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Brake alert: This post includes details about Greta Gerwig’s final scene Barbie.
Barbie Co-director and writer Greta Gerwig says she wanted a “mic drop” moment to end the film — and she’s not talking about box office success, though she’s had that, too.
If you haven’t seen the hugely popular movie starring Margot Robbie as the World’s Most Famous Doll and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken, you’ll want to stop reading now. seriously. This post includes the last line from the movie, and Gerwig’s explanation of it.
in Interview with usa today, Gerwig explains that the ending was intended as a tribute to Barbie inventor Ruth Handler and also as a body-positive message to young girls.
In the movie, Barbie returns to Barbie Land after a life-changing visit to Los Angeles. Still feeling a little lost and struggling with a personality crisis, she’s visited by the spirit of Mattel Handler co-founder (played by Rhea Perlman), who tells the doll that, in so many words, the future is more important than the past. Barbie then decides to become human, adopting the name Barbara Handler and paying a visit to an important new person in her life.
The last line of the movie: “I’m here to see my gynecologist.”
“With this movie, it was important to me that everything work on at least two levels,” Gerwig says USA Today. “I knew I wanted to end my speech with a drop-mic type joke, but I also find it very emotional. As a teenage girl, I remember growing up being embarrassed about my body, just feeling ashamed in a way I can’t even describe. I felt like everything had to be hidden.
“And then I see Margot as Barbie, with this big smile on her face, and she says what she says at the end with such happiness and joy, I was like, If I can give girls that feeling of, ‘Barbie does that too’ — it’s funny and emotional. There are so many things like that throughout the movie. It was always about looking gritty and having heart.”
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