‘I Cannot Believe Mattel Allowed This’
Written by Luck Wilson on July 19, 2023
According to one insider, the Margot Robbie-starring Barbie movie features boob jokes and even an F-bomb.
Greta Gerwig’s take on Mattel’s iconic line of dolls is nearly here, turning from a simple summer blockbuster into something of a fervent moment of millennial virality.
Because of this, the movie is looking like it is going to have a stellar opening weekend at the box office (some projections see the film pulling in as much as $105 million domestically), as some critics call Gerwig’s latest big-screen comedy their “favorite film of the year.”
But what exactly this movie is going to be about remains a mystery. The film got a higher-than-expected rating, shocking some for a mention of “moderate innuendo” and “implied strong language”
Barbie Gets NSFW on the Big Screen
Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie film reportedly features some shocking subject matter, including an F-bomb and boob jokes.
While speaking on his The Town podcast on The Ringer, insider Matthew Belloni revealed that he had seen the film, noting he was “struck by how Mattel allowed this to happen:”
“I wanna talk about ‘Barbie.’ I went to the ‘Barbie’ premiere last night. It is quite the spectacle. I will leave it to the critics to say whether it’s good or bad, but I was struck by how Mattel allowed this to happen. It is taking the Barbie IP and just running with it.”
Getting into specifics, Belloni pointed to “an F-bomb in the movie” that is “bleeped,” allusions to “the creator of Mattel having tax evasion problems,” and “boob jokes:”
“I mean, there is an F-bomb in the movie. Someone says, ‘Motherf*cker.’ It’s bleeped… But, there are boob jokes. There’s a joke about the creator of Mattel having tax evasion problems. The whole villain is the patriarchy.”
He joked that he “cannot believe Mattel allowed [Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros.] to do this:”
“And it spends a lot of time sort of almost apologizing for the fact that this is a ‘Barbie’ movie. Watching it, I was like, ’Oh my god, I cannot believe Mattel allowed them to do this, allowed them Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. to do this.”
Greta Gerwig’s Badass Barbie Movie
While some may look at this news, and clutch their pearls thinking “By heavens, a boob joke in a Barbie film? How could they let this happen?”
Well, those people have obviously never seen a Greta Gerwig film. Gerwig has made a career of writing and directing kickass feminist comedies, commenting on the female experience. And that was most certainly not going to change even as she dabbled in the world of IP with Barbie.
In a previous interview with Vogue, Barbie star Margot Robbie discussed that this movie was going to surprise people, and it seems to be.
At the time, she said people might have some ideas about what a Barbie film should look like, but after “hear[ing] that Greta Gerwig is writing and directing it” moviegoers are going to be like, “Well, maybe I don’t [know what to expect].”
And this is evidence of that. For many people, this is going to be their first Gerwig experience, so they should buckle up for some shocking bits of fun comedy (like those mentioned above), along with devastating moments of raw humanity.
Gerwig has thrived at telling these emotionally gripping yet extremely witty stories of femininity since the very beginning. And she has had a pretty good track record doing that, so why change now?
Barbie comes to theaters on Friday, July 21.
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