Director Greta Gerwig and producer and actor Margot Robbie recently explained how the upcoming Barbie film is a “feminist film.”
During an interview alongside Margot Robbie with ABC News, host Sarah Ferguson asked, “In the little that was able to be understood about the film in advance, clearly, Mattel still talk about it in slightly different terms to you two. But somehow they don’t like to call it a feminist film, the actors seem very comfortable talking about it as a feminist film, but somehow it doesn’t matter that you talk about it differently?”
Gerwig answered, “Well, it most certainly is a feminist film.”
When asked to explain how so, Robbie interjected, “To me that’s like one slice of the pie.” Gerwig then said, “Super big slice.” Robbie continued, “It’s a big slice, but I also wouldn’t call it a funny film because that discredits the fact that it’s got a lot of heart, and it’s got a lot of emotion, and it’s got a lot of movie references, you know, all this kind of stuff.”
Robbie went on, “I’m like it is funny that is a huge part of it. It is a comedy, but if you just call it a funny film it almost make it sound like it doesn’t have a lot going on and it does.”
Gerwig then shared, “When we talk about this stuff it almost sounds silly because you start talking about Barbie and Ken and then you’re having very serious discussion about Barbie and Ken. But it’s also a humanist film because it’s like the humanity in so far as you can call it of like Barbie and Ken is what’s paramount in the film.”
“And at the beginning of the movie, you know, Ken is a person with no status in this world so in this kind of reversed world that person who has no status is in a completely untenable place long term,” Gerwig explained.
When Ferguson asserts that Ken is taken from being a cipher into a real thing, Gerwig responds, “Right, which is, you know, but in that way it’s giving him humanity as it were as a doll as you know whatever these kind of knots on knots that we have of the world of Barbie.”
“I also think, I will say, just the existence of this film in the way it does is pretty incredible and is pretty– I mean like when I think of it, this sort of as it stands, this is amazing that this movie is made and it’s made the way it is with Margot as a producer and a star. And what the story is of the movie, it sort of feels unbelievable that it’s been made.”
Gerwig then asserts, “It’s feminist in a way that includes everyone. It’s a rising tide lifts all boats version of it.”
Robbie then said, “I think some people hear the word feminism means that doesn’t mean men.” Gerwig interjects, “It does mean men.” Robbie continued, “Anyone who believes men and women should be equal is…” Gerwig finished her sentence, “feminist. It’s that simple.”
Robbie went on, “But I think some people hear the word feminist and associate a lot of negative baggage with the word.”
Ferguson then presses, “So what is it for you in the film if you guys are comfortable … if the actors, if all the people on set are comfortable, they get that the word belongs to the film, how so?”
Gerwig answered, “I think it belongs to the film because when we were making it the whole– Barbie is like an icon that as Margot was speaking to, she exists in the both and, not the either or. She’s not either good or bad or, you know. Diving into the complexity of it and not running away from it, but looking at all the thorniness and stepping into it, and also looking all the thorniness and stepping into what is the negotiation of what women need to be and how to give them something other than a tightrope to walk on is how it feels feminist to me.”
Robbie then shared her answer, “I actually, when I got asked the other day like if Barbie is a feminist, well she’s actually the level up from that. If you look at Barbieland at the beginning, the Barbies are on top and the Kens are kind of disregarded. So I was like well that’s not equal. So whatever the opposite of misogynist is actually, Barbie’s like– So towards the end when they balance things out then it might be feminist, but actually it’s beyond feminist because the power dynamic is in the favor of the Barbies to begin with.”
Gerwig adds, “But then not to give too much away, but the human character of I will say Gloria played by the brilliant America Ferrara also articulates some stuff about what this negotiation is.”
“And I think really what it feels is like allowing all the things to exist at once and not shoving things down when they don’t fit with something,” she concluded.
What do you make of Robbie and Gerwig’s explanation that the film is feminist?
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