The Barbie movie caused a global pink shortage?!

Hello everyone. Welcome back to By Amara. This is a weekly news show where we'll discuss some of the weird, strange, and downright odd things that happened in the art and history fields.

I'm your host and personal curator Amara Andrew. This week, we're talking about, got milk? Well, this weird new exhibit sure does.

What did ancient Romans smell like? And did the Barbie movie cause a global shortage of the color pink? We have all that and more in this episode of By Amara, so let's get to it.

Well, hello and welcome to yet another week of our lives. This is episode 36 of By Amara. It is crazy how we're almost to episode 50.

We still have some time, but it's just crazy how quickly it has approached and is arriving. My little ear thing isn't on all the way. One sec.

Okay, cool. So,

Normally at this part of the show, I start with some updates. I don't have any about stories that we've talked about in the past. There are some reviews about Hannah Gadsby's the exhibit that they co-curated with a couple other curators at the Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibit is called It's Pablo-matic. Let's just say the exhibit is causing quite a stir, not really necessarily for a good reason or for a bad reason, it just is. The art world seems very divided on how they feel

About this specific exhibit, so I'm not going to go too into it, but I just wanted to bring attention to that cuz I think we talked about it in episode 29. I was coming at it more from a hey, we need to make sure that, you know, there are enough jobs for people in the art history field and everything, because that is a very big issue.

But anyway, I digress, so there's that, I guess. I just addressed it, so have at it. Otherwise, personal life updates, not really much.

It's just been a lot of work. People,

It's funny because being in the Midwest where, you know, you only have a couple months of nice weather, everybody's trying to cram as much in as possible in these nice weather months, and that includes like filming videos and stuff, which is my primary occupation. I do a bunch of other things, but that's like the main thing I do.

So, a lot of people are like, "Hey, let's record stuff. Like let's go." So, I'm like, "I don't have enough time to be editing all of it." But anyway, I'm I'm making it work, so blah, blah, blah. It's been a very collectible and art-filled week,

Which has been kind of fun. We got a new art piece called a Smorkin Labbit, so you can look it up, or I'll have a photo up here for the video version of this. It is very cute.

It's actually looking at me right over there, but I can't show you. I'm attached to all of this cord chaos. But it's very cute.

It's a little rabbit that has a little cigarette, and it's kind of like a little badass. It has 5:00 shadow. It's so cute.

We got the red one, and I absolutely love it. It's just very fun. It has a little booty hole in the back, too, so it's it's really cool.

Then we also, I've never been to a flea market before. So, this weekend we saw one. Well, we saw it when we were driving somewhere else, and then it was like, "Oh look, that's like a flea market right there, or they have one on the weekend." So, we ended up going.

It was huge. I had no idea what to expect, and it was really cool. We actually got a an old movie editor.

It's a Super 8 movie editor, so it edits 8 film. It is so freaking cool. I think it's from the '60s.

I couldn't find an exact date, but that's kind of what I'm guessing based on like the packaging and the style and everything.

I also got three films for it. One was an old 1934 film, it looked like, or at least based upon a '34 film. And then a couple others, and they're just like really cute.

So, I don't know, I'm really enjoying it. I haven't actually used it or plugged it in, cuz I'm worried about ruining it. But it's just a really cool like relic to have, so we have it on display now.

So, as a video editor, it's cool to have an old-timey video editor. We also went to a vintage baseball game, which was very interesting. They have it every year at this one specific location,

And it was very cool. They do old-timey, like original baseball kind of rules, so you kind of have to like pay attention to follow along. But then after you go for a couple years, it's like, "Oh yeah." The first year they used to dress up, actually, too, which is fun.

I don't know, I enjoyed that. But then they just kind of stopped, especially because, you know, you have trouble running in a costume, and you don't really quite get into it. People really got into it.

It was fun, I don't know. It's like a nice little summertime sort of activity, so anywho, I'm just blabbering. I don't really have much to report on

Personally. So, I think with that, let's just get straight into the show. So, there is a new exhibit at the Wellcome Collection in London, and it's looking at milk.

It's titled simply Milk. Go figure. And it looks at the global economic and cultural impact milk has had,

Specifically looking within the UK at the impact of milk. According to the Wellcome Collection, quote, "The exhibition asks, why has cow's milk been considered essential to a good diet in the UK? What forces shape the ways we feed our babies?

How has milk been used to tie ideas of health to whiteness? How do we value milk in those who produce it?" End quote. So, this is literally an entire exhibit that is devoted to milk and understanding its historicity, its societal

Things. I don't know. I'm at a loss for words, cause I personally don't like milk.

