Catherine Shoard
‘Where is Screenwriter Barbie? Does Mattel not know how to make sweatpants?’ Taffy Brodesser-Akner Author
Three months after the end of the Writers Guild of America strike, screenwriters have spearheaded a new campaign – this time against a range of Barbie dolls.
Mattel’s new “women in film” collection includes a “studio executive Barbie”, a “film star Barbie”, a “director Barbie” and a “cinematographer Barbie”– but leaves the people responsible for the scripts unrepresented.
“Where is Screenwriter Barbie?” Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman Is in Trouble and its screen adaptation, posted on X. “Does Mattel not know how to make sweatpants? Does Mattel not know how to get avocado toast on a t-shirt and just kind of leave it there?”
She added: “Filing Quarterly/WGA Dues Barbie would be hit among a certain crowd is what I’m saying,” before responding to another tweet questioning the sidelining of other crew roles by writing: “Key Grip Barbie found Lighting Department Head Barbie too handsy and filed a complaint with Line Producer Barbie, I just heard. First AD [asssistant director] Barbie heard about it and said it wasn’t a big deal, it’s just how people joke around.”
The Wire creator David Simon wrote on X: “No writer Barbie. No grip Barbie. No Teamster Barbie. No key set PA Barbie who has to go into Movie Star Barbie’s trailer and tell the delicate flower to get the fuck down to set because 120 other pissed-off Barbie’s are waiting for her. That film taught Mattel nothing.”
Anna Smith, a film critic, was more positive about the range. “I think overall the range represents progress,” she said. “How incredible for kids to have a female director toy to play with!”
Smith hosts the podcast Girls on Film and reported that many of her guests said they had discounted a career in cinema because of a lack of representation. “They didn’t grow up seeing or hearing about women in the industry, apart from actresses.
“Of course, it would be wonderful to see all sides of the industry represented, with dozens of Barbies, from grips to screenwriters to production designers. But overall I feel the range is a step in the right direction.”
The quartet of dolls is part of Mattel’s annual “career of the year” drive, shining a light on a particular industry or profession. It follows the success of Greta Gerwig’s hit film Barbie, which was co-written by Gerwig with Noah Baumbach, and produced by its star, Margot Robbie.
The film, which took two Golden Globes last Sunday, was the highestgrossing movie of 2023, and the first movie directed by a woman to make more than $1bn (£790m).
It is among a number of films by female writer-directors featuring in this season’s awards conversation, which also include Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Celine Song’s Past Lives and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla. Concert films from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have also proved lucrative draws at the box office in recent months.
Two studies published last week found that advances in female representation behind the camera were sluggish.
The latest report by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, called Inclusion in the Director’s Chair, branded the entertainment industry’s pledges to promote inclusion “performative acts” and “not real steps towards fostering change”. A study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women comprised just 16% of directors and 17% of writers on the 250 top-grossing films in 2023, down from 18% in 2022.
The total number of female crew on such movies, they calculated, represents a decline of two percentage points from 24% in 2022 and an increase of just five percentage points since 1998. Yet on independent productions the statistics were rosier: 42% of the writers of indie films were female, up from 40% the previous year and from 35% in 2021-22.
In the UK, 60 British women had films released in 2018, compared with 23 in 2009.