New Delhi: Billionaire Elon Musk has expressed his disappointment with the recently released Barbie movie and mocked the film's feminist themes. Musk's tweet came as part of a larger wave of criticism from conservative figures, even as the film enjoys significant success at the box office.
The tweet in question was in response to a meme that compared Barbie to Twitter and Christopher Nolan's film "Oppenheimer" to X (which Musk has renamed Twitter as). In his tweet, Musk wrote, "If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word 'Patriarchy,' you will pass out before the movie ends."
Elon’s criticism came days after he had shared his opinion on Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Elon had replied ‘indeed’ to Samuel Harris Altman, the CEO of OpenAI's remark. Samuel had written, “I was hoping that the Oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to be physicists but it really missed the mark on that. Let’s get that movie made! (I think The Social Network managed to do this for startup founders)."
He had also tweeted a picture of a theatre with the film running, where someone can be seen scrolling on phone. The caption read, “This Oppenheimer movie is way too long.”
Barbie facing criticism
Other conservative commentators, such as Ben Shapiro and Piers Morgan, have also expressed their grievances with Barbie's themes. Shapiro went so far as to predict the film's failure at the box office in a 43-minute video and publicly set fire to Barbie dolls. Morgan, in an op-ed for the New York Post, lamented that if he made a movie mocking women as the film allegedly does with men, he would face severe consequences, going so far as to say he would be "executed.",
Despite the criticism from these voices, the fantasy comedy film 'Barbie,' directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has been a massive commercial success, breaking box office records worldwide. In its opening weekend alone, the film raked in nearly $350 million globally, and it is projected to pass the $400 million mark by today. Notably, it achieved the biggest opening weekend of the year in the US and the largest debut ever for a film directed by a woman.
While 'Barbie' has been dominant in global box office numbers, it is reported to be trailing behind Nolan's biographical drama 'Oppenheimer' in India, where the latter has grossed over Rs 62 crore in the same amount of time that 'Barbie' made Rs 23 crore.
The film has also faced criticism from other corners, albeit for different reasons. Television actor Juhi Parmar expressed her concerns about the movie's "sexual connotations," finding them inappropriate for her 10-year-old daughter, leading them to walk out of the screening after just 15 minutes. Mira Rajput, wife of actor Shahid Kapoor, was dissatisfied with the film's song-and-dance sequences, and singer Sona Mohapatra described the film as "unbearable" and "terrible."