And I'm allergic to it, so double doozy. So, the within the exhibit, it features, this is just such a weird exhibit, which is mostly why I wanted to talk about it, cause I've never heard of something like this before, but it's also very interesting to me. I just finished, I've talked about it for a really long time now, but I finally just finished it.

It's a book about the history of food and where we get certain terminology and words and things like that, and it's called Rome Wasn't Built in a Day.

It's a really good book if you're interested in food history. It's very like a very brief overview of everything almost, not almost, but a lot of different things, so if you're interested at all just to kind of get like a small tasting, if you will, it's a really good book. So, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, back to this exhibit. Within the exhibit, they feature historical ads, items used in items used in farming, public health posters, art, and then a few new commissions that were made specifically for the exhibit.

There's also a new they feature a new documentary about UK and dairy farming or something. One of the main showstopping art pieces, though, is this giant sculpture of udders. I think it's yeah, it's a giant black cow udder, but it doesn't just have the four teats like normal, it has 13.

And it's supposed to mimic a woman's breast, cause there's a whole portion in it for breastfeeding, like within the exhibit. This hangs from the ceiling directly in the entryway of the exhibit, and I'm going to talk about the layout of the exhibit just because I always find that really interesting. I've made a few, sorry, I'm like spitting, I'm so excited.

I've made a few exhibits in my day, and I always find it so interesting to see how people choose, cause like making an exhibit is storytelling, so I'm always very curious to see how are they leading thing, like creating things and what are you starting with, what are you going, I don't know, I'll I'll talk about it in a minute.

There's also in the exhibit a series of like four shelves of dozens of cow-shaped creamer jugs from the 18th and 19th centuries and also, like I said, a bunch of different posters and talking about public health and I don't know, it's it's an interesting exhibit, I will say.

Mainly kind of what the point is to look at the global, economic, and cultural impact that milk has had. And like I said, this is mostly in the UK, but it's mostly also through like a European and kind of bringing in American lens a little bit. So, it doesn't really touch upon, you know, the global usage of milk.

It doesn't really look like it touches upon other types of milk, either, it's specifically like cow milk. Also, I don't even know if they address non-dairy milks, because that would be something really interesting, too. I mean, I have no idea.

I'm literally not in the UK, so I don't know what the exhibit

Kind of is, but on their website, they actually do have a really good booklet that details all of these various different things. It's really, really, really well done. So, in the PDF, they also include, like I said, the little outline kind of how the exhibit goes.

So, it starts with, quote, "The story of milk," which is where you literally enter, and then you just see this giant teat, or rather, 13 teats. And then you proceed to another room called "The Milk Problem."

Then you go to one called "Scientific Motherhood," then another one called "Good Health," and then finally "The Cost of Milk," where they're trying to kind of sway you against milk. I don't know. So, it's it just seems like a really interesting exhibit.

I don't really have much about it, but I like how novel and unique it is. I wish this had more of a global kind of lean to it, also. And I think it does kind of touch upon very briefly, like colonization, British colonization, but

I don't know how far it goes into that, cause that would also be a really interesting topic. But also, I know, exhibits take a lot of money and time, so you only have so much you can work with. So, anyway, to wrap this story up, Milk is on view until September 10th, 2023, and the museum is free, so I guess go milk it for all it's worth.

Ha. I had to. If you get to go, please let me know and take your photo with the giant udder, cause I'd be very curious to see that.

So, today I am asking the question that I'm sure we all are wondering, what did ancient Romans smell like? Well, a perfume bottle found at Carmona might hold the answer. Recently, researchers published the results of their research after they found a solid mass in a Roman tomb located in Carmona in the province of Seville in Spain.

I almost said Italy, I said Italy again, and I was trying this again, but whatever, now you know my secrets.

And they found this in 2019, but, you know, academia, blah, takes a while. So, this is just published now. So, they found this really cool-looking rock crystal ointment jar, and it is called, bear with me, it's called an unguentarium, unguentarium, unguentarium, unguentarium.

We'll say unguentarium. I listened to it, too, before this, just so I didn't make an ass of myself, and here we are. So, they found this unguentarium, and it was sealed with a dolomite stopper, and it was filled with this solid substance, like I said,

Which the researchers believe to be perfume. The jar was found within an egg-shaped lead urn that was stored in a niche in a wall that also within the jar, it also contained cremated bones, organic remains of a cloth bag, three amber beads, and then this unguentarium. It measures roughly 7 cm or about 3 in length.

