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“Barbie” star Margot Robbie waded into the ever-lively crypto discourse this weekend, after playfully condemning Bitcoin as a stereotypically ‘Ken’ conversation topic—one she’s apparently repeatedly bemoaned with “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig.
In a recent interview promoting the Mattel-crafted box office juggernaut, Robbie said that during prep for “Barbie” she and Gerwig would regularly poke fun at some of the film’s male producers—particularly Harry Potter veteran David Heyman and Robbie’s own husband, Tom Ackerly—for so frequently discussing the cryptocurrency.
“When David and Tom would start talking about Bitcoin or something, Greta and I would be like, ‘They’re being such Kens,’” Robbie said on a Fandango-hosted panel while rolling her eyes and pretending to fall over. “Just stop being Kens!”
The comments, while lighthearted, alluded to the type of stereotypically male behaviors exhibited by Ryan Gosling’s character Ken in the “Barbie” film. Since the movie’s release, the term “Ken” has become a popular shorthand on social media for comically vain, cocky, or patriarchal behavior.
While Robbie has rarely spoken publicly about her views regarding Bitcoin, or crypto more generally, “Barbie” parent company Mattel has long been vocally supportive of blockchain tech as an emerging revenue stream for its brands.
“We’ve done incredible work over the past seven, eight years, to modernize Barbie to ensure that she’s in lockstep with culture,” Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s Global Head of Barbie, previously told Fortune when discussing recent merchandising innovations including the brand’s expansion into the NFT market.
Most recently, in the run-up to the theatrical release of “Barbie,” Mattel released a series of themed NFTs based on the doll in collaboration with women-led crypto media brand Boss Beauties. McKnight hailed the drop as a catalyst that would “empower women and collectors to explore Web3.” Last year, Mattel released a line of Barbie NFTs in partnership with French fashion house Balmain.
It would appear that Mattel has big plans for its blockchain presence: In April, the company launched a marketplace on the Flow blockchain, on which users can sell Mattel NFTs directly to each other for profits reaped in cryptocurrency.
Mattel says that marketplace, and the company’s broader NFT play, will soon expand beyond Barbie and Hot Wheels, its two current NFT-integrated properties, to the rest of the company’s massive brand portfolio. The company has also confirmed it has 45 films in development based on Mattel toys.
The fate of many of those projects were said to be contingent on the performance of “Barbie,” Mattel’s first major film production. The movie, an unambiguous financial success, has already grossed $775 million in theaters in its first two weeks, per Box Office Mojo.