Talk:Barbie (film)

Barbenheimer Edit

This message also appears on the talk page for Oppenheimer

A section in the marketing/release section should be added for the film's viral "Barbenheimer" phenomenon. At one time it was just silly memes, but it has now turned in to a legitimate talking point about the film's release, with Barbie director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie both commenting and promoting the trend, as well as actor Tom Cruise. It is a part of the film's release undoubtedly, there is no way around it. I will post my now-deleted section below, please check my references and sources for authenticity. BakedintheHole (talk) 14:22, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

=== "Barbenheimer" ===

Barbie is set to be released theatrically on July 21, 2023, the same day as Oppenheimer, the biographical thriller film about J. Robert Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan. Due to the difference in tone and genre between the two films, many social media users across platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have taken to making memes and ironic posts about how the two films represent different audiences, or how the two films should be viewed as a double feature. The popularity of the trend comparing the two films led to the New York Times dubbing the phenomenon "Barbenheimer". Gerwig and Robbie have both promoted the connection, posting a photo of themselves attending Oppenheimer on the film's official Twitter account on June 30, 2023. Actor Tom Cruise also encouraged the cross-promotion, tweeting that he "love[s] a double feature, and it doesn't get more explosive (or more pink) than one with Oppenheimer and Barbie". BakedintheHole (talk) 14:22, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Trivial information about a brief social media flurry which will inevitably be forgotten about in a couple of weeks' time. Barry Wom (talk) 09:01, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would disagree, I think it has made a substantial impact on the cross-promotion of each film and has been embraced by the filmmakers, too. BakedintheHole (talk) 14:41, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  It's been added briefly in the marketing section (where it should be, not under its own section). Thank you. Mike Allen 15:52, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  I have added it back to the marketing section (without its own section), as “Barbenheimer” is now its own Wikipedia article. Users continue trying to delete the section on both the Oppenheimer and Barbie pages, I am adding them back to both and leaving a message warning against an edit war. BakedintheHole (talk) 12:26, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• I think there should be a short blurb here but then the new article deleted, that's quite excessive. Reywas92^Talk 13:39, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Nomination of Barbenheimer for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Barbenheimer is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barbenheimer until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

InfiniteNexus (talk) 11:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The Philippines has not banned the film

I've checked the latest news about the potential ban of Barbie in the Philippines, and I've seen their MTRCB body approve the movie for theatrical release. Here's the news article proving it. (It turns out the link stopped working as soon as I added it in this talk section. Oh well...)

One thing I don't know is how to add it in this Wikipedia article (mainly because I'm doing this in a mobile browser.) Could someone do this for me? Thanks in advance! green@grenier ~$ sign --now; sudo systemctl enable wptalk 12:07, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Error in Plot Summary

>Sasha inspires a depressed Barbie by acknowledging the inherent contradictions of American femininity.

This is incorrect. Gloria (the mother) gives this speech. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.83.70.31 (talk) 01:30, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit request

Per IP above, there is an error in the plot summary. Please change "Sasha inspires a depressed Barbie..." to "Gloria inspires a depressed Barbie...". Many thanks 86.133.52.213 (talk) 21:33, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Cast

How are you deciding who is Ken 1, Ken 2, Ken 3? 2001:8F8:172B:41ED:ACF0:D8FC:8AF5:B5CF (talk) 16:11, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

"critical acclaim" should be changed to "positive reviews" or "generally favorable reviews"

The word "acclaim" only appears in the lead section and is not supported by the Metacritic source below in the article itself.

We use Metacritic to determine critical acclaim. If we look at other film pages where the lead section says that the film received "critical acclaim": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killers_of_the_Flower_Moon_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)

In both cases, CTRL+F'ing for "acclaim" shows two results: one in the lead section ("critical acclaim"), and one below in the article that acts as the source for that lead section claim ("Metacritic [...], indicating "universal acclaim").

Metacritic's consensus is the source to use in this situation because it is the simplest and provides a directly quotable source "universal acclaim". In comparison, Rotten Tomatoes leaves too much up to subjective speculation, as there is no way to reliably determine at which % a Rotten Tomatoes score becomes "acclaim" as opposed to just "positive". Z8n (talk) 17:22, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

We don't exclusively use Metacritic to determine a film's critical reception. The lead's summary of the film's reception should be determined by the totality of sources, not just Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes should be included among the sources that are used. The film has an 80% on Metacritic, and anything over 80% on that website is considered "acclaimed". So even if we were just going by Metacritic, the film is right on the edge of being considered "acclaimed". But again, Metacritic shouldn't be the only source used to determine the film's reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, Barbie has a 90% fresh score and an average rating of 8.10. And Rotten Tomatoes wrote this article about the film's reviews, which states, "the buzz on Barbie is exceptional." So I think that "critically acclaimed" is the best way to describe the film's reception in the lead. --Jpcase (talk) 17:43, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I understand that you are clearly passionate about the film and want to see it rewarded with the "critical acclaim" label, but that's not how Wikipedia works. We don't extrapolate or stretch the truth to make our desired narratives fit, and we especially don't make arguments such as, "Well it's 80/100 and that's close enough to 81/100, so can't we just call it even and say that it is?".

But let's break this down one one by one.

> We don't exclusively use Metacritic to determine a film's critical reception.

Didn't say that. What we do, however, is use Metacritic as a source to determine its eligibility under "critically acclaimed", for reasons that I already explained in detail above. I even provided two examples of such cases: Killers of the Flower Moon, and Oppenheimer.

If you could provide some examples of some high-profile film pages (i.e. not film pages with low awareness and low activity) that show otherwise, then that would be great.

> The lead's summary of the film's reception should be determined by the totality of sources, not just Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes should be included among the sources that are used.

Also already addressed. Metacritic is the simplest and provides a direct path of sourcing to the claim "critical acclaim". Keep it simple. If it can't be clearly and simply sourced in line with the methodology used on similar pages (e.g. Killers of the Flower Moon, and Oppenheimer), then it doesn't belong on an encyclopedia.

As I already said, Rotten Tomatoes leaves too much up to subjective speculation, as there is no way to reliably determine at which % a Rotten Tomatoes score becomes "acclaim" as opposed to just "positive".

> The film has an 80% on Metacritic, and anything over 80% on that website is considered "acclaimed". So even if we were just going by Metacritic, the film is right on the edge of being considered "acclaimed".

So end result being, it's not "universally acclaimed" by Metacritic. Saying "Well, it's close enough..." isn't acceptable. We don't fudge facts here to make our desired narratives fit.

> But again, Metacritic shouldn't be the only source used to determine the film's reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, Barbie has a 90% fresh score and an average rating of 8.10.

Already addressed above.

> And Rotten Tomatoes wrote this article about the film's reviews, which states, "the buzz on Barbie is exceptional." So I think that "critically acclaimed" is the best way to describe the film's reception in the lead.

Exceptional buzz cannot be equated to "critical acclaim". Z8n (talk) 18:02, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

I never suggested that we should "fudge" the numbers because the Metacritic score is "close enough." If we were only using Metacritic as a source, then of course it wouldn't be appropriate to describe the reception as anything other than what Metacritic says. But we aren't using Metacritic as the only source. Like I said, we should be looking at the totality of sources. The Rotten Tomatoes score is incredibly high. I think it's very appropriate to describe 90% and an 8.10 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes as "critically acclaimed". And because the Metacritic score is right on the edge of what that website considers "universally acclaimed", I don't think that it should count against describing the film that way. We can't cite Metacritic directly to characterize the film's reception as "acclaimed". But when we take both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic together, describing the film as "acclaimed" seems perfectly reasonable. --Jpcase (talk) 21:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Every single point that you just raised has already been addressed, repeatedly.

Again, keep it simple. A Metacritic page for a film is a list of scores provided by critics. Therefore, when it says "universal acclaim", that directly allows us to chart a path from source to claim. It's a very simple system that allows us to cite it as a reliable source for "critical acclaim".

Now contrast this with your insistence that we also account for the Rotten Tomatoes score and average rating into this equation. By what metric does 90% and 8.10 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes count as "critical acclaim"? What is the threshold? And by what criteria did you decide on that threshold, when Rotten Tomatoes itself does not provide any such ruling?

Just to clarify, I am not saying that we should discount Rotten Tomatoes as a whole from the consensus blurb. Rotten Tomatoes is useful to describe exactly what critics are praising, e.g. "[...] for its direction, production design, costumes, music, and performances". But beyond that, using it as a measure of critical acclaim? No, because again, there is no standard of measure there. Z8n (talk) 22:56, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Metacritic doesn't have a specific measure for critical acclaim either. It has a measure for "universal acclaim", but not for "critical acclaim", which do not mean the same thing. The lead for this article currently says "critically acclaimed", which is just a way of saying that the film has been widely praised. That the film has been widely praised is clearly evidenced by both the Rotten Tomatoes score and the Metacritic score. --Jpcase (talk) 02:05, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Now you are just playing word semantics...not to mention that you also proved that you haven't been reading my comments.

I already pre(?)-addressed that argument in this paragraph above:

Again, keep it simple. A Metacritic page for a film is a list of scores provided by critics. Therefore, when it says "universal acclaim", that directly allows us to chart a path from source to claim. It's a very simple system that allows us to cite it as a reliable source for "critical acclaim".

"universal acclaim [on a page listing scores provided by critics]" = "universal acclaim [by critics]" = "critical acclaim".

A clear, direct link provided only by Metacritic, and not by Rotten Tomatoes. Z8n (talk) 06:08, 23 July 2023 (UTC)