People are still talking about how badly Jo Koy bombed as the Golden Globes host on Sunday. One of the most offensive jokes – in an opening monologue full of terrible jokes – was Koy’s comment about Barbie, the most successful movie of 2023: “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.” The producers cut to Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s reaction to that joke and they both looked frozen and bewildered. Margot hasn’t said anything about Koy’s performance, but Greta was asked about it in an interview this week, and she spun it into Barbie’s favor:
“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig isn’t letting Jo Koy’s Golden Globes jokes about the record-breaking film get to her. During an interview with BBC Radio on Wednesday, she gave her stamp of approval to the comedian’s polarizing comparison of “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”
“‘Oppenheimer’ is based on the 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project — and ‘Barbie’ is about a plastic doll with big boobies,” he said during his opening monologue, rubbing some fans the wrong way.
“Well, he’s not wrong,” Gerwig, 40, bluntly stated. “She’s the first doll that was mass-produced with breasts, so he was right on…And you know, I think that so much of the project of the movie was unlikely because it is about a plastic doll. The insight that [Barbie’s creator] Ruth Handler had when she was watching her daughter play with baby dolls, is she realized, ‘My daughter doesn’t want to pretend to be a mother. She wants to pretend to be a grown woman.’”
Of course, she opposed the hundreds of fans who were disgusted by Koy’s “Barbie” jabs. Viewers rushed to social media to express their dismay with his comments during the Golden Globes, labeling them as sexist and claiming they proved the entire point of the “Barbie” movie, which was to highlight women’s struggles in a male-dominated world.
“Saying ‘Oppenheimer’ was based on a great work and dismissing Barbie as a movie based on a doll with big boobs was so aggressively misogynistic in the face of all that Greta Gerwig and Margo Robbie accomplished it just turned me against Jo Koy the rest of the show,” one X user penned after hearing 52-year-old Koy’s opening monologue.
Yeah, Koy lost me with that as well, and it was one of the first jokes of his opening monologue! He said it with his whole chest, like he thought everyone in the room would agree with it and laugh because hahaha, isn’t it funny to dismiss women because they have boobs? Greta’s response is fine and the Barbie movie includes that too – that Ruth Handler created Barbie so little girls could dream about becoming astronauts and businesswomen and surfers and presidents. It’s really exhausting that the Barbie movie did this huge thing for the industry and it’s still being dismissed, marginalized and mocked.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Jo Koy arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835207369, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Jo Koy, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig wearing a FENDI Couture dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, and Pomellato jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835209548, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach arrive at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835210278, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig wearing a FENDI Couture dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, and Pomellato jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835210307, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
I bought the Oppenheimer book after watching the movie…..it’s not just that its 700 pages. It’s 700 pages of miniscule font. Like I think I’m going to need a magnifying glass to read it, no joke.
Anyway – I thought her response was perfect. On its face his joke wasn’t wrong – the movie was based on a plastic doll – but the strength of the movie is about how it is so much more than just “a movie about a doll” and that’s why it made a billion dollars at the box office. And also, even the comment itself diminishes the impact of Barbie as a doll, as Greta says – she allowed girls to imagine themselves as doctors, veterinarians, president, etc. She had boobs because she was a woman-doll (lol i’m making that a word now), not a baby doll, and that was what made Barbie such a groundbreaking “toy.”
sad and exhausting, yes, but unfortunately not surprising.
Women have carried mankind on their backs for the whole of history and we’ve always, always been dismissed, marginalized and mocked, as you’ve stated perfectly, since the ned of the hunter-gatherer societal mode. and isn’t that kind of ironic?
Yes yes yes.
They found that in early hunter gatherer communities- don’t ask me how they know this – the presence of a GRANDMOTHER tipped the scales for the whole family. Everyone was better fed and healthier. Especially the children.
Since the beginning of humans – women have been kicking ass and protecting their communities- but aren’t we hilarious vapid little creatures with fun blobs on our chests.
