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  • Barbie Film’s Cut Helen Mirren F-Bomb Detailed By Director: “That Was My Favorite Line” -TGN

Barbie Film’s Cut Helen Mirren F-Bomb Detailed By Director: “That Was My Favorite Line” -TGN

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  • Greta Gerwig’s Barbie adaptation pushed the boundaries of a PG-13 rating with a censored f-bomb of President Barbie, which appealed more to older adults than children.

  • Despite being marketed as family-friendly, the film’s mature humor and social themes resonated with audiences of all ages and received huge acclaim from critics.

  • Another uncensored f-bomb was planned for the beginning of the film, voiced by Helen Mirren’s unseen narrator.

Barbie director Greta Gerwig reveals that a second f-bomb nearly made it into the finished film, but was ultimately left out. Towards the end of the film, President Barbie (Issa Rae) blurts out a censored curse word with the Mattel logo over her mouth, giving her the closest Barbie comes at a borderline-R-rated time. The line was rather surprising, but embodied the PG-13 character of the comedy.

In an interview with CinemaBlendGerwig explains that there was another use of the f-word that narrator Helen Mirren would have voiced in Barbie. However, the line has been removed from the finished cut. Watch what she says about this below:

Suffice it to say there was some sort of elaborate joke with Marie Curie, which ended up not being a part of (the final draft). But yeah, there was a page-one f-bomb that pretty much set the tone for the whole thing. Whatever the line, it was actually Helen Mirren saying to Marie Curie, “Pipe the f-ck down, Marie Curie!” That was my favorite (line). … But we knew we only had one f-bomb, and we were like, ‘Let’s use it at the very beginning.’ And there’s just something, to me, (about) Helen Mirren that says, ‘Pipe the f-ck down, Marie Curie.’ The audio is there, the ‘Pipe the f-ck down’, with a real British voice. But it was something in the editing that didn’t come through in the end. That was, I’d say, the line where everybody said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no.’

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of a PG-13 rating

The Barbie brand is usually synonymous with small children, and previous animated films of the brand have always been aimed at children. However, Gerwigs Barbie adaptation isn’t afraid to do something completely different and create a version of the character that older adults can enjoy more than kids. The film contains provocative gags, but none are as startling as the curse Rae’s president Barbie utters during the climax.

Related: Barbie Movie Ending Explained – What The Villain Twist & Barbie’s Decision Mean

Even as the curse was censored, many critics flatly declared it so Barbie was not intended for children or even young teens. Nevertheless, the PG-13 humor is also one of the reasons why the film was highly acclaimed by critics and audiences, qualifying for Barbie like a bold adaptation of the famous Mattel doll. The humor wasn’t afraid to be grown-up, and the universal social themes might resonate more with an older audience than kids.

It’s especially interesting to see how another, probably uncensored, curse was planned for the film, as well as at the beginning of it, which would have drastically set the tone that Barbie may not be suitable for children. It was indeed marketed as a family-friendly venture, but the f-bombs did show it wasn’t afraid to push beyond a PG-13 rating and push the boundaries of what a Barbie movie would be. In the end, Gerwig put a clever twist on a property that many thought was one-dimensional.

Source: CinemaBlend