You would need a lengthy list if you were going to try and track all of the pop culture references included in Barbie. Even though the blockbuster comedy spends a lot of time in the fictional BarbieLand, there are numerous references to things happening in our world, from the music of Matchbox 20 to the films of Stanley Kubrick. We highlighted this comedy in our official Barbie review, but there was a joke that legitimately felt like it was directed at me, personally, and I’m thrilled that Greta Gerwig is talking about its origin.
You may or may not know that I’m the Snyder Cut expert on CinemaBlend. I did the bulk of the reporting on the mythical cut of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and went so far as to write a book about the fan movement that spent three years fighting online to get that version of the movie released. However, in the Barbie movie, vested interest in the Snyder Cut is linked to the type of toxic masculinity that possesses Ken (Ryan Gosling), and a Barbie played by Alexandra Shipp talking about how odd her fascination was when she comes out of a brainwashed haze.
IndieWire got a chance to speak with Greta Gerwig about the box office success of Barbie, and the critical response to the film. As part of the conversation, they asked about the inclusion of the SnyderVerse jab, and how she got it included in a Warner Bros. movie. And she told the site:
I think it was definitely something where when turned in the script, which was the wild, anarchic thing that it is, there was this general feeling of, no one will let us make this. Not Warner Bros., not Mattel, not anybody. I really put it down to Margot, who all the way along as a producer and as an actor, stood in front of it and said, ‘This is the one I want to make and let’s figure out how to make it.’ And they just, shockingly, went with it.
It sounds like Greta Gerwig expected a few of her pointed jokes and references to get scrubbed from the Barbie film before it reached theaters. But the studio behind the movie, and even more surprisingly the toy manufacturer responsible for Barbie, backed the film’s humor. And having Margot Robbie on board as a supportive producer-star only helps.
But Gerwig also made it clear that when she included jabs at certain projects, the Snyder Cut included, it came from a place of love. Gerwig said:
I will say there were many notes, many notes sessions on all fronts, but the thing is that anything that have in a movie, any reference — and we reference “The Godfather,” Matchbox Twenty, Dave Matthews Band — I love all of it. I never put anything in a movie I don’t love, and that’s true. I don’t really have use for things that I don’t have affection for, within a movie. That was the core of it.
Barbie benefitted in its opening weekend by being part of a marketing phenomenon that came to be known as Barbenheimer, where people made double features out of Gerwig’s comedy and Christopher Nolan’s brilliant Oppenheimer (even though the movies have next to nothing in common, tonally). The double feature even brought Quentin Tarantino out to the multiplexes in L.A., where he joined fellow cinephiles in supporting film. I’m curious to see how the two movies do in that second weekend. We’ll find out soon.
