It pays to play like a girl: Matildas, Barbie and TSwift break the global box office
Hear them — and their dollars — roar: A new wave of feminism has delivered billion-dollar profits for the Barbie movie, Taylor Swift’s tour and the biggest audience of 2023 to the Matildas.
Confidential
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This week has certified 2023 as the year of the woman.
On Monday, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie made her the first female director to surpass $1 billion in estimated global box-office receipts.
Meanwhile, The Matildas’ stunning 2-0 victory over Denmark forever moved the dial in Australian sport, with an audience of 6.5 million for the Women’s World Cup smashing those for the NRL and AFL grand finals, as it became the most watched TV event of the year.
These two entertainment phenomena came hot on the heels of Aussies forking out $126 million on Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets in a matter of hours.
Beneath their slick, bubblegum pop surfaces, Barbie and Swift tell resilient female stories marked by bitter confrontations with sexism.
The third song on Swift’s set list is “The Man”, with lyrics: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/wondering if I’d get there quicker/if I was a man.”
Her tour is estimated to inject more than $36 million in NSW alone when it arrives next February, and the Aussie Swifties’ cash splash has kept it on track to become the highest-grossing world tour in history, projected to gross $1.5 billion.
Barbieland has spilt over into the Real World too, with Australian Retailers Association chief industry affairs officer Fleur Brown saying: “Barbie’s extraordinary popularity has delivered strong retail benefits across multiple product and fashion lines.”
Australians have splurged on World Cup tickets too, snapping up 1.7 million of them to sellout stadium games across Australia and New Zealand, and Matildas merchandise is also outselling Socceroos merchandise two-to-one.
Beyond a blockbuster fuelled by a months-long marketing blitz, an international pop star’s glitziest spectacle, and a global tournament hosted on home turf — what we’re witnessing in real-time is a cultural revolution.
“The crowd-pulling power of the Matilda’s, Taylor Swift and the Barbie billions is no simple coincidence,” global marketer Toby Ralph told Confidential.
“It’s a flowering of a newer, more inclusive feminism, that takes a broad view of what being a woman can be. Intelligent, healthy, sexy, talented and ambitious don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
“This inclusive feminism is now benefiting from corporate collaborations because it has mainstreamed to the point that marketers can see a buck in it.”
An obvious lesson from this hat-trick of fiscal and cultural phenomena, is the existence of a huge, under-served entertainment market that takes the feelings of girls and women seriously.
“After years of Covid isolation, reactionary politics and a mental health crisis that has hit girls and young women particularly hard, there’s a palpable longing for both communal delight and catharsis,” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote.
“It’s reverse publicity,” agreed Sydney InsideOut PR founder Nicole Reany.
“The hype is coming from the public through social forums and platforms.
“Women control roughly US$31.8 trillion in annual consumer spending and while there is a cost-of-living crisis, they’re turning to a ‘light release’ and affordable luxuries. This is all part of an evolution and businesses will always back the numbers.
“As we see more females participate in sport and succeed, we’re likely to see more investment in brand sponsorship and exposure of the games.”
However, Hollywood’s takeaway from Barbie’s success wasn’t to make more stories for women, but to make more movies about toys. Already, 14 films based on Mattel toys have been announced.
“Essentially we need more and more female ‘heroes’ to continue this investment,” Reany said. “It will be a slow burn but we will get there.”
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