And apparently, according to these researchers, quartz jars were items of great luxury, and even the dolomite stopper in it was really unique to have. So, this itself, that it even exists,

Is really cool. The fact that it's in this container is even more amazing, and then to have the dolomite stopper, like all of it together is just very unique. It also has these little handles on the side, which is really cute, and it's kind of like a like a test tube almost kind of shape, but like a little thicker.

So, Carmona was one of the major cities in Baetica, which was a Roman province in the south of Hispania in the first and second centuries CE. This was a central hub for Roman life, so there were a ton of different ruins,

A lot of different buildings that are still there to this day. So, that's why all these researchers are like excavating there. For the lead urn, so the lead urn was the main primary housing, and then this little unguentarium was found inside, that is like my new favorite word now.

But anyway, for the lead urn, researchers used X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and gas chromatography mass spectrometry, spectrometry, spectrometry, to reveal that the substance within the jar contains hydrocarbons,

Sesquiterpenes naturally found in plants and insects, and a vegetable fat. And yes, I am not a scientist, I do not pretend to be one. So, those are a lot of big, fancy words for they ran some tests, and they found some stuff inside this vessel.

So, you're probably like, "Can you just shut up and get to what the scent is now?" So, the scent is patchouli, possibly.

It's not 100% known, but researchers are guessing heavily and strongly that it was indeed patchouli within this vessel. Perfume was used widely in ancient societies in ancient Rome, like not only for ceremonial purposes, but also for funerals, and then just for everyday use. So, patchouli was probably the essence that was used.

Pliny even wrote about the preparation of perfumes, and according to certain sources in ancient Rome, the oils that were most frequently used to make perfumes were extracted from sesame, hot radish, almonds, and oil from unripe olives.

And as I stated before, too, this is a very rare find. However, there have been similar findings, like a small metal bottle containing cream that was made from animal fat, and that was found in London. There were also, though, other glass unguentaria, so plural, containing fat-based extracts unearthed in Naples, also.

So, this is still a really cool find, but there have been a couple other things that have been found that are kind of in a similar vein. I'm always so curious what the past smelled like. I think

A really long time ago in one of the episodes, we talked about the food that was found at the Coliseum, like within the sewers and everything, and that was really neat to know. I'm always just curious what the smells are like, and I mean, you can always think about like in the Victorian age in London and how, you know, people would write about how awful the stenches were, where, you know, you kind of think, "Well, yeah, it probably already smelled bad, but then if people were really writing about it all the time, it was probably horrific." I don't know.

I always think about that. I think it's really fun. This story made me think of when I was a kid.

So, my mom and I lived in Arizona, cuz I was born and raised there, but my mom's family was from here. So, sometimes we would come back and visit for Christmas or whatever, just for fun, I guess. And one of the times, we went to the Field Museum.

Field Museum's problematic in and of its own self, but I'm not going into that right now. But when I was little, I was maybe 6 or 7, they had an exhibit about It was when Sue was found, Sue the T-Rex, and it was uncovered, and it was this whole big thing. They had a whole dinosaur exhibit, and one of the parts of the exhibit was where you could go press a button and smell dinosaur breath.

That was like the coolest thing to me as a kid, cuz I don't know, I think already then I was kind of a history buff, which is really weird as a kid. But it was just like, "Wow, I could smell like these dinosaurs, this T-Rex, I can smell what a Stegosaurus' breath smelled like." And I was just sitting there, too, wondering as a kid, like, "How did they capture this?

Or like, was this somewhere under I don't know." I had like I was a really weird fucking kid, and I was just like, "How did they capture all this?" But anyway, that was so cool to me. I love when you can have ancient smells and

Just be able to smell them. I don't know. I think it's very cool.

I think the whole olfactory system is really fascinating. So anyway, I'm just blabbering on and on, so let's get to our third and final story for today. So, speaking of childhood memories, we are now going to talk about the Barbie movie.

And yes, I personally am excited to see it. I love Margot Robbie.

I hate the color pink, but we're going to be talking all about it today. I am also I definitely played with Barbies as a kid, so I don't know, I'm very curious to see the kind of creative license that they're going to take, and also how they stay true to certain things. I'm just I'm very curious.

But the question that we're asking today, did the Barbie movie cause a global shortage of the color pink? Technically, yes. And here's what happened.

