Barbenheimer took over summer and both of them had strong points — but America Ferrera had an incredibly moving and powerful monologue about being a woman in Barbie.
Warning: Spoilers for Barbie below.
Life in plastic is fantastic. However, venturing out in the Real World following an existential crisis makes Barbie (Margot Robbie) realize that the Barbie dolls haven’t solved every woman’s problems.
The 21-23 July weekend was unlike any other. It gave moviegoers two highly anticipated movies — Barbie and Oppenheimer. Both incredibly different. One, a biopic with Christopher Nolan at the helm and an atomic bomb with no CGI. The other, a pinkified Barbie, with a moving story from Greta Gerwig. The good part? None of them cancelled each other.
Moviegoers made plans to watch Barbie and Oppenheimer — now known as Barbenheimer — back to back. Even Quentin Tarantino went to both movies.
After seeing “Oppenheimer” on Saturday, Quentin Tarantino walked across the street to the Regency Bruin Theatre to see Margot Robbie star in “Barbie.” https://t.co/HdM5XQWY4O pic.twitter.com/OSKa7jax9x
— Variety (@Variety) July 24, 2023
America Ferrera Had a Powerful Monologue About Being a Woman
America Ferrera does not play a Barbie but she does save Barbie Land. The actress has one of the film’s signature moments as her character Gloria and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) help save Barbie Land from a patriarchal takeover initiated by Ken (Ryan Gosling). She does so while speaking about the complicated and difficult experience of being a woman in modern-day society.
Playing the only female employee at Mattel, Gloria is much more than an assistant. She has big dreams and ideas.
“I was just sobbing, and then I looked around, and I realized everybody’s crying on the set,” Gerwig recalled to The Atlantic of shooting the scene in a recent interview. “The men are crying too, because they have their own speech they feel they can’t ever give, you know? And they have their twin tightrope, which is also painful.“
Gerwig told The Cut that she wrote the monologue herself (the film was co-written with her partner Noah Baumbach). However, she and Ferrera “would text each other anything related to it” as they refined it over several months until reaching the version that they filmed.
Ferrera revealed she knew about it before reading the script. “It’s one of the first things Greta mentioned to me even before I read the script,” Ferrera told Vanity Fair of the scene. “She said, ‘I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I’ve always imagined you saying this.‘” She added to the outlet that she “probably [took] 30 to 50 full runs of it, top to bottom,” when she finally filmed the scene.
Read the Powerful Barbie Monologue Below
“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.“
“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.“
“But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.“
“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”
Barbie
Her character, Gloria, has to perform different versions of the monologue to different Barbies to get them out of the trance and save Barbie Land.
Barbie is playing in theaters now.
