Modern movies are expensive, so everything about them is usually strategically thought out. Making anything happen on screen costs time and money and nobody likes to waste either of those. So if a movie is going to include anything, it has to have a point. Except of course, when it barely has any point at all, which was apparently the case when it came to Will Ferrell’s drumsticks in 2023 box office hit Barbie.
Will Ferrell recently participated in a Wired autocomplete interview alongside his Despicable Me 4 co-star Kristen Wiig. During the video, Ferrell is asked why his character in the Barbie cast, the CEO of Mattel, is holding drumsticks while participating in meetings. It turns out they’re just there because Ferrell thought it made his character look like an ass. He explained…
When I was talking to Greta, the director, Greta Gerwig. I said 'Wouldn't it be just weird and kind of jackass if my character just had drumsticks?' That's the only reason.
I don’t know what possessed Will Ferrell to think “You know what this character needs? Drumsticks,” but I love it. It’s a weird and brilliant little detail. You might not even notice the drumsticks on first viewing, but it’s a small visual signifier when you first see the character that this guy is an asshole. It works perfectly.
When we first meet Will Ferrel’s character in Barbie he’s sitting at a large table, surrounded by white men in suits. They’re all talking about the toys they sell, but it’s hard not to miss that the CEO is holding a pair of drumsticks. There’s no drum set in sight. He’s just holding them, using them to point at people to rapping them on the table as if he knows how to play the drums when he’s idle.
It certainly achieves the purpose, as it makes the CEO look like an ass. Who carries around drumsticks in business meetings? Apparently, Barbie director Greta Gerwig agreed that the drumsticks would succeed in making the character look like a jackass, and then they went one step further by making the drumsticks color-coordinate with Barbie. Ferrell continued…
She said yes, and we made them pink.
Sometimes small details end up getting lost in the editing of a movie. Something like a character carrying around drumsticks may have a point that is lost if a scene gets cut, leading to them just carrying around drumsticks for no reason. As it turns out, in this case, the lack of a reason for the drumsticks is entirely the reason.
Barbie is one of Will Ferrell's funniest movies, and while that's not because of the drumsticks, they certainly help. It just goes to show that those small details matter.
