The Barbie movie hit the cinema screens earlier this month.
But Barbie hasn’t come without its controversies…
And it’s safe to say the internet had a lot to say about it.
But it’s Ben Shapiro’s remarks on the film that really confounded the internet.
And it’s safe to say, the comments have not aged well …
The Barbie movie franchise has been a staple in family entertainment, enchanting audiences with heartwarming stories and empowering messages.
But Greta Gerwig’s 2023 interpretation has been particularly headline-grabbing.
The recent release of the Barbie movie, featuring Margot Robbie, has proven to be a box office success, grossing over $775 million globally within a week of its release.
But it’s commercial success isn’t the only shock impact of the film.
Because Ben Shapiro’s comments are all anyone can talk about!
Keep scrolling to find out why…
Now, Margot Robbie is an icon.
The Australian actress made her breakthrough performance in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Since then, her fame has skyrocketed.
And she has gone on to appear in hit movies, such as Suicide Squad (2016), I, Tonya (2017), Mary Queen of Scots (2018), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).
There’s no denying she’s made a name for herself in the entertainment industry.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know who she is.
And recently Robbie has taken on a new venture, appearing in and producing the new movie Barbie.
The new movie is written and directed by Greta Gerwig and follows Robbie’s character as she leaves Barbieland behind and takes on the real world.
It’s totally different from anything Robbie has done before.
And fans were so eager to find out more about her role, that photos from the set were leaked online.
Social media users had a lot to say about the images…
Which showed Robbie and Gosling’s characters dressed in neon spandex.
After seeing one of the leaked photos, one Twitter user wrote:
“The Barbie movie photo leaks feel like a fever dream. Did that actually happen? Is there actually a movie? Is Margot actually Robbie?”
And it seems to have gotten a little too much for Robbie.
The actress has recently revealed she was “mortified” to find out about the leaked photos.
Robbie opened up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon…
Sharing her thoughts on the whole ordeal while also promoting her new movie Amsterdam.
“I can’t tell you how mortified we were, by the way,” Robbie said.
“We look like we’re like laughing and having fun, but dying on the inside. Dying. I was like, this is the most humiliating moment of my life.”
Jimmy Fallon then asked Robbie if she was aware of the huge media discussion around the photos…
“No!” Robbie said. “I mean, I knew that we had some exteriors to shoot in L.A. I knew, OK, once you were doing exteriors, you’re gonna get papped.”
She continued: “There’s probably going to be a little crowd of people who are going to stand out, because, you know, we stand out a little bit in those outfits.
“So I knew there was going to be a little bit of attention, and probably some photos would get out there, but not like it did. It was like mad. It was like hundreds of people watching.”
Along with those paparazzi photos that were leaked online…
Gosling’s character was also filmed screaming after Barbie punches a man who gropes her.
You can watch Robbie’s interview with Jimmy Fallon here.
Since then, Robbie has no doubt become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but we bet you didn’t know something about one scene in her movie, Wolf of Wall Street.
The 3-hour movie was a chock-a-block with unforgettable wild scenes pen-selling, dwarf-throwing, and Robbie teasing all spring to mind.
While the Australian actress played a big part in the success of the movie, she was bold enough and insisted on going nude in her big breakthrough role.
The much-loved Martin Scorsese movie is based on the story of controversial stockbroker Jordan Belfort played by Leonardo DiCaprio, with Robbie playing Naomi Lapaglia, Belfort’s second wife in the film.
According to LADbible, her role featured numerous s*xual scenes, including a full-frontal nude scene. Robbie even admitted she was apprehensive about the scenes being immortalized on the internet.
Speaking to The Telegraph in 2014, aged just twenty-three, she said: “I think nudity for the sake of nudity is shameful. If they’ve put it in just so that a girl gets her top off, then that’s disgusting. And you can always tell.
“But I also think it’s disgusting when someone would have got n*ked in real life, in the film they conveniently leave their bra on, or hold up the bed sheet. Seeing someone being choreographed into being covered up irritates me just as much,” she said.
And she carried on and said she put out her suggestions to the director too.
“The whole point of Naomi is that her body is her only form of currency in this world. So when Marty [Scorsese] was trying to help me out, and said in the scene where she seduces Jordan perhaps I could have a robe on, I said she wouldn’t. She has to be n*ked. She’s laying her cards on the table,” Robbie continued.
Robbie even reflected on shooting a memorable seduction scene in the movie, she told Porter in a 2018 interview: “It doesn’t come across when you’re watching the movie, but in reality, we’re in a tiny bedroom with 30 crew crammed in.”
“All men. And for 17 hours I’m pretending to be touching myself. It’s just a very weird thing and you have to bury the embarrassment and absurdity, really deep, and fully commit,” she added.
However, it seems the success that followed the movie wasn’t exactly what Robbie wanted…
Robbie opened up in an interview with Vanity Fair.
“Something was happening in those early stages and it was all pretty awful,” she said.
“I remember saying to my mom, ‘I don’t think I want to do this.’
“And she just looked at me, completely straight-faced, and was like, ‘Darling, I think it’s too late not to,’” Robbie continued.
“That’s when I realized the only way was forward,” she added.
Robbie particularly had to learn how to cope with the paparazzi.
“I know how to go through airports, and now I know who’s trying to f–k me over in what ways.
“If my mom dies in a car accident because you wanted a photo of me going in the grocery shop, or you knock my nephew off a bike — for what? For a photo?
“It’s dangerous but still weirdly nothing feels like it changes,” Robbie said.
“The way I try to explain this job — and this world — to people is that the highs are really high, and the lows are really, really low.
“And I guess if you’re lucky, it all balances out in the middle,” she concluded.
