Barbie’s Smallpox Joke & Controversy Explained

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is full of witty and fast-paced jokes, but one comparison between a development in the story and a real-life epidemic comes off as careless to many viewers, causing controversy. The movie establishes Ken as a temporary antagonist when he brings “the patriarchy” as a concept to Barbieland — or rather what he grasped about the concept from the real world, transforming all Barbies into objectified beings subject to the Kens’ whims. While this development has induced a multi-layered analysis of the real world’s double standards and gender-based discrimination, one joke delivered by America Ferrera’s character, Gloria, has been deemed insensitive because of the ill-suited comparison it draws.