(Washington Insider Magazine) — So, I saw the “Barbie” movie on HBO Max or Max, whatever you want to call it, and I just need to ask how Greta Gerwig got funding for this movie because that’s about two hours of my life that I will never get back. Did the filmmaker hypnotize the studio into making this film and then they all forgot that they were under her control?
Unwrapping Barbie
The film sees Margot Robbie starring as the titular character who lives in a plastic world called Barbieland where women run everything and make decisions and the “Ken” models are treated like second-class citizens, which honestly seems like Gerwig is describing her marriage to co-writer Noah Baumbach. Anyway, the film leaps over to Barbie becoming distraught that she may die one day and she goes to the real world to find the child that is playing with her to fix an imbalance in Barbieland where she gets flat feet and cellulite.
Saying all of that sounds like the plot of a CGI Barbie movie that came out on direct-to-DVD. I knew from when the studios announced it that it was a film for girls and there was nothing wrong with that. However, it becomes a problem when Gerwig blatantly decides to demonize men for the sole purpose of just being men and lead with the assumption that women make all the rules and they can do no wrong. That premise already goes haywire. Believing that one gender is inherently better than the other is still sexism. It was sexist when men did it and it’s sexist when women do it today, but Gerwig went full-throttle on the man-hating card and wanted to appease the hardcore feminists that loathe men with a burning passion.
Apparently, the filmmakers believe that two wrongs make a right. That’s quite the opposite. What’s even worse than that is the fact that none of the jokes are remotely funny. People talked about Brendan Schaub’s special not being funny at all but what’s worse about Gewrwig’s movie is that it’s unfunny and talking down to men as if being a man is wrong, which makes the film like watching a Hannah Gadbsy “comedy” special. Dave Chappelle already tore into her so I’ll leave that for a seasoned professional like himself.
Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie.
The rest of Gerwig’s film feels like it had the potential to say something great but it ends with a bad joke that doesn’t get any steam or luster out of its lazy script. Hollywood seems to have gone out of its way to try and help this film succeed despite the writer’s strike at the time and it worked, as it made over $1 billion at the box office with some good marketing and the ubiquity of the Barbie doll herself. However, Gerwig’s efforts seem to only be preaching to a certain choir and further divides men and women rather than both parties working together to fix each other’s issues.
The End Result of Barbie
In an even stranger turn of events, the film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, which left many to wonder how it managed to achieve such a feat, especially being covered in every single shade of pink imaginable that it could almost blind the viewer.
It’s almost like working in an office and you’re wondering how this guy who came in an interview with ripped jeans, bad hygiene and poor attitude got the job and then you realize that they were the “affirmative action hire”. That seems to be the case with Gerwig’s film being nominated for any award. I assumed that the Razzies would be knocking on their door after the film was released, but Hollywood spun a 180 degree turn and shocked the world.
All I have to say is that Margot Robbie deserves a lot better, knowing how talented of an actress she truly is.
