Greta Gerwig has no idea that Exclaim! thinks she didn't solve feminism with Barbie, nor does she know that we think that's totally okay — the movie is everything it needed to be. The director, also responsible for Lady Bird and the 2019 Little Women adaptation, has yet to read any of the film's reviews.
She clarified that it's not for lack of caring about the content, but rather a desire to separate herself from the film before consuming the reviews.
"I'll probably sit down with a binder [of reviews] sometime in February," she told Vanity Fair. "But right now it's too fresh."
Gerwig said that she's heard some general reactions through the grapevine — namely, speculation about which niche of feminism the movie falls into — but didn't have specific thoughts on any one in particular. "There was such a cacophony so it was more like, 'Wow, what a breadth of reactions!'"
She also recalled being surprised by the jaw-dropping box office numbers that Barbie garnered, which quickly propelled it to become the highest-grossing film directed by a woman.
"Barbie doesn't fit neatly into a preordained category. We had these hopeful-looking metrics, but no one knew what they meant. It wasn't until the end of the second weekend that I thought, 'Oh, this is going well.' I mean, Wonder Woman was hugely successful, but superheroes exist in a different bubble."
If the money (over $1.4 billion USD worldwide) was a pleasant surprise, we hope the jam-packed binder of positive reviews she's promised to crack open come February (including our own) has the same effect.
She clarified that it's not for lack of caring about the content, but rather a desire to separate herself from the film before consuming the reviews.
"I'll probably sit down with a binder [of reviews] sometime in February," she told Vanity Fair. "But right now it's too fresh."
Gerwig said that she's heard some general reactions through the grapevine — namely, speculation about which niche of feminism the movie falls into — but didn't have specific thoughts on any one in particular. "There was such a cacophony so it was more like, 'Wow, what a breadth of reactions!'"
She also recalled being surprised by the jaw-dropping box office numbers that Barbie garnered, which quickly propelled it to become the highest-grossing film directed by a woman.
"Barbie doesn't fit neatly into a preordained category. We had these hopeful-looking metrics, but no one knew what they meant. It wasn't until the end of the second weekend that I thought, 'Oh, this is going well.' I mean, Wonder Woman was hugely successful, but superheroes exist in a different bubble."
If the money (over $1.4 billion USD worldwide) was a pleasant surprise, we hope the jam-packed binder of positive reviews she's promised to crack open come February (including our own) has the same effect.
