Since 2010, Mattel Creations has done an annual “Career of the Year” Barbie doll collection. The collection’s goal is to highlight and represent women working in different industries. Last year’s collection was Women in Sports. It featured a general manager, coach, referee, and sports reporter. Previous themes have been architects, computer engineers, entrepreneurs, and Mars explorers. This year’s collection is Women in Film, which was inspired by the success of the Barbie movie. The collection will include four new Barbie dolls: a studio executive, director, movie star, and cinematographer. Four new career Barbies and outfits?! I hope that somewhere, Margot Robbie, knee deep in awards season clothing, has felt the challenge and is responding with a, “Game on!”
Mattel is staying in the film business. The toy company, best known for its Barbie doll collection, today launched its annual ‘Career of the Year’ collection, which for 2024 will feature Barbie dolls designed to represent women working in a variety of film vocations, including directors and studio executives.
The collection is titled ‘Women in Film’ and will include four dolls. Their professions will be: studio executive, director, cinematographer, and movie star. The Women in Film dolls join a collection of more than 250 Barbie ‘profession’ dolls released by Mattel. Mattel added today that the collection was inspired by the success of Greta Gerwig’s box office smash Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
“There couldn’t be a more opportune moment to honor women in film and spotlight the unlimited possibilities that are available to young girls in the entertainment industry,” the company said.
Directed by Gerwig from a screenplay she co-wrote with her husband Noah Baumbach, Barbie raked in a $1.442 billion global gross in 2023. Last week, the pic won the Golden Globes’ inaugural Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award.
“It was very wonderful and emotional to be able to take to the stage with the groups that made it,” Gerwig told the BBC’s radio 4 of the honor this morning. “It felt very fitting… for all of us, the thing that we wanted most of all was to connect with people and to have people share an experience in the cinemas, in the movie theatres. It felt like even though this is a brand new award, it felt like it was the award to honor that, and that was always what we wanted to do.”
I think it’s a nice tribute to recognize the “girl power” that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig brought to making the movie happen. There has been a tiny bit of controversy, though. Screenwriters feel left out! One even joked on Twitter that Mattel missed an opportunity for a screenwriter Barbie that wears sweatpants and a t-shirt with avocado toast stains, which LMAO. When I was a little girl, I used to create tons of storylines for my Barbie dolls that included movie stars, directors, singers, and magazine reporters that were basically my Barbie version of Entertainment Weekly reporters with a bit of Lois Lane thrown in. Maybe next year’s career should be Women in Writing, featuring a screenwriter, novelist, blogger (holler), and print reporter. If you want to pre-order a Women in Film Barbie set, you can pick one up through Mattel’s website while supplies last, and through Amazon, Target, or Walmart once they are available for a wider release.
It would be very meta if they now base a Barbie on Margot Robbie as Barbie.
They did! There’s 6 dolls based on Robbie Barbie, in different outfits.
https://shop.mattel.com/search?q=robbie
The doll in the header looks like America Ferrera and I’m here for it.
Yes! Kind of love that they made the movie star one of the “bigger” Barbie doll body types too.
Holler for the writers. There is no magic without words. Writers are the creators of worlds. And in Hollywood women writers are sadly undervalued. Come on Mattel….
The director Barbie is wearing Greta’s signature jumpsuit! I’m here for it.
Yeah, replace studio exec with writer. But I can see little girls going for the cell phone and gold glasses accessories. Now let me go back to my miniature doll house crafting. A hobby inspired by my own Barbies 40ish years ago!
Hahaha whoever designed that cinematographer doll’s shirt has either never seen The Other Two or LOVES The Other Two. Obsessed.
I’d get the one with the Oscar.