The Fun Blobs would be a great name for an all girl punk band. 😁
I’ve been watching the PBS film about keystone species – species that if you remove them from their natural environment, that environment/ ecosystem collapses because things get out of balance- species such as elephants to sea otters to wolves to wildebeests to starfish to a single plant species play that critical role in their ecosystems, the ecosystem can’t thrive and will collapse without them.
And apparently in human societies, grandmothers are the keystone
MoxyLady007, Menopause. We are one of the few species where those who can give birth survive past being able to bear young. The hypothesis is that grandma is an important factor in caring for the young. That and brains gave humans an edge.
Jo Koy was aware that Barbie covers misogyny?
I’m glad she responded that way (using his own comment against him), but dismayed that it is being reported as “Greta Gerwig agrees with Jo Koy.” 🙁
It’s even more offensive to realize that jo koy did not write this drivel. A team of writers, men I presume, must have thought this hilarious.
I read an interview with Jo Koy wherein he said he spoke with Chris Rock for advice about hosting after landing the gig. Chris suggested his team of writers to Jo. I haven’t been able to check if Jo actually used those same writers, but if he did, it doesn’t surprise me that there were misogynistic tones to the monologue jokes knowing Chris Rock’s own comedy putting down women.
Yeah. I kind feel bad for him
(Don’t kill me!)
His comedy specials are good. Not groundbreaking but the Philipino family details are hilariously specific (the rice bag measurement utensil being a broken mug got me – so true for so many Asians!) and he’s generally empathetic.
He’s not high profile so probably thought this gig was his shot, step into the moment, the opportunity, etc.
Lainey gossip talked about this. We’re conditioned to think that yeah, when the big moment comes TAKE IT, but maybe sometimes it’s better not to.
I wonder how much creative control he had, what assurances he received before taking the gig… I’m not saying this wasn’t a disaster. He def shit the bed. But it’s a shame.
I like his comedy specials too and I am generally pretty picky about watching male comedians if I smell misogyny in their humor. Considering this was his first ever hosting gig and very different from typical standup where you can say something oversimplified for a shock laugh then follow up with nuance to bring the audience back, and considering the crazy short notice he had for this I am not jumping on this bandwagon against him.
I feel bad for him, too. Don’t get me wrong, the jokes sucked (yikes), but he also sounded so nervous. I don’t know. I thought Steve Martin had a very nice response to it.
I have no doubt many men in Hollywood are furious at the unfathomable (to them…women knew!) success of Barbie and how Barbie also helped Oppenheimer explode (Opp would have done well but not nearly as well as it did).
The subjugation and mockery of women by men in Hollywood only serves to make a bunch of misogynists feel better about their lack of understanding of women.
I agree, but even if someone else wrote it, he could have said “that’s lame and sexist and I’m not going to say it.”
I don’t know if this is typical of his comedy or not though, I only vaguely remember him from a Chelsea Handler show ages ago.
Is a cheap sexist shot really a joke? I wish he had been booed.
Same.
The Globes had the opportunity to become more than they have been. They had a Native woman winner, Barbie as a movie and Killers of the Flower Moon. Going with a social commentary or something praising women could have been a better slant than a (supposedly) comedic monologue. A woman doing this would have been even better. Instead they go with the tired comedian thing which should have been axed after the Oscars slap.
They really missed the mark. I think a female host or two hosts like the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler thing. Or just no hosts… just the presenters. Comedians taking cheap shots at people isn’t funny.
Yeh seriously! Why not start with a fun musical number from one of the soundtracks and just have presenters? If you want someone to Emcee to kind of move the night along, ask Ryan Seacrest or NPH or even Kelly Clarkson or Drew Barrymore. The tired and lame comedian schtick is over.
See also: the whole “be mean to the celebrities” thing needs to die. The awards shows should be about celebrating creativity not just an excuse to slag on famous people.
