Can someone explain why it's socially acceptable to show up to Barbie in pink but not okay to pull up to Oppenheimer in a Hazmat suit? Got a lot of strange looks this weekend...

The pink mushroom cloud the box office experienced this weekend gave some much-needed life to a struggling industry. We give you the latest below, along with a Wrap on the history of the doll. Tomorrow, we return the favor with a Wrap on Oppenheimer. Let's ride.

In today's edition:

• Barbenheimer booms

• Twitter bird getting the axe

• The rise of Barbie

 🔑 Key Stories

It’s a Barbenheimer World

“Barbie” and Oppenheimer” – “Barbenheimer” – shattered box office expectations

• “Barbie,” a live-action movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was expected to make $75M its opening weekend; “Oppenheimer,” directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Cillian Murphy, was expected to make $50M during the same weekend

• “Barbie” shattered expectations, making $155M in North America and $337M globally; “Oppenheimer” made $80.5M in North America and $174M globally

• “Barbie” had this year’s best opening weekend; the weekend was the 4th-best in box office sales ever

Dig Deeper

• Analysts said that instead of hurting each other’s sales – as movies released on the same weekend sometimes do – the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon led the pair to boost each other’s sales

SBF Discreding Witnesses?

Prosecutors accused Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) of trying to discredit a witness at his upcoming trial

• Prosecutors have charged SBF with thirteen counts of fraud, money laundering, and other crimes. One of the most significant charges against SBF is that he transferred customer funds to another company he founded, Alameda Research

• Alameda was led by Caroline Ellison, SBF’s ex-girlfriend, who has agreed to assist prosecutors in their case against SBF. On Thursday, the New York Times ran an article featuring diary entries from last year in which Ellison said she may not be fit to lead

• Prosecutors said SBF leaked those to discredit Ellison, and asked a judge to bar SBF from leaking other info about witnesses in the future

Dig Deeper

• SBF and his legal team have not commented on the development. SBF is currently on house arrest in California awaiting his criminal trial this October

Kiss-tastrophe

Malaysia banned British band “The 1975” from playing there following an on-stage same-sex kiss

• Malaysia, a Muslim country, bans same-sex relations. The 1975 played at a festival in Malaysia on Friday

• Midway through the set, lead singer Matty Healy said it was a “mistake” to come to Malaysia and said its government is run by “f*****g r*****s.” "I don't see the f***ing point of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have s*x with"

• He proceeded to kiss the band’s drummer on-stage. Malaysia called the stunt “extremely rude” and banned them from playing there again

Dig Deeper

• The 1975 has since called off two further Asian tour dates, one in Indonesia and one in Taiwan. Healy then took to Instagram to explain the kiss: “Why don't you try and not make out with Ross [the bassist] for 20 years. Not as easy as it looks”

NFL Fines Snyder $60M

The NFL fined Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder $60M – a record fine for a team owner

• The team has struggled since Snyder bought it in 1999. It has also been caught in numerous controversies, mostly related to sexual harassment and a toxic workplace. Those in part led Snyder to sell the team for a record $6.05B earlier this year

• Last Thursday, NFL owners approved the sale; directly after, the NFL fined Snyder a record $60M

• That fine was due to a report that found that Snyder sexually harassed a female employee in the early 2000s. He denies all allegations, calling them “outright lies”

Dig Deeper

• The report also found that the Commanders hid ~$11M in revenue from the NFL, although it couldn’t prove that Snyder had personally ordered or overseen that

• “The conduct substantiated in the…findings has no place in the NFL,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said of the fine

• “Snyder has been forced to sell the team he said he would never sell, pay a massive fine…and there now exists an extensive public record of his personal wrongdoing and the misconduct that occurred under his leadership,” lawyers representing 40 former Commanders employees said

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Stream-flation hits Spotify: Spotify plans to raise its US premium subscription price by $1. The company – which has kept its premium subscription at $9.99 a month since 2009 — will soon charge $10.99

• Sound of tickets: Child-trafficking movie Sound of Freedom reached $125M in box office revenue. The independent film cost $14M to make

• Twitter goes way of dodo : Twitter replaced its blue bird logo with a black X. Musk’s X Corp owns Twitter, and Musk has long said he aspires to build a “super app” called X

Wildcard

• “Show me the money”: A group of star NFL running backs held a conference call to discuss how to improve the position’s financial situation after a series of high-profile contract holdouts

• Emmett Till Monument: The White House said President Biden is establishing a national monument dedicated to Emmett Till, the black boy who was tortured and lynched in 1955 Mississippi

• Colossal evac of Rhodes: Wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes have prompted Greece to carry out the largest evacuations in the country’s modern history. 190,000 have fled the island

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🌯 Roca Wrap

In 1945, Harold "Matt" Matson, Elliot Handler, and his wife Ruth began producing wooden picture frames in a Los Angeles garage. They formed a company that was named after the two men: Mattel, from Matt and Elliot.

