In ‘Barbie’, who is the woman on the bench?
Being snubbed for ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Actress’ at the Academy Awards left a bad taste in the mouths of many, but Barbie hardly needed any additional accolades to cement itself as a cultural force.
In the hands of director Greta Gerwig, co-writer Noah Baumbach, and producer/star Margot Robbie, turning a doll that first hit shelves in 1959 into a culturally relevant and socially conscious blockbuster that earned north of $1.4 billion at the box office was a remarkable feat, especially when Mattel proved so willing to open itself up to ridicule and mockery.
Paying tribute to the rich history of the titular plaything while putting a distinctly modern spin on a classic hero’s journey, Barbie is the sort of film that’s only going to continue finding new fans as the generations wear on.
Warner Bros will presumably be desperate for a sequel, but there are no guarantees the key creative team will agree to return, especially when the bar has already been set so high by the candy-coloured favourite.
Who created Barbie?
Barbie was the brainchild of Ruth Handler and took her name from the creator’s daughter, Barbara, who also served as her biggest inspiration after watching her child play with dolls and have them re-enact more grown-up and adult scenarios.
Realising that most toys were either representative of or marketed towards young children, Handler spotted a gap in the market, ultimately convincing the sceptical executives at Mattel that it was an idea worth investing in, something that was proven true on an annual basis for the next seven decades.
Handler passed away in April 2002 at the age of 85, but she’s represented in the movie Barbie by Rhea Perlman, who offers words of wisdom and encouragement to Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie during the peak of her existential crisis.
Who is the woman on the bench in Barbie?
Even though Gerwig had to fight to keep it in the movie despite the studio’s protestations, telling Rolling Stone that “if I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about”, the interaction between Robbie’s Barbie and the old woman on the bench is one of the film’s more heart-warming and emotionally-charged moments.
There were rumours that the role was being played by Ruth Handler’s daughter Barbara, but the reality is that an Academy Award-winning friend of the production was drafted in for the small but pivotal part. A two-time winner of the Oscar for ‘Best Costume Design’, Ann Roth is a known associate of both Gerwig and Baumbach.
Roth provided the costumes for Margot at the Wedding, While We’re Young, and White Noise, all three of which were written and directed by Baumbach, with Gerwig appearing as a member of the cast in the latter.
