Barbie director Greta Gerwig has said the doll has "always been a flashpoint for arguments", recalling that her mother was unsure about it as a toy.
On responses to the film, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What's sort of amazing about it is it has inspired such a wide range of reactions, but those are always my favourite things."
"Barbie has always been sometimes ahead of culture, sometimes behind culture... So the fact that the film has inspired such a range of reactions seems fitting."
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Director Greta Gerwig speaks to @MarthaKearney about the film's success and its two Golden Globe wins.#R4Today
Gerwig continued: "In some ways, it's not surprising because Barbie has always been sometimes ahead of culture, sometimes behind culture and she's always been a flashpoint for arguments.
"I know that even from my own personal growing up... my mom wasn't so keen on Barbie. She wasn't sure about it as a toy for me and, of course, as a result, I loved Barbie."
Gerwig agreed that there has been "sneering" at the film and even a joke by Golden Globes host Jo Koy that it is a movie about a plastic doll with big breasts.
Laughing, she told the programme: "Well, you know, he's not wrong. She's the first doll that was mass-produced with breasts, so he was right on."
The Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling-starring Barbie won the first Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement at the awards in Beverly Hills on Sunday night.
Gerwig called it "very wonderful and emotional" to "take the stage with the group that made it" after the film won the gong.
She told the Today programme that much of the movie was "unlikely" because it is about a plastic doll who has "no character, no story" and is "there to be projected upon".
"Barbie has been around since 1959," she said. "And she's been a villain and she's been a hero, but it felt like, in a way, even though it's so seemingly superficial, that it was such a rich place to start."
The writer-director said there has never been a time when she was not familiar with the arguments for and against Barbie.
"So the fact that the film has inspired such a range of reactions seems fitting," she added.
Recalling the filming of Barbie in a "grey and rainy" UK in March 2022, Gerwig said the set in Leavesden "was like stepping into Oz".
She also told the programme she will be directing a Netflix adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Source: Press Association
