Bill Maher Calls 'Barbie' Movie 'Preachy, Man-Hating' — But Also 'Fun'

Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is sparking debate among audience members and pundits, including Bill Maher and Twitter owner Elon Musk

Bill Maher is taking to social media to offer his — many and varied — thoughts on Barbie.

On Twitter (now known as X) on Monday, the host wrote of the hit Greta Gerwig film, “I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three.”

To clarify the latter assessment, Maher, 67, continued: “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 true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true.”

Related: 'Barbie' Reaches $1 Billion at Worldwide Box Office 2 Weeks After Release

The lie in question, he appeared to assert, is that while a patriarchal society once did exist, now only “remnants of it remain.”

In Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of the classic Mattel dolls, Margot Robbie’s Barbie leaves Barbieland for the real world, only to discover it’s not the feminist utopia she’d believed it was. Among the many colorful examples of toxic masculinity she encounters is the board of the Mattel corporation itself, which Maher implied in his tweet means “Barbie fights the Patriarchy.”

“There's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women,” wrote the Real Time with Bill Maher host. “OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed.” (In Barbie, the board is led by Will Ferrell as a bumbling, profits-obsessed CEO.)

Maher then defended his ability to weigh in on a fictional depiction of a patriarchal society. “I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through [in] life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. 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.”

Elon Musk, entrepreneur and owner of Twitter, tweeted a response to Maher’s tweet: “Why do they keep pushing these lies?”

In a July interview with the New York Times, Gerwig responded to the backlash from conservative social media users and pundits, which included threats to burn Barbie dolls. “Certainly, there’s a lot of passion," she said. "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. 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.”

Maher’s comments seem to fall in line with the Barbie criticism that Hoda Kotb addressed Friday. "Women are realizing they have a voice… now people are mad at the movie?" Kotb said in conversation with Jenna Bush Hager on Today with Hoda & Jenna. "If you’re bothered by the fact that women are empowered, then probably there’s a problem.”

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“People were like, ‘[The film is] so woke,' " added Bush Hager. "It really was about a world of dolls, one of whom was Barbie, and the other one was ‘just Ken.’ He was the sidekick, and they come into the real world, and he ain't the sidekick anymore."

Related: Margot Robbie Predicted 'Barbie' Would 'Make a Billion Dollars' in Early Pitch Meeting

On Wednesday podcaster Marc Maron also weighed in on what he called “certain men [who] took offense” to Gerwig’s story. “It is so embarrassing for them,” he said in a video posted to TikTok, “Any dude that can’t take those hits in that movie, they’ve really got to look in their pants and decide what they’re made of. I mean, Jesus Christ, what a bunch of f------ insecure babies.”

Maher’s critical tweet concluded by imploring his audience to “live in the year we're living in.” However, also toward the end of his post, he added that the Barbie film “is fun, I enjoyed it.”

Barbie is in theaters now, crossing $1 billion in global box office revenue and becoming the highest-grossing film led by a solo female director in cinema history.

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