In 1947, Mattel released its first popular toy, a child-sized ukulele called “Uke-A-Doodle.” As the company introduced more toys, it began sponsoring Mickey Mouse programs on television. Mattel – the first toy company to sponsor television advertisements – rose to prominence.

In 1959, Ruth Handler – whose name was excluded from the company’s – introduced what would become Mattel’s best-seller.

Handler’s daughter, Barbara, frequently played with dolls and pretended they were adults. That gave her the idea for an adult doll, a version of which she encountered in Germany in 1956. While the German doll was a made-for-adult gag gift based on a comic strip, she brought several of them back to Mattel as inspiration for her own children’s toy.

In 1958, just before Barbie’s roll-out, a Mattel market study found that parents considered Barbie to have “too much of a figure.”When the company released it the following year, it decided to market it directly to children.

The original Barbie was released at a New York City toy festival in 1959.

Available as a blonde or brunette, she wore a zebra-striped swimsuit and was billed as a "Teen-age Fashion Model.” The first dolls were manufactured in Japan and their clothes stitched by Japanese homeworkers.

Barbie was an instant hit, selling 350,000 dolls in its first year of production. Mattel followed it up with Ken – named after the Handlers’ son – Barbie’s boyfriend, who was said to have met Barbie on a television commercial set.

In the 1960s, Mattel added dolls for Barbie’s friends, families, and neighbors. It gave Barbie cars, houses, and other accessories, making her the “It Girl.” It ran ads in comics, magazines, and on TV, and before releasing each ad, tested them with children.

As Mattel kept releasing updated Barbie models, it let people pay $1.50 to exchange old Barbies for newer models. Some said the exchanges were to maintain demand, but others said it was to quickly push controversial dolls out of sight.

By the 1970s, Barbie was being accused of promoting unrealistic body image and materialism, and as feminism became a prominent social force, Barbie was accused of promoting outdated stereotypes about women.

Barbie continued to launch new dolls and develop new toy technology, but in 1975, its creator and her husband came under federal investigation for manipulating Mattel’s stock price.

They were pushed out and the new management instituted changes. Between those and other social trends – women wearing less make-up, feminism’s continued rise – Barbie continued to lose some of her luster.

In 1985, Mattel responded with a new Barbie slogan: "We Girls Can Do Anything.” New models made Barbie and her friends pilots, office workers, aerobics instructors, astronauts, and rock stars. That strategy has carried Barbie forward in the decades since.

Mattel now sells $1B+ in Barbie items a year, making it one of the world’s most popular toys. Along with success has come criticism, though, with people accusing Barbie dolls of making women look dumb, promoting teen pregnancy, being too progressive, and more.

In 2003, Saudi Arabia’s government declared Barbie a “threat to morality,” claiming, "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful.”

Despite the criticism, Mattel leveraged Barbie into more than a toy.

Since 1987, Mattel has released dozens of dolls, 400+ books, and 40 movies featuring the character, earning the company $33B in revenue. Yet until this weekend, Barbie has lacked one thing: A live-action movie.

Development for such a movie began in 2009, when Mattel agreed to partner with Universal Studios. No film materialized, though, and in 2014, Sony bought the rights and entered negotiations with comedic actress Amy Schumer to cast her as Barbie. She ended up withdrawing from negotiations, though, and Sony didn’t make the movie.

Then in 2018, Warner Bros. acquired the Barbie rights. After negotiations with Anne Hathaway, it ended up casting Margot Robbie as the lead and Greta Gerwig – director of Lady Bird and Little Women – as director.

Robbie and Gerwig have said they filled out the cast with actors with "Barbie energy" – "a certain ineffable combination of beauty and exuberance" – and by 2021, the cast was set with Ryan Gosling, Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, and others.

By the time the Barbie movie reached US theaters on Friday, Warner Bros. had spent $145M on it. The investment seemed to have paid off: “Barbie” shattered expectations, making $155M in North America and $337M globally — the biggest opening yet this year.

“Barbie” is the first movie to come out of Mattel’s film division, but the company is not planning on it being the last. Mattel is reportedly planning at least 17 other toy-based movies in the coming year.

Have 64 years of Barbie paved the way for a toy takeover of Hollywood?

If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

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🧠 Final Thoughts

We hope you had great weekends, whether you spent it watching Barbie or Oppenheimer, or doing something that didn't put a cent in Hollywood's pockets.

We'll be back tomorrow with more news. Hope your Mondays go well.

—Max and Max