[bena]

Barbie seems to be in that brilliantly satirical self-aware position. It plays on our expectation of what the material should be and gives it to us in a way that is simultaneously sincere and flippant.

Everyone involved seem to be able to walk that line and have the comedic skill necessary to come across as sincere in absurd situations.

As to the meme. That's just from the hilarity of this and Oppenheimer opening the same weekend. Similar openings happen all the time. Because it's a way for studios to not fight for the same dollar. At first people were laughing at the idea of Barbie crushing Oppenheimer at the box office, but that slowly morphed into the idea of just seeing both.

And since no company is never going to say no to more money, of course they got behind the idea.