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67-year-old political commentator, comedian, and podcast host Bill Maher doesn’t consider himself a fan of the movie Barbie, as evidenced by his scathing review of the film.
In a review posted to Twitter, Maher — who hosts the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher and his own podcast “Club Random” (which is just an insane thing for a man born in the 1950s to name his podcast) — said that the movie about the famed line of dolls that are primarily sold to little girls is “preachy and man-hating.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie — alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that used to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it’s still true. Barbie is this kind of #ZombieLie,” Maher tweeted.
“Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there’s a Mattel board in real life, and it’s 7 men and 5 women,” he said.
Maher kept repeating the phrase “Zombie Lie” in his review, which appears to be a term that he concocted himself and, similar to “Club Random”, he clearly thinks sounds very cool.
“OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE — which takes place in 2023 — is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word ‘patriarchy’. Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain — but this movie is so 2000-LATE. I know, I know, ‘How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!’ That argument is so old and so silly.”
Maher then tried to use data about the demographics of the boards of real-life Fortune 500 companies to make his point, which is an incredibly micro way to look at the macro point that Barbie was making.
Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I’m not the one who’s out of step — I’m living in the year we’re living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it — but it IS a Zombie Lie.”
Barbie is the first movie to ever be directed by a woman to gross over $1 billion at the global box office, undoubtedly a devastating blow to the “go woke, go broke” crowd.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, the film stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Issa Rae, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Emma Mackey, Kingley Ben-Air, Dua Lipa, Rhea Perlman, John Cena, Michael Cera, Helen Mirren, and more.