Mattel wasn't thrilled about that 'Barbie' fascist joke, according to director Greta Gerwig

• Greta Gerwig said that Mattel wasn't particularly keen on calling Barbie a fascist in "Barbie."

• The director said she never got the "full seal of approval," but the line made it into the film.

• Gerwig says that she thinks it was important to address criticisms of Barbie in the movie.

"Barbie" director Greta Gerwig said that Mattel wasn't exactly happy about a line calling Barbie a fascist, but the company ultimately let it through.

During one scene in the film, Sasha — a human teenage girl, played by Ariana Greenblatt — calls Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) a fascist. Emotionally reacting to the comment later, Barbie remarks aloud to herself that she couldn't possibly be a fascist because she doesn't "control the railways or the flow of commerce."

Gerwig told the New York Times that Mattel, the company that launched Barbie in 1959, wasn't enthusiastic about that particular line of dialogue, though it did eventually make it into the movie.

"It wasn't like I ever got the full seal of approval from [Mattel], like, 'We love it!'" Gerwig said. "I got a tentative, 'Well, OK. I see that you are going to do this, so go ahead and we'll see how it goes.' But that's all you need, and I had faith once it was in there and they saw it that they would embrace it, not fight it. Maybe at the end of the day, my will to have it in was stronger than any other will to take it out."

Mattel did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The New Yorker previously reported that Richard Dickson, Mattel's COO and president, flew into London on one of many set visits to discuss the dialogue about Barbie's effects on girls' self-esteem with Gerwig and Robbie, who both produces and stars in the film. And Robbie Brenner, the executive producer of Mattel Films, apparently told company leadership that they were going to "white-knuckle it the whole time" while watching the film, per Time.

Gerwig told the Times that she felt that it was important to address the societal criticisms of Barbie directly in the film. When it came to the scene where Sasha and her friends pretty unkindly eviscerate Barbie, who has only just learned that her existence did not in fact solve all problems for women, the director felt that it was important to have a "really smart character" deliver those arguments directly to to the doll.

"Also, I grew up with a mom who was kind of against Barbie, so that's how I knew all that," Gerwig said. "If you don't give voice to that, then you're nowheresville."

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