Greta Gerwig has responded Golden Globes host Jo Koy’s gag that Barbie is a movie about “a plastic doll with big boobies”, saying “he’s not wrong.”
The director, who also wrote the screenplay with her now-husband Noah Baumbach, agreed that there had been “sneering” at the film.
Responding to the jibe by comedian Koy, whose monologue at the awards show was widely derided, she told BBC Radio 4: “Well, you know, he’s not wrong. She’s the first doll that was mass produced with breasts so he was right on.”
She told the Today programme that much of the movie, which stars Margot Robbie in the title role, was “unlikely” because it is about a plastic doll who has “no character, no story” and is “there to be projected upon”.
Barbie won the first Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement.
Gerwig called it “very wonderful and emotional” to “take the stage with the group that made it” after the film won the gong.
“Barbie has been around since 1959,” she continued. “And she’s been a villain and she’s been a hero, but it felt like, in a way, even though it’s so seemingly superficial, that it was such a rich place to start.”
Barbie director Greta Gerwig said the doll has “always been a flashpoint for arguments”, recalling that her mother was unsure about it as a toy.
She added: “What’s sort of amazing about it is it has inspired such a wide range of reactions, but those are always my favourite things.”
Gerwig continued: “In some ways, it’s not surprising because Barbie has always been sometimes ahead of culture, sometimes behind culture and she’s always been a flashpoint for arguments.
“I know that even from my own personal growing up… my mom wasn’t so keen on Barbie. She wasn’t sure about it as a toy for me and of course, as a result I loved Barbie.”
She said there has never been a time when she was not familiar with the arguments for and against Barbie.
“So the fact that the film has inspired such a range of reactions seems fitting,” she added.
Barbie marked a writing reunion for Gerwig and Baumbach, who have previously worked together on Mistress America and Frances Ha, which were directed by Baumbach and starred Gerwig.
The couple, who have been together for more than a decade and have two children, quietly got married last year.
Gerwig said: “He is my husband, we did it just last month, we got married at City Hall in New York City and then we went to Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden and it was terrific.”
She said she hopes they will write together again in the future, adding: “If he will write with me, I will write with him again. I might have to trick him into it again but it will be worth it.”
Her next project is an adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia and she said she feels a “particular sense of wanting to do it correctly” as a non-Brit.
She added: “I’m slightly in the place of terror because I really do have such reverence for Narnia, I loved Narnia so much as a child. As an adult, C.S. Lewis is a thinker and a writer. I’m intimidated by doing this.
“It’s something that feels like a worthy thing to be intimidated by.”