Mark Ronson has trolled Bill Maher for describing Barbie as “man-hating”.
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In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter) Maher took aim at the film for being “preachy” and criticised a scene in which Barbie (Margot Robbie) confronts the Mattel board, which is made up of 12 men in the movie.
Maher described the scene as a “zombie lie”, due to the fact that the Mattel board actually has seven men and five women on it in real life.
In response to Maher’s post, Ronson, who served as a music producer and oversaw the film’s original soundtrack, jokingly quoted Nicole Kidman’s famed AMC cinema ad.
“We come to this place for magic,” he wrote. “We come to AMC theatres to laugh, to cry, to care… and to furiously google ‘Mattel board configuration’ while others are trying to enjoy a fucking magnificent comedy.”
OK, “Barbie”: 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…
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) August 7, 2023
In Maher’s original post, the television personality and political commentator wrote: “OK, Barbie: 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.”
“I know, I know, ‘How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!’ That argument is so old and so silly,” Maher continued. “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.”
Various right-wing commentators have criticised Barbie following its release. Among them was Ben Shapiro, who branded it “one of the worst movies I have ever seen” and “angry, feminist claptrap that alienates men from women” in his YouTube review.
In a recent TikTok video, comedian and actor Marc Maron hit out at those conservative critics, describing them as “insecure babies”.
“The fact that certain men took offence to the point where they, you know, tried to build a grift around it in terms of their narrative as right wing [expletive] is so embarrassing for them. I mean, so embarrassing for them,” he said.
“Any dude that can’t take those hits in that movie, they’ve really got to look in their pants and decide what they’re made of. I mean, Jesus Christ, what a bunch of fucking insecure babies.”