JOnly a few years ago, a feminist-fueled Barbie movie might have seemed as unlikely as Barbie trading in her Dreamhouse and pink convertible for a Croydon studio apartment and a trusty used Prius. But now, in an era when Greta Gerwig’s playful rebellious film has grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office, life in Hollywood’s fantasy sandbox may never be the same again.
We shouldn’t be at all surprised if we notice the next big toy movie slowly taking shape this week. Could it be Denis Villeneuve’s artistic, intense reinterpretation of the life of Slinky Dog? Or Lena Dunham’s nostalgic, feminist take on Polly Pocket (no, the creators of Girls pulled out of that film earlier in the summer). Is Michel Gondry up for a Nerf Wars movie?
In fact, news is coming out that Alison Brie, the Golden Globe-nominated star of Mad Men, GLOW, and Promising Young Woman, will play Evil-Lynn, the evil female right-hand man to Skeletor, in the upcoming Masters of the Universe (aka He-Man) movie, directed by none other than Kubo and the Two Strings’ Travis Knight. Yes, that’s right. It’s not as likely as Daniel Day-Lewis coming out of retirement to play Martin Scorsese’s Bob the Builder, but it’s not that far off either.
I loved He-Man when I was younger. He was basically a muscle-bound blonde Viking with a 1980s newscaster haircut who wore furry pants and shouted “I have powers!” on weekends, but there was something about the cosmic world of Eternia and its extraordinary blend of ridiculous space fantasy and wildly improbable sci-fi that made kids desperately want to tune in next week, plus the synth-fueled soundtrack was fantastic.
He also had a one-armed version of Man-at-Arms, which may have been killed by a dog. But until recently, I never would have imagined that more than 40 years later, the Prince of Eternia would once again be at the center of the Hollywood galaxy. After all, the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie, featuring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man and (incredibly) Frank Langella as Skeletor, was very surly and clunky. And, frankly, that was enough.
The beauty of Barbie is that Gerwig manages to celebrate the pneumatic doll while lampooning her. The essential message of the film is that we know this gorgeous, hilarious, empty-headed doll is a manifestation of evil patriarchy, but we love her anyway because it’s not her fault. And wouldn’t it be great if she offered a compelling stand-up to the male-dominated system that created her?
It’s hard to imagine He-Man digging quite the same meta, self-referential groove. This is a universe where guys ride giant green tigers into battle and a guy named Fisto punches things because he’s got big metal fists. Hollywood executives today might look at all this and think it sounds profound, but in reality, we’d have to take the Masters of the Universe mythology seriously if we were all suddenly to swallow Brie’s Evil-Lynn delivering monologues about power structures that would do Foucault proud, and the Man-at-Arms quietly musing on the ontological futility of eternal war.
But in the right hands, Masters of the Universe could be a positive, culturally clever satire. If Barbie is the archetype of a woman for little girls who don’t realize that they see the whole world through a male-dominated prism, He-Man is arguably her XY chromosome equivalent. Are prepubescent boys supernaturally wired to believe that it’s impossible to be a hero unless they’re willing to risk their health by taking loads of steroids, or is that what the world they grow up in tells them?
Why does the wimpy Adam of Eternia have to transform into the incredibly beefy and muscular He-Man before he can accomplish anything? Perhaps Adam and Klinger (the pathetic alter-ego of the space tiger Battle-Cat) can emerge as the true heroes of the Masters of the Universe, not just by crushing Skeletor’s skull with a sword, but also by gaining the keys to the universe through their balanced view on gender politics and deeper understanding of the nuances of female strength and leadership.
After all, if Barbie can rollerblade through the patriarchy in a neon haze, surely He-Man can trade his obsession with perpetually clenched jaws and oversized biceps for binge-watching self-help podcasts and having heart-to-heart conversations with She-Ra—not to mention possess a modicum of basic emotional intelligence.
