Diablo Cody Exited Sony's Failed Barbie Movie Because of Troubles with the Feminist Twist

[shangri__la]

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

Comments

[theoryofwar]

Diablo Cody Brook Maurio is such a 'I'm not like other girls, I'm one of the guys! 😜🤪. Barbie can't be feminist because she's a girly girl. I'm punk rock!!'

[queenursula]

She didn’t say anything like that and I’m not sure what the problem is with using a pen name.

[theoryofwar]

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but she says 'they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is."

Is she not saying that Barbie isn't a feminist? I'm choosing to ignore girl-boss because I hate that word lol. Barbie wouldn't be down for an MLM! Or is she saying that it's the girl boss part that isn't Barbie? I'm on ONTD, I don't read good!

There's nothing wrong with using a pen name. I've just never liked her so I'm being petty 😂

[drasticigloo]

I think she was pointing out that around 2010-2014, there very much was a cultural feeling of “feminine = bad, strong female characters shouldn’t be girly”. See also, the dumb discourse about Disney princesses being bad role models. So trying to make a feminist Barbie message using those tools was not something Diablo Cody felt she could do.

We seem to be moving away from that thankfully, and recognizing that feminine and strong are not exclusive in media

[theoryofwar]

Ah, okay. Yes, that makes much more sense! I'm glad she wasn't the one to write it, I think even now, she would have written Barbie as as quirky Juno type character.

[sarahvma]

The full statement is that it's not where the culture was in 2014, which is true. When people laugh about Amy Schumer's casting, it's pretty clear to me that what they were going for was a "realistic Barbie/Barbie as a real woman" joke that would've flown in 2014 and maybe less so now.

I think Cody is right to say that we weren't at a point where we were embracing hyper-feminine attributes as "feminist" because we were still busy clawing the culture back from the early 00s.

[should]

Right I feel like it's a pretty accurate description of the feminist discourse at the time, she acknowledges that the culture has since shifted and seems to think it's a good thing?