Daily Wire host Matt Walsh did not hold back his thoughts on what he called the “anti-man, feminist-propaganda” “Barbie” film which hits the audience over the head with a “man-hating sledgehammer” once in the seats.
“The Matt Walsh Show” host opened his podcast on Monday with a report in the Hollywood Reporter that declared director Greta Gerwig’s female-fueled film a smashing success after it opened to a historic $155 million as of Sunday. However, Walsh said the biggest credit goes to the “marketing department” — who he said had lied about the “true content and message of the film.”
Audiences Tricked Into Watching The Adventures Of Man-Hating Feminist Barbie pic.twitter.com/Fp6IdlLhYF
— The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) July 24, 2023
“Now, if anyone deserves the credit, though, for the biggest box office debut for any female director in history, it is not the female director but the marketing department, because they’re the ones who knew enough to lie about the true content and message of the film,” Walsh said. “Because as we’ve now discovered, though, it shouldn’t really have come as a surprise to anyone.”
“The ‘Barbie’ movie is a preachy feminist screed about taking down the patriarchy,” he added. “It is a gender studies lecture in Barbie packaging and I know this not because I watched the film. I’d rather jump feet first into a woodchipper than sit through that film. I don’t need to watch Barbie to know that it’s bad for the same reason that I don’t need to pull a rotten onion out of the garbage and eat it in order to know that I won’t like the taste.”
The host said he had also never thrown himself into a volcano but “can safely say that the experience would be unpleasant and probably a little hot. So some books can be judged by their covers. ”
Walsh then read recent movie review comments which widely praised “Barbie as the most unwavering feminist summer blockbuster ever to exist” and “giving the new film particular adoration for its messaging around the patriarchy and gender roles.”
“Meanwhile, Indiewire praised the film’s outside-the-box and funny feminist Fantasia and singled out [Ryan] Gosling’s performance of newfound male rage and patriarchal power as a particular highlight,” the host said. “Funny, though, they didn’t tout this thing as a master thesis on feminism in the trailer.”
“I can guarantee you they didn’t put that,” he added. “They are not going to put that on the poster … They didn’t title the movie The Adventures of Feminist Barbie. No mentions of patriarchy or male rage either in any of the marketing.”
“Dangle a funny and fun and nostalgic and family-friendly Barbie film in front of the audience,” Walsh continued. “And then when you have them in the seat, whack them over the head with the feminist stick, sell them the Barbie doll, and let them open the package and find Gloria Steinem inside.”
Walsh then noted the “major underlying theme” in the movie involves how Ken and “men in Barbie land” are “useless and stupid. But then men in the real world are useless and stupid, but also violent, predatory and in control of everything. Ken witnesses this dynamic and tries to export the patriarchy back to Barbie land and they actually call it the patriarchy in the film.”
The Daily Wire host concluded that the marketing department knew that “feminism” wouldn’t sell that’s why they “hid it away, tucked it under all the pink and plastic, and then came out with the man-hating sledgehammer when the audience was already sitting in the seats.”