Greta Gerwig addresses Barbie backlash and trolling from conservative critics

Greta Gerwig's Barbie has fully cemented itself into the Hollywood history books less than a week after its official release. 

The movie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, grossed a staggering $356 million (£276 million) worldwide during its first few days in cinemas, making it the highest-grossing opening weekend for a female director.  

Although the film has been well received, with film critics lauding Gerwig's work and the positive audience score at 90%, it has also found itself in the thick of gender politics conversations online.

In an interview with The New York Times, Gerwig discussed the Barbie backlash from various conservative commentators including Ben Shapiro, who released a 43 minute long video about the 'woke' movie while setting fire to Barbie dolls on a barbecue, and Piers Morgan penned an opinion piece claiming he would be 'executed' if he 'made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking ‘the matriarchy'.

In response to the various accusations - from Texas Senator Ted Cruz claiming it has a 'Chinese communist' agenda and podcaster Matt Walsh calling it 'feminist propaganda' - Gerwig said: "Certainly, there’s a lot of passion. My hope for the movie is that it’s an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men.

"I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people."

As some right-wing voices on social media have encouraged their followers to boycott the movie, fans of the film have used their quotes as their reasoning behind buying a ticket. 

Have you seen the movie yet?

Barbie is in cinemas now.