Hi Hollywood! Jokes at the expense of women have never been funny. Not now, not ever.
To celebrate the best films and television shows of 2023, celebrities gathered for the Golden Globes Awards on Sunday, which are back after a few years filled with scandals. The night starts with one thing we can count on Hollywood for. Misogyny.
It took less than three minutes for the evening’s host, Jo Koy, to make a sexist joke about the record-breaking movie, “Barbie.” If that were not enough, he also took a dig at Taylor Swift later in the night, making the award ceremony to be remembered for Hollywood’s unapologetic misogyny.
Koy’s monologue was off to a great start, but then he actually began talking. He made untasteful jokes about “Barbie,” all the while not being able to engage the audience or work the crowd.
“Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies,” Koy said. “The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite and flat feet. Or what casting directors call a character actor!”
Koy reduced “Barbie,” a movie about how women are treated and objectified in our society down to a movie about plastic dolls with big boobs. It highlights the very thing the movie was about — sexism, misogyny and objectification of women.
The jokes made at the expense of “Barbie” were met with an upset audience. “Barbie” was and is so much bigger than female anatomy.
“Barbie” took home the first-ever Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Billie Eilish won the best original song for “What Was I Made For?” with her brother FINNEAS.
The movie’s director and co-writer, Greta Gerwig, made history by becoming the first-ever solo female director to surpass $1 billion at the box office. “Barbie” was also the highest-grossing movie made in 2023.
In “Barbie,” America Ferrera’s character Gloria delivers a monologue that steals the show and resonates especially after what Koy said about the movie.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman,” Gloria said. “You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough… I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don’t even know.”
“Barbie” was created for little girls to be able to envision themselves as scientists, authors and astronauts so that they would have something to look up to. Boys just had to look out the window.
During the opening, Koy blamed his writers for the jokes while delivering the opening monologue. In 2023, the Writers Guild of America landed a historic contract by a months-long strike that showed the studios how important writers are. He also blamed the lack of time to prepare.
A sexist joke is a sexist joke. Not having “enough time” to write a monologue that is not at the expense of women is not an excuse.
Being sexist is a choice you make. By writing and delivering those lines objectifying “Barbie” and reducing Swift to her companion, Koy made a deliberate choice to be sexist. There is no defense, especially not lack of time to sufficiently write a monologue or deliver a line “flat” for misogyny.
It is baffling that while celebrating a year where women were celebrated for their achievements when Swift had one of the most successful years of her career, her presence in the audience was boiled down to her boyfriend and the NFL.
In 2023 women embraced girlhood when “Barbie,” Beyoncé and Swift lifted the U.S. economy. For a night that is meant to celebrate the same year, it is disheartening to see jokes continue to be made at women’s expense.
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