Diablo Cody Says Canned ‘Barbie’ Movie Starring Amy Schumer Was Trying To Have ‘Feminist Girl-Boss Twist’

Diablo Cody says he demolished it Barbie film script, which would have starred Amy Schumer, “shit in bed” because executives wanted an “anti-Barbie” narrative.

The Oscar-winning screenwriter explains why she believes the film never took off from scratch interview with GQ magazine. Cody suggested that the story she was asked to write didn’t make sense because discussions about feminism and Barbie weren’t yet ready for the kind of complex contradictions the doll has historically embodied.

“I think I know why I shit in bed,” she said. “When I was first hired for this, I don’t think the culture didn’t have (yes) embraced the women or the child as still valid feminist archetypes. If you look up Barbie on TikTok, you’ll find this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, taking this thin, blonde, white doll and turning her into a heroine was a tall order.

Cody essentially explained that there was pressure to deliver “the dramatic equivalent of ‘math is hard,'” according to the magazine. Her “affectionate, kooky performance” would be matched by comedian and actress Schumer, whose confessional stand-up “gave her some counterculture credibility,” wrote Adam Nayman.

“The idea of ​​an anti-Barbie made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of a decade ago,” Cody said. “Back then I didn’t really have the freedom to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a feminist spin on Barbie, and I just couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is.

Another roadblock to his film, besides Schumer’s departure in 2017, was the release of The Lego Moviewhich had opened the door for a specific kind of meta-satire that meets the brand extension that Hollywood wanted to replicate.

“I have heard endless references to The Lego Movie in development, and it gave me a problem because they had done it so well,” she told the magazine. “Every time I came up with something meta, it was too similar to what they had done. for me, but now it’s been long enough that I can cast (The Lego Movie antagonist) Will Ferrell as the real-life antagonist Barbie movies, and nobody cares.

Cody says he had a genuine interest in telling the story of Barbie as someone who “grew up playing with Barbies, and those were kind of the first movies I ever cast.” But he’s also wary of how some notable and distinctive filmmakers are stepping into the lane of IP storytelling, even though he knows why they’re doing it.

“I wish I could write every day The Paw Patrol movies because credibility won’t send my kids to college,” Cody said. “I’ve had several swings in IP with Barbie AND Powerpuff Girls, and I take full responsibility for the failures of those attempts because I have a specific voice and point of view and haven’t figured out how to modulate it.

“I mean, nobody really wants to delve into the lore and myth of Hungry Hungry Hippos,” he continued. “It’s not really an artistic exercise.”