This is very short, sweet, and to the point, so don't worry, it's not going to drag on too long. So, the production designer for the movie, her name is Sarah Greenwood, she had an interview with Architectural Digest.

This is where it originally came from, this whole idea. In the interview, Greenwood stated that during construction they had to use a shit ton of pink, obviously, because that is basically Barbie's whole, ho. Barbie is not a ho.

I didn't mean that, I meant Barbie used a whole lot of pink. Barbie is associated with pink. Like, when I think of the color pink, I think of Barbie.

So, the set of Barbie's Dreamhouse was apparently inspired by Palm Springs mid-century modernism, which I thought was really interesting, because you can definitely see it in some of the photos that they have of the set.

Greenwood also stated that there are no walls or doors in Barbie's world, which, if you had a Dreamhouse, which I didn't, because I was like, I don't know, I wasn't part of the wealthy crew, but like all my friends had the Barbie Dreamhouse, and I was so jealous, but anyway. So, she states that there are no doors or walls in Barbie's world, quote, "Dreamhouses assume that you never have anything you wish was private.

There's no place to hide," end quote, which I thought was really fascinating. It's very Dutch Baroque or ancient or ancient, but old-time Dutch, where you just leave your windows open and it's kind of like, "Well yeah, I have nothing to hide, so you can look inside my house and see all my lovely furnishings and things, like I have nothing to nothing to hide."

Further in the interview, they discuss the architecture, and obviously duh, because it's Architectural Digest. But then at the bottom, literally the last sentence of the article, Greenwood talks about the use of pink. She stated, quote, "I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much," end quote, which it looks like it, so job well done.

And then she states that they caused an international run on the fluorescent shade of Rosco paint. Rosco is a paint company, and she said, quote, "The world ran out of pink," end quote. So, I said at the top that this is technically true.

Here's why.

We're getting to it, I promise there is a payoff. There is there is something, I promise. In an article then in the LA Times, the vice president of global marketing for Rosco clarified a little matter-of-factly, I might add.

Clarified that the company did in fact run out of this particular shade of fluorescent pink, but it already had less than normal in 2022 when Barbie was under production. Obviously, as we are finding out now in 2023, when this is being filmed, the pandemic has caused major supply chain issues in basically every single sector.

It's been absolute chaos and really terrible. So, Rosco was one of the companies, obviously, that has had this sort of supply chain issue.

This was also exacerbated because Rosco was still recovering from the deep freeze in Texas in 2021, which ruined most like most of their supplies that they use to make paint. So, already they were having supply chain issues because of the pandemic, and then with this freeze, it was like, okay, well, everything we had is now destroyed.

The VP then states that, quote, "There was this shortage, and then we gave them everything we could. I don't know they can claim credit," end quote. That's like a little aggressive.

I mean, even if it's true, it's kind of like, "Well, you're getting free." I don't know. It felt a little unnecessarily mean.

But that's fine, I mean, I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter to me. So, technically, the production of Barbie wasn't the sole cause for the company to run out of paint, but I would argue that the small amount that they did have had to go to the Barbie movie, or was purchased by the production crew for the Barbie movie.

So, technically, they did cause a shortage of this color because it was then not available through the company. So, I don't know, I'll let you battle it out in the comments. Leave me out of it, I don't care, I'm just the messenger.

I hate pink personally, so you can fucking have it for all I care. So, let me know in the comments below.

Do you think that the Barbie production caused it, or do you think it was just the Rosco paint and it was just like, "Well, this is just what we have." So, let me know. Oh my god, I just had a terrible thought. What if, because the movie is coming out in a couple months, what if everything now is going to be bright pink?

Oh my god, no. I hate pink so much. Oh god.

I'm definitely a very grayscale kind of person as you can tell if you're watching this. If not, then I'm a very grayscale kind of person. Everything is probably going to be bright pink, and it's going to be my hell, and that's just fine because I'm going to have to live in it.

So anyway,

Maybe next time I'll be wearing a bright pink outfit or something, and I'll just get really into it, so we shall find out. That is it for this episode of By Amara. Thank you so much for listening.

I really appreciate you, and thank you so much for liking this episode. It means a lot to me, so thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you for subscribing, also, that just helps tremendously. If you love any creator that you listen to or follow, please make sure you subscribe to them, just because, you know, you want to help them.

You want to help them boost in the ratings, and it really does make a difference. So, thank you so much to those of you who have, and if you haven't, please do it. I love you.

And I'm Amara Andrew, and never stop creating.

Ow, ow. I hate pink.