“It is impossible to be a woman,” uttered some months ago. Many of us watched as America Ferrera delivered this moving and powerful monologue in Barbie. At the 2024 Golden Globes, Jo Koy seemed to demonstrate the behavior that sparked Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie to write that monologue in the first place. In the opening monologue, Koy made multiple distasteful and even sexist remarks about the Barbie movie, and the audience did not find them amusing, which sparked a lot of backlash. Koy comments about the Barbie movie not only belittle the message and importance of the film but also insult the lead actor, Margot Robbie. Did these “jokes” about the Barbie movie prove the movie’s message right? 
The Barbie movie explored many topics and conveyed several messages, the biggest of which was women’s empowerment and the analysis of the average female experience. The film delved deep into the double standard between women and men and the daily contradictory expectations placed upon women. Objectification and lack of representation were another big theme, and the comments by Koy seemed to show just how actual Barbie was when she said, “The real world is forever and irrevocably messed up.” Koy’s first jab addressed the dual release of Oppenheimer and Barbie or what many have dubbed “Barbenheimer,” comparing the two movies like many others did in the opening weekend but with an obvious bias. Koy distinguished the movies by saying, “Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies”- the description of Barbie reduces the movie to nothing more than a film for the looks, and he objectified women.
This points out the movie’s message about disregarding women and their success and not respecting women as much as respecting men. The second remark was less sexist or more blatantly insulting towards Margot Robbie and women in general, as well as just the character Barbie. He retells the catalyst of the movie by expressing his opinion: “The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from lovely to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet. Or what casting directors call character actors!” A character actor often means an actor who truly becomes their character. Not only did Koy insult the Barbie movie, but Margot Robbie herself, an Academy Award-winning actress and a top-rank good-looking actress worldwide. This “joke” again proves that Koy was oblivious to the message Gerwig was trying to send by creating a movie to show the beauty and pain that comes with the female experience of life.
A perfect explanation for the tame responses and facial expressions of the actresses at the Golden Globes is in the movie when Gloria firmly states, “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us”- they didn’t react. They sat and gave strained smiles like girls are taught to do. We can’t yell, scream, get angry over a comment, or be overly dramatic. We call Taylor Swift dramatic over a slight facial change, yet we don’t call Ryan Gosling dramatic over his obvious disdain for the jokes. No, we praise him.
These jokes took it too far; they made the Golden Globes uncomfortable and awkward, and now there are just a few other videos among billions that show the disregard that people have for women just because they are women.
