Diablo Cody Exited Sony's Failed Barbie Movie Because of Troubles with the Feminist Twist
Original 'Barbie' Writer Exited Sony's Failed Movie Because 'They Wanted a Girl-Boss Feminist Twist on Barbie' and 'That's Not What Barbie Is' https://t.co/Wl4aJA0Ivu
- Variety (@Variety) July 7, 2023
Sony Pictures originally had the rights to Barbie and spent years trying to get a movie off the ground. Actors such as Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway came and went. Schumer said last month that she exited her “Barbie” movie because the script wasn’t “feminist and cool” enough.
Another talent that left “Barbie” during the film’s development at Sony was Diablo Cody, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Juno.” She exited the film in 2018 and told ScreenCrush at the time, “I was literally incapable of turning in a ‘Barbie’ draft. God knows I tried.”
In a new interview with GQ magazine, Cody says, “I think I know why I shit the bed. When I was first hired for this, I don’t think the culture had not embraced the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes yet. If you look up ‘Barbie’ on TikTok you’ll find this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, taking this skinny blonde white doll and making her into a heroine was a tall order.”
Sony’s plan to pair Cody’s idiosyncratic writing style with a crass comedian like Schumer didn’t work, Cody remembered. “That idea of an anti-Barbie made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of ten years ago,” she said. “I didn’t really have the freedom then to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is.”
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