The Studio Wanted to Cut the Heart of 'Barbie'

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the films being covered here wouldn't exist.

by Julian Spivey

Photo: Warner Bros.

 
I saw “Barbie” the weekend it came out in theaters and there has been a good deal of the movie that has stuck with me in the month since then but there’s one particular scene that stood out the moment I saw the film and I believe it to be the best scene of the whole movie.

It’s a scene director/co-writer Greta Gerwig had to fight for and one the studio executives suggested she cut as it wasn’t important to the story.

The scene is after Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) have left Barbieland for the real world and after experiencing some of the harshness of the real world Barbie sits down on a bench and cries. She turns to an elderly woman (played by 91-year-old Oscar-winning costume designer Ann Roth) beside her and says: “You’re so beautiful.” The woman simply responds: “I know.”

It’s such a touching moment played with incredible tenderness by Robbie in a movie, in which she really does everything and does it well. It was the moment I thought Robbie should be nominated for an Oscar for this performance.

The studio execs, while watching an early cut of the film, explained it could be cut because it wasn’t integral to the story. Gerwig, in an interview with Rolling Stone, conceded that they were technically correct in the sense that it’s a ‘cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way – it doesn’t lead anywhere,’ but she knew it meant the world to the overall meaning of the film.

In that interview, Gerwig said: “If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about. To me, this is the heart of the movie. The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced.”

There’s a lot in “Barbie” about the beauty, necessity and importance of women. Aprille Hanson-Spivey recently wrote about her favorite scene in the film – the wonderful and passionate monologue by America Ferrera toward the end of the film. There’s a lot in it – some textual and some subtextual – about how mistreated women can be in this world – something that has riled up fools like Ben Shapiro and Bill Maher.

The ‘You’re Beautiful’ scene says so much in such a short time – it may not even be 10 seconds long - about how women are viewed by both men and the world. How women are expected to look a certain way, behave a certain way, and be a certain way. This is something as a man I frankly don’t have to worry about – we’re not judged by our looks nearly as much, at least from my perspective (what do I really know about it though – I’m a man).

The scene could also work as an admonishment to the film industry as a whole in that it’s frequently harsh to actresses once they reach a certain age. Where you can go from sexy heartthrob to playing a grandmother before you’re out of your 30s.

The scene is absolutely the heart of “Barbie.” Gerwig was right – of course, she was – it’s her movie, it’s her art. And this ladies and gentlemen, is why the studios should give the actors and writers (of which Gerwig is both) what they want and need to thrive in the ongoing Hollywood double strike. Without the creatives, our entertainment would be as plastic as the real Barbie herself.