Greta Gerwig Reacts To Host Jo Koy’s Barbie Comment At Golden Globes: 'He's Not Wrong'

The 81st Golden Globes Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles was a night worth remembering. While Cillian Murphy lifted the Best Male Actor award for his film Oppenheimer, Margot Robbie took home the maiden Cinematic and Box Office Achievement award for Barbie. Apart from the big wins of the night, it was the show’s host-comedian Jo Koy who also made the headlines. Koy’s jokes and his attempt to be hilarious received mixed responses from the audience. One such comment on director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie earned him the ire of the masses. Now, Gerwig has finally reacted to Koy’s statement from the awards night.

At the Golden Globes, Jo Koy drew comparisons between Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Both films, with completely opposite genres, encountered a cinematic clash in the theatres upon their release. Taking an indirect dig at Barbie, Koy said, “Oppenheimer is based on the 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project" and added that Barbie was about a plastic doll. Naturally, the comment did not sit well with many present in the crowd. In fact, many social media users pointed out that the remark made Margot Robbie uncomfortable while Ryan Gosling did not even laugh at his statement.

Watch here:

Now, in a recent interview with BBC Radio, Greta Gerwig has broken her silence about Jo Koy’s polarising comparison between Barbie and Oppenheimer. However, she seemed unbothered by the comedian’s comments and defended his claim. Quite bluntly, she said, “Well, he’s not wrong. 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."

A post shared by Greta Gerwig (@gretagerwig_fans)

Greta Gerwig continued that “it was that blank-slate mentality" that provided the freedom to her and her husband Noah Baumbach to take Barbie’s story in the direction they wanted. The filmmaker added that Barbie was a subject that was meant to be “projected upon" since the doll is devoid of any character or story. “The insight that Ruth Handler (Barbie’s creator) 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,’" said Gerwig.

Although Greta Gerwig did not object to Jo Koy’s comments, social media users lashed out at the comedian calling his monologue “cringe", “awful" and “sexist".