Greta Gerwig is sharing her opinion about the comments Jo Koy made about her billion-dollar blockbuster hit, “Barbie,” at the 2024 Golden Globes.
While some were less than thrilled about the comedian’s jab at the film during his opening monologue, it appeared the director didn’t take the comments to heart.
Gerwig was asked what she thought when the host described “Oppenheimer” as being “based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book based on the Manhattan Project,” while then saying, “And ‘Barbie’ is about a plastic doll with big boobies.”
“Well, he’s not wrong,” Gerwig told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” host Martha Kearney. “She’s the first doll that was mass produced with breasts, so he was right on. And you know, I think that so much of the project of the movie was unlikely because it is about a plastic doll. Barbie by her very construction has no character, no story, she’s there to be projected upon.”
Gerwig continued by explaining that “the insight that (Barbie creator) Ruth Handler had when she was watching her daughter play with baby dolls is she realized, ‘My daughter doesn’t want to pretend to be a mother. She wants to pretend to be a grown woman.’”
Barbie has been around since 1959, Greta said, and throughout the decades, “She’s been a villain, she’s been a hero.”
“But it felt, in a way, even though it’s so seemingly superficial that it was such a rich place to start,” Gerwig added, paying no attention to Koy’s comment.
Koy’s “Barbie” comments, however, did not stop there. The comedian continued, saying, “The key moment in ‘Barbie’ is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath and cellulite and flat feet — or what casting directors call ‘character acting.’”
Attendees did not laugh and Selena Gomez’s reaction even went viral. The singer and actor was seen putting her face in her hands and looking down.
Even during his monologue, Koy admitted that his jokes weren’t getting the laughs he expected.
“Some I wrote, some other people wrote,” Koy said about the quips that fell flat. “Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Shut up. You’re kidding me, right? I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”
Despite the jabs, “Barbie” earned over $1.3 billion in revenue, as well as critical acclaim. The film received nine Golden Globe nominations, taking home the new award for box office achievement. Most recently it was also nominated for four Screen Actors Guild awards and is expected to receive plenty of nominations at this year’s Oscars.
