Greta Gerwig had the perfect response to Jo Koy’s "sexist" Barbie joke

The 2024 Golden Globes took place last weekend at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, with the 81st ceremony kicking off award season with a bang.

Poor Things, Oppenheimer, The Bear, Succession and Barbie emerged as some of the big winners of the evening, but from that Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift discussion, to an impromptu Suits reunion, there was a lot to discuss outside of the actual ceremony.

The most talked-about part of the evening involved the show's controversial host, comedian Jo Koy, who has come under fire for his opening monologue.

Koy has been particularly criticised for his "reductive" comments about Barbie - a film that grossed over £1 billion at the worldwide box office and was nominated for nine Golden Globes.

"Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project," announced Koy in his opening speech, weighing in on the new 'Cinematic and Box Office Achievement' category that both films are nominated for. "And Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.”

The joke fell flat at the ceremony, with people taking to social media to call out the comment as "sexist". When Greta Gerwig, the director behind Barbie, was asked about it however, she had the perfect response - pure class.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Gerwig joked to presenters on BBC Radio 4’s Today program. “She’s the first doll that was mass-produced with breasts, so he was right on.”

She continued: “Barbie, by her very construction, has no character, no story. She’s there to be projected upon. And you know, I think that so much of the project of the movie was unlikely because it is about a plastic doll.”

Going on to talk about Barbie's historic Golden Globe win for 'Cinematic and Box Office Achievement', she continued: “It felt very fitting because I think the thing that we wanted most of all, was to connect with people and to have people share an experience in the cinemas and movie theatres. And it felt like, even though this is a brand-new award, it felt like it was the award to honour that and that was always what we had wanted to do.”

We will continue to update this story.