Meryl Streep praises Barbie for “saving the movies” in a dark time

Meryl Streep seems to be quite a Barbie girl herself as she praised the film for “saving” movies during its summertime run.

Greta Gerwig’s pink dream film Barbie is still dominating pop culture over six months since it was first released in July.

Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the movie focused on Barbie and Ken as they traveled to the real world to discover what it means to be human and more than their doll roles.

Critics and audiences universally praised Barbie for being a hilarious film with good takes on both feminism and what it means to be a person in general. And the praise hasn’t stopped as legendary actress Meryl Streep has voiced her admiration for the film and what it did for Hollywood upon its release.

Streep praises Barbie for “saving” Hollywood

Streep attended this year’s Palm Springs Film Awards alongside Barbie director Greta Gerwig and Billie Eilish and Finneas, who wrote and sang the movie’s main song “What Was I Made For?” for which they won a PSF.

The actress took the stage after Eilish and Finneas accepted their award and began praising both songwriters and the movie’s crew as a whole for their world on the genre-defining film.

“I just want to say to Billie and Finneas that you have delivered the ‘Barbie’ love bomb,” Streep said, “You’ve saved the movies last summer and all of our jobs. You’ve delivered joy to countless generations and genders of people, and you should surf that wave, kids, until you’re old and deserve to be jaded like me.”

Barbie completely dominated the movie scene during its July release, becoming the highest-grossing movie of 2023 as it earned $1.4 billion at the box office.

Both Barbie and its ticket companion Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, were two of the last films to debut before the WGA/actors’ strike that took place weeks after its release and, proved that “there’s still an appetite for the theatrical experience” which was called in question after the events of the global shutdown.

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