As many predicted, Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie” cleaned up at the box office this past weekend, with the film sitting just under $500 million worldwide. Will it break the $1 billion dollar barrier like star Margot Robbie predicted in her studio pitch? It certainly looks like it, and in such a tumultuous time for Hollywood, many people are happy about that. But some moviegoers, namely white male conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Piers Morgan, have had the opposite positive reaction to Gerwig’s film. EW reports that the director has a response for them.
“Certainly, there’s a lot of passion,” Gerwig told The New York Times about the backlash her latest film has received from conservatives. “My hope for the movie is that it’s an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men.” Many conservative commentators have bashed “Barbie” for being “woke,” with some like Shapiro (let’s face it, probably only Shapiro) burning Mattel dolls in protest of the film. But Gerwig doesn’t sound too fazed by these outbursts, such as they are. “I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people,” she concluded.
For anyone familiar with Mr. Shapiro, he needs much more than mere relief. The Republican commentator posted a lengthy screed against “Barbie” on YouTube as the film hit theaters this past weekend, which featured Shapiro setting Barbies on fire and accusing the film of being a feminist assault. “The basic sort of premise of the film, politically speaking, is that men and women are on two sides and they hate each other,” Shapiro said in the video. “And literally, the only way you can have a happy world is if the women ignore the men and the men ignore the women.” In the video, Shapiro also predicted that “Barbie” would “fall off a cliff” at the box office. Obviously, that didn’t happen, as Gerwig’s film continues to set box office records as a new box office weekend approaches.
Other conservative commentators, like English broadcast Piers Morgan, Ginger Gaetz, wife of Republican Flordia Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Matt Walsh, have come down hard on “Barbie.” Over at The NY Post, Morgan wrote, “If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking the matriarchy, and depicting all things feminist as toxic bullsh*t, I wouldn’t just be canceled, I’d be executed.” He went on, “”Barbie” achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve, and that is to establish the matriarchy as the perfect antidote to the patriarchy when, in fact, it’s just the same concept that they asked us all to detest in the first place.” Meanwhile, Gaetz criticized Ryan Gosling‘s “beta energy” as Ken in the film, with Walsh condemning the movie as “feminist propaganda” that’s “aggressively anti-man.” Eloquence and reason, thy name is conservatism.
Jokes aside, the conservative backlash about “Barbie” puts these commentators in the minority of critical responses to the film. Gerwig’s latest currently sits at a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A” grade over at CinemaScore. And, of course, the film has been lauded by major critics around the nation, including The Playlist (read our review here). So it appears Gerwig’s intentions for her film paid off. “I wanted to make something anarchic and wild and funny and cathartic,” she told the NYT, “and the idea that it’s actually being received that way, it’s sort of extraordinary.”
So the reception to “Barbie” may be extraordinary, but what about the film? Given the conservative uproar against the movie, it depends on who you ask. But Gerwig’s film doesn’t look like it will “fall off a cliff” anytime soon, so it’s safe to expect Ben Shapiro will continue gnashing his teeth about “Barbie” until he finds another reason to seek attention.