Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie ‘Barbie’ has grossed over $1 billion since its theatrical launch, making it the highest-grossing movie this 12 months so far and one among solely 50 motion pictures to ever achieve this. Amidst its unprecedented success, individuals have surprisingly in contrast ‘Barbie’ to a different billion-dollar field workplace hit: ‘Black Panther.’
The comparability unfolded by way of a joke on the Rooster Tooth Podcast from host Andrew Rosas. “‘Barbie,’ or ‘Black Panther’ for white b——, opened this weekend,” he declared to a lot laughter from his co-hosts. Rosas’ comedic tackle the topic, although lighthearted, prompted a deeper examination.
The similarities between ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Barbie’ present the universality of the human expertise.
Alex of Pop Tradition Mind, a TikTok person identified for overlaying popular culture, delved into the nitty gritty of what makes these two movies so comparable.
“I really like that film concerning the hero who lives in a secret land of magic and highly effective girls,” he began, drawing similarities between the 2 movies’ protagonists and settings. “Their realm has been deliberately secluded from the remainder of the world, although you’ll be able to enter the key realm through sure modes of transportation.”
Within the 2018 Marvel epic, individuals can enter Wakanda by flying a aircraft into a particular location, permitting you to enter by way of the nation’s invisible barrier. In the meantime, in “Barbie,” the reasoning is a bit much less sci-fi oriented. As an alternative, you should take various completely different modes of transportation, together with however not restricted to a ship, a motorcycle and a automotive, to get to Barbieland.
In response to Alex, each movies inform the story of a hero inhabiting an intentional paradise, remoted from the world’s turmoil. And once they go away, they’re confronted with “questions on their society and why its methods are arrange the best way they’re.”
Then, in each movies, comes the central battle.
“A usurper with data of the skin world takes over the magical land, and he has every kind of latest concepts about how they need to run issues,” he mentioned.
In “Black Panther,” the antagonist Erik Killmonger, portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, is already an outsider as a result of he was raised in New York regardless of being of Wakandan blood. Alternatively, the usurper in “Barbie,” Ken, portrayed by Ryan Gosling, solely will get his outsider data after he leaves Barbieland.
Regardless, each tales comprise the drama of a usurper’s rise to energy, his subsequent fall, and the hero’s wrestle to revive equilibrium.
“The hero convinces everybody that the usurper’s concepts have been principally flawed, however they do incorporate a few of his ideas to make a extra simply society. The hero then takes steps to develop into a presence within the exterior world. Nice film,” Alex concluded.
In “Black Panther,” T’Challa, Chadwick Boseman, goes earlier than the United Nations to disclose his want for Wakanda to be built-in with the remainder of the world — partially taking from Killmonger’s want to interrupt away from Wakanda’s isolationist philosophy.
Whereas Barbie, Margot Robbie, permits the Kens to have some governmental energy in Barbieland after she quells Ken’s rebellion.
So, did ‘Barbie’ copy ‘Black Panther’?
No — however they each observe the ‘fish out of water’ trope and the hero’s journey. The “fish out of water” trope is a kind of story the place the protagonist is “positioned in a state of affairs fully unfamiliar to them,” based on TV Tropes. In each of those movies, it is going from a fictional world to the true one.
On prime of that, like Killmonger and Ken, there’s sometimes an antagonist to the protagonist’s quest. After overcoming that impediment, in some tales, the protagonist “shortly adapts to the brand new situations and finds it higher than again dwelling,” and in others, they return dwelling and take the positives from their “fish out of water” expertise.
Photograph: Unknown writer, Slashme / Wikimedia Commons
In the meantime, the hero’s journey is a format that the majority tales observe. The protagonist leaves their “identified” world, which may be metaphorical or literal, and is confronted with the “unknown.” After they overcome that, they return to their identified world and use the data they’ve realized to influence it positively.
We have seen these tropes time and time once more on TV and in film theaters as a result of they’re experiences we will all relate to.
For instance, “The Smurfs” film from 2011 employed each of those concepts and was made properly earlier than each movies. Within the film, the Smurfs are magically transported by way of a portal from Smurf Village to the skin world, New York Metropolis. Their important impediment, an evil wizard named Gargamel, additionally goes to the Massive Apple and discovers a magical wand. He makes use of this new energy from the skin world to attempt to seize the Smurfs; nevertheless, they foil his plan and return dwelling unscathed. Lastly, drawing on the positives of their journey, they rebuild Smurf Village within the fashion of Manhattan.
And, in fact, these movies did not copy “The Smurfs.” All three of those and so many extra tales share this construction, but it surely’s what every does inside it that makes them distinctive.
Ethan Cotler is a author and frequent contributor to YourTango dwelling in Boston. His writing covers leisure, information, and human curiosity tales.