More recently, Robbie recalled one scene in Wolf of Wall Street where she had to take shots of tequila to get prepared.
And that scene was the s*x scene with Leonardo DiCaprio.
If you remember the scene, Robbie’s character Naomi seduces her husband in their daughter’s bedroom.
Though on-screen, Robbie looked completely calm and collected, she admitted that she felt “very, very nervous” inside.
“I’m not going to lie; I had a couple of shots of tequila before that scene because I was nervous — very, very nervous,” she said at a Bafta: A Life In Pictures event in November.
“Honestly, I know it sounds silly now, knowing how big the movie became, at the time I thought, ‘no one is going to notice me in this film.’
“‘It kind of doesn’t matter what I do in this film because everyone is going to be focused on Leo DiCaprio and everything,'” she said.
Robbie added: “And I was just kind of like, ‘I’ll slip under the radar.’”
It sent the internet into meltdown.
And there was one aspect of the trailer that particularly captured the internet’s attention!
Margot Robbie’s feet!
One user tweeted: “The first shot of the Barbie The Movie trailer is a shot of Margot Robbie’s feet. They know there’s a massive group of guys that will pay to see this in IMAX.”
Another joked “I’m at the point where I think I could pick out Margot Robbie’s feet in a lineup.”
Another tweeted: “Margot Robbie’s feet really about to make me buy a ticket to Barbie!”
While another added: “CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW PRETTY MARGOT ROBBIE’S FEET ARE?”
The trailer shows Robbie as Barbie stepping out of her high-heeled shoes – while her feet retain that signature Barbie shape.
Not only is it an iconic reference to the doll that inspired the movie …
But it’s true that her feet do look pretty perfect.
Take a look at the trailer here.
And Robbie’s recent Barbie promo look then had everybody talking.
At the London premiere, she paid tribute to the Barbie Enchanted Evening 1960 Fashion Doll ($39).
Rocking a pastel pink custom Vivienne Westwood gown.
And she accessorized with a giant shoulder ruff and pearl choker.
Many are calling it her boldest Barbie look yet.
Last weekend marked the beginning of the Barbenheimer era.
The Barbie movie opened on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s biographical epic, Oppenheimer, which details the invention of the atomic bomb.
People have been watching the two wildly tonally different movies back to back.
But, predictably, the Barbie movie has offended some of the internet’s most snowflake-y men.
Blogger Jim Schembri wrote on Rotten Tomatoes: “For the first 30 minutes or so Barbie is a fun, feather-weight satire…Then the stuff about patriarchy kicks in and the film turns into a thinly disguised #metoo rant, trading comedy for man-bashing and a lot of confused point-scoring about sexism.”
Christian Toto added: “Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling can’t save story captured by man-hating agenda.”
But a Twitter comedian has saved the day by creating faux-promo posters featuring the most angry quotes.
You can take a look right here …
However, these review bombers have had an impact on Barbie’s Rotten Tomatoes score …
While the current verified audience review (made up of those who can prove they bought a ticket) is at 88%, the general audience score has dropped to 73%.
This difference in number between the verified and general rating does seem to s]suggest that people who haven’t even watched Barbie are deliberately writing poor reviews to bring the rating down.
However, the controversies continue – A shocking Barbie fight took the internet by storm …
A TikTok showing a violent brawl in a Barbie movie theater has left people shocked.
It shows one woman throwing another to the ground as the movie’s credits roll.
The fight was reportedly because one parent had allowed their child to watch videos on their phone during the screening.
You can watch the altercation right here …
But the controversies don’t end here.
And more recently, Indian actress Juhi Parmar who went to see Barbie with her 10-year-old daughter, has slammed the “inappropriate” scenes throughout the film, via a long social media post.
She decided to write an open letter to the creators of Barbie, calling them out for ruining the innocence of the Barbie characters with PG storylines.
“I start with owning up to my mistake,” she wrote in the Barbie-themed post. “I took my 10-year-old daughter Samairra to watch your film without researching the fact that it was a ‘PG-13’ movie.”
She continued: “10 minutes into the movie, there was inappropriate language and sexual connotations, and I was anxiously running out of the theatre wondering what I had just exposed my child to.”
She then revealed she had to leave the movie theatre immediately, along side other parents who’s children were even crying.
The film is also having quite an impact on people’s relationships.
And social media is full of stories of women who say they deeply reconsidered their relationships after seeing the film.
One woman on TikTok opened up about how the movie made her want to break up with her boyfriend after it brought to light his bad behaviour.
“Thank you, ‘Barbie’ for empowering me, for giving me the confidence, for making me realize I deserve better,” she said.
Another woman took to Twitter to ask: “did anyone watch Barbie and suddenly want to break up w their boyfriend or was that just me?
“are you crying???” you’re just a guy and you’ll never understand how difficult it is to be a woman in a man’s world. there’s this attention to detail that a lot of men don’t have.”
She told HuffPost the “Barbie” movie highlighted just how differently they view the world.
After the movie, “we amicably came together to recognize that we’re just not on the same wavelength,” she explained. “We could argue till the end of time what gender/sex has a tougher time going through life.”
But now, it’s Ben Shapiro’s comments on the franchise that are in the spotlight.
After initially seeing the movie, he said: “My prediction: [Barbie] is just absolutely going to fall off a cliff after [week one]. The repeat business on this movie is going to be nonexistent.”
However, as the movie has since gone on to earn over $1 billion, people are taking the opportunity to roast his take on Twitter.
“Friendly reminder Ben Shapiros inability to have good taste is why he failed as a screenwriter,” one joked.
“This aged like milk.” another added.
Shaprio has since hit back at the haters, saying: “Totally true. I radically overestimated the taste of the American public. Guilty.”
What do you think of his failed prediction?