Bill Maher blasts 'preachy,' 'man-hating' Barbie : 'Let's live in the year we're living in!'
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Barbie.
Bill Maher and Barbie do not mix.
The Real Time host, 67, did not hold back on sharing his less-than-enthusiastic thoughts on Greta Gerwig's film — which he described as both "preachy" and "man-hating" — in a social media post on Monday. Among his biggest grievances with the neon pink family film was the its depiction of a patriarchal society in 2023.
"Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women," Maher wrote. "OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE — which takes place in 2023 — is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word 'patriarchy.' Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain — but this movie is so 2000-LATE."
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be…
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) August 7, 2023
In the film, Ken (Ryan Gosling) learns about the patriarchy while visiting the Real World with Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie). He then implements his highly idealized version of the system in Barbie Land, putting the Kens — including costars Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, and Scott Evans — in power for the first time.
Maher also appeared to misunderstand a plot point within the film in which the Barbies distract the Kens by pretending to not understand films, computers, and several other topics in order to rescue other brainwashed Barbies. Instead, he described it as a scene in which "the Barbies have to win over the Kens" by "pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff."
"Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back," he quipped. "Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw Barbie with a woman in her 30s who said, 'I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today.'"
Maher noted that just because he is a man, that shouldn't exclude him from being able to talk about the patriarchy. "That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data," he said. "The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. I'm not the one who's out of step — I'm living in the year we're living in."
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images; Warner Bros. Pictures Bill Maher; Margot Robbie in 'Barbie'
While Maher acknowledged that Barbie was "fun" and that he "enjoyed it," he reiterated that the film was still a "zombie lie," or "something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true."
He concluded, "And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill — just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!!"
Maher's review comes just over a week after comedian Marc Maron took a shot at right-wing backlash the film has received since its release.
"The fact that certain men took offense, is so embarrassing for them," he said in a TikTok. "I mean, so embarrassing for them. Any dude who can't take those hits in that movie, they've really gotta look in their pants and decide what they're made of. I mean, Jesus Christ, what a bunch of f---ing insecure babies."
Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.
Related content:
