From black-and-white films to believable special effects, movies have changed and grown
dramatically over the few decades they’ve existed. The caliber of films have greatly changed
over the years, but unlike movies, there are things that never change; commerce and greed.
The fact is that popular movies are simply over-commercialized. Whenever a new movie pops
up and everyone expects it to do well, you see merchandise of it everywhere. Walmarts,
Targets, and department stores galore-everyone wants a taste of the money they could make off
of popular movies. And they do make a lot of money; excited fans all over flock to their
merchandise like moths to a flame.

Speaking of ‘popular’, a good, very recent example of this would be the Wicked movie. See, I
love Wicked; it has a brilliant story, likable characters, and good themes. I personally was a fan
of the musical as a child. However, when you see merchandise of it everywhere- in every store-
and you can’t seem to escape it? Now, that’s just suffocating. Everywhere you look, you see
t-shirts, Stanley cups, and little handbags with the characters on them.

A slightly less recent, less prominent example would be the Deadpool & Wolverine film. The
thing about that movie is that it was made by Marvel, and the thing about Marvel is that it is very,
very popular. Fans young and old flock to the theater to see the film because it’s Marvel, and
stores realize that. Again, you see piles of merchandise, including so, so many t-shirts. Back in
October, I wrote a story for this newspaper about popular Halloween costumes, and those
characters were on the list. Don’t think I don’t see you, Party City.

I think we all remember the pink and the grey, the sparkly and the gritty, the sequins and
cigarettes. We all remember Barbenheimer, the hilarious movie mashup in theatres around the
globe with the releases of the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer. It was a filmmaking meme, and
commerce took advantage of it. Barbenheimer shirts, cups, sweaters, hats- you couldn’t seem
to get away from it. It was hilarious at first but over time it just got annoying. You couldn’t seem
to go to a store or be on the internet without seeing something about Barbenheimer, and I know
for me it took a lot of the hype away from actually seeing films.

The issue is not that merchandise for these films exists, it’s that there’s just too much and all at
once. It’s constant and often mentally draining. The merchandise isn’t even often that neat. It’s
mostly just basic designs printed on things. It’s not about love for a movie, it’s about
corporations and how quickly they jump to make money off of things, even when it’s practically
mooching off of fans’ hype. It’s quite suffocating, and oftentimes makes actually seeing the
movies less exciting.

If there’s one takeaway from all of this, it is that big department store chains will stop at nothing
to make as much money as possible, and mooching off of popular films is no exception. But
perhaps they should ease up a little; after all, we definitely notice.