free of the obligation to adhere to some unattainable standard of perfection”. Barbie then returns home to save her fellow dolls.’
Oh good Lord… Amy Pascal is at it again. How has she not been relegated to the Hollywood dungeons after the Ghostbusters debacle which, I’m just going to say it, she was the architect of.
All right… I’m going to try to approach this as fairly as possible. I know that a lot of you out there are probably just going to roll your eyes and be like ‘You’re not anywhere near the target demographic, what do you care?’ Well because I’m a Geek and believe it or not, collecting Barbies does sort of fall under the Geekdome.
So from what I understand the plot to this movie is that Amy Schumer leaves Barbieland, a wonderful, perfect little animated world and goes to the real world… wait… that kind of sounds familiar…
She is forced to leave because she isn’t quite perfect enough. Um… okay… weird, but lets keep going…
She winds up in the real world and goes on an adventure there that eventually lands her in the position of having to save both worlds. In the end, she realizes that her world may not have been perfect and true beauty comes from within.
…
All right… one, does this sound familiar to anyone? If not, look up pretty much any news outlet that reported on this movie. They openly admit its pretty much a rehash of the Enchanted story which has been done over and over again!
I get the whole point that girls need to have someone to look up to… despite the fact that we just body-shamed Wonder Woman out of the UN, but Amy Schumer? Don’t get me wrong, I find her fairly benign as far as political activists go, but this is a woman who pretty much stopped her show to go on a political tirade… and when her audience booed, she told them to leave.
She’s also been a political activist against Sexual Assault, which is great and all, but it rings pretty hollow when you read about a little speech she gave where she admitted to getting into bed and having sex with a guy who was, as she put it, ‘fucking wasted.‘ So she hopped into bed with a man who wasn’t able to give consent. By her own definition, she is guilty of the very thing she’s speaking out against.
What does that have to do with this?
Honestly, it goes to her character. That plus her regular material really doesn’t make her the ideal choice to play a role model to little girls. Also her comedy and product really isn’t geared towards the audience that would go see the movie. That’s my opinion though, take it as you please.
I don’t know what it is about kids movies that people think there are only 2-3 stories to tell so we have to do the same ones over and over again, but that’s essentially what we’re doing here.
This wreaks of identity politics, just like with Ghostbusters. Maybe I’m wrong, but given that Amy herself is doing some of the re-write to it, I have to cringe a little. The problems with Ghostbusters from what I understand from the people who saw it, was that it had a girl power message like this movie is going to… however at the same time, Ghostbusters was very anti-male in both the way men were portrayed, as well as comments like ‘there are many out there, mostly guys.’ Not to mention that the movie was made by a very mentally stunted director with a very clear, very self-loathing, gender bias of his own.
So do I think this movie will tank?
Sigh… it’s hard to say. Do I think that it will do well? No, probably not. It’ll at best break even, but tank? No, the plot so far is bad, but it’s not cringe-worthy. There’s enough interest to get butts in the seats. I mean people don’t like being preached at, so likely it’ll do enough to break even or make a small profit on the opening night.
The problem with movies, which Amy Pascal doesn’t seem to grasp, is that people DO NOT LIKE BEING PREACHED AT! Not everything has to be about politics. Not everything has to have an agenda. Unfortunately a lot of people, especially in the visual or written mediums, don’t seem to get that.
So again, provided Sony doesn’t attack fans with their narrative and draw a line in the sand saying ‘see this movie or you’re sexist/misogynist/you don’t support your fellow women.’ The movie won’t tank. At best it will make a small profit.
So in the end, Sony doesn’t seem to have learned their lesson. Amy Pascal still has a job at Sony, she’s still spearheading new movies, and identity politics is still running rampant. The line in the sand; ‘See this movie or you’re sexist/misogynist/you don’t support your fellow women.’
Lost Sony a fortune with Ghostbusters and a similar attitude in the left cost democrats the election. It simply doesn’t sell.
I don’t think we’ll have the same problem as Ghostbusters though. The people who will likely see this movie are the ones who collected barbies all their lives, grew up with them, and/or are the people who want to take their daughters to see it. So I don’t think the trailer will get anywhere near the same level of hatred or attack, in part due to sheer lack of interest, and also because from my experience, Barbie fans are nowhere near as rabid.
Now, if they attempt to cater to identity politics and feminists like Schumer, they will be in serious trouble. Demographic and statistic-wise those groups aren’t typically the people who go to see these movies. Sony badly over-estimated their impact.
Given the baggage that Amy Schumer comes with… I mean she may not be like that in the movie, maybe she’ll write it okay. A lot of controversy can be avoided if she can remain silent… but… this is Amy Schumer we’re talking about. Good luck with that.
