It took several days to film America Ferrera's Barbie monologue

By July 24, 2023 11:00 PM EST

"Barbie" spoilers follow.

To date, Greta Gerwig has directed three films which she has also written or co-written. Each has a monologue, scene or sentiment that states, in simple and often harsh language, that being a woman is difficult in the modern world. To quote Gerwig's "Little Women", Jo (Saoirse Ronan) bemoans the fact that women are often seen as mere receptacles of love when, in fact, they are so much more. "Women," she says, "they have minds, and they have souls, as well as hearts. [...] I'm so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is made for. I'm so sick of it."

The trend continued with Gerwig's latest film "Barbie", based on the Mattel toy and currently grossing hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. "Barbie" is an Adam & Eve story in which Barbie (Margot Robbie) travels from the safe, soft, ideal and nurturing plastic world of Barbieland to the real world where, surprisingly, women don't rule the world. It's Ken (Ryan Gosling) who brings the forbidden fruit of patriarchy - a concept neither Barbie nor Ken knew - to Barbieland. The results are disastrous.

A real-world human, Gloria (America Ferrera) observes Barbie's existential crisis and enters Barbieland to assess the damage. The Barbies there are unprepared for toxic masculinity and are brainwashed by the new concepts. It takes a speech from Gloria — a speech about how the real world expects far too much of women — to shake the Barbies from complacency. It's a moment to elicit both applause and just weariness.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Ferrera said she knows the monologue is important and she needs to do 30-50 takes to do it right.

The character of Gloria is the avatar of the public. She's the one who plays with Barbie dolls in the real world, all in an effort to bond with her teenage daughter (Ariana Greenblatt), who is growing increasingly estranged from her mother and entering into a cynical mindset. As a Mattel employee, Gloria will lazily start drawing pictures of Barbie dolls thinking about death and depression, unwittingly sending dark thoughts into Barbie's head. Gloria is torn between the idyllic world that Barbie dolls sell - girls can be anything! – and the harsh realities of life as a woman in the real world. Near the end of "Barbie," Gloria unleashes a litany of modern female grievances on Barbies, all about what is expected of women and how she feels women can never live up to the world's view of them as a gender.

Ferrera saw the speech as both a gift and a challenge. Actors often dream of receiving important speeches and "big moments," and Ferrera was thrilled. However, she also wanted to make sure she understood. She said:

"[The monologue was] one of the first things Greta mentioned to me before I even read the script. She said, 'I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I always imagined you saying it.' While that was flattering, it also felt like pressure in the most enjoyable way. I read