I quit watching awards shows a few years back and happened to watch some of the Oscars and saw The Slap™️. Haven’t watched an awards show since then and I have no plans to watch anymore until Hollywood gets its sh!t together.
They can say “boobies” as much as they want, but that doesn’t negate the billion and a half dollars Barbie brought into the box office.
Or the fact that more than half the world’s population has boobies!
Exactly. The box office speaks for itself. You want to get us back to the movies and you’re salty millennials and Gen-Z don’t gaf about movies anymore? Make more feminist and progressive films.
They don’t even have to be labeled “feminist” and “progressive,” they just have to be different. When I look at the trends for the last several years, in food, fashion, music – there’s so much interest in international flavors and different points of view. Why not that in film, too?
Also, boobies are bigger than balls. 😁
And as long as we’re being reductive about the source material… Barbie is based on something a woman *created * to fill a need in children to imagine the possibilities of who want to be as adults, yes, even if they’re going be adults with boobies.
Oppenheimer is based on a bunch of guys spending all their waking hours trying to find more and bigger ways to blow things up and kill people.
And it’s not about to get better as we get nearer the Oscars.
Well he’s just (misogynistic) Ken.
He did not get Kenough time to prepare any decent jokes, apparently.
I’ll show myself out now
I think had he watched the movie he could have come up with a more nuanced and funny joke.
I think the whole Barbie phenomenon that the movie generated is pretty incredible. At the center is a plastic doll with let’s be an honest, a mostly unattainable body most women don’t have. It didn’t stop me from playing with Barbies as a kid and I have fun dressing them up and creating storylines with my other toys. And I’m sure it is surprising to many men that the movie did so well because in essence Jo Koy’s “joke” is what many men are thinking. And while I found the movie’s message to be a little over the top and a little exhausting at times, I still enjoyed it and overall really liked it.
As an aside, Greta Gerwig always looks perpetually tired and like she just woke up/confused to how she got there. I know she has young kids so I’m guessing that’s the reason but I sometimes wonder if she’s just a naturally awkward person?
On that last point, the mail came at work yesterday, and a misdelivered issue of Vanity Fair landed on my desk. I set it aside to pass on tothe person it belonged to, but found myself distracted by an unsettled and exhausted GG on the cover. So I flipped it over, only to find the smarmy dude with crazy eyes whose awards thirst knows no bounds in a watch ad, which was much worse. So I tossed the magazine into the recycling bin. (Will pull it out if I see the addressee, but I right now I do not need the energy from either of those two images in my day.)
If he’d had his finger on the pulse he could have turned the joke around. Imagine the different reaction he would have got if he’d said that Nolan had a 700 page masterpiece to work from and all Gerwig has was a doll with big boobs and yet she’s still nominated for best adapted screenplay Oscar.
He didn’t mean it that way but it’s really a huge compliment that she created what she did based on relatively little.
Greta’s answer is very graceful. And it makes this lame joke look even coarser than it is.
The joke was lame and misogynistic. Unpopular opinion probably, but the movie Barbie itself was not feminist. It had some beautiful feminist moments.
Honestly, at its core, I think it was a feminist movie. In one of the old shows I watched, there was a very rich woman who created an empire of baby dolls. While she was describing her life’s work, she referred to Barbie dolls as “bimbo”. In the Barbie movie, they talked about this kind of language in America Ferrera’s monologue. How we turned a doll made for the imagination of little girls (and not for giving them baby dolls to take care of) into a woman and judged her like she was real. Like, who calls a toy “bimbo”? It is a toy, but since it is in the image of a woman, it was cool not to like Barbies. I don’t know any other toys who have been judged like that. Even this guy referred to it as a toy with “big boobs”, probably because that’s how he sees women. Certainly the movie wasn’t in the search of a deep feminist movement, but the society still needs to learn the most basic elements of feminism. To some women and men, the feminism is unfortunately still a dirty word.
Somebody please help that toe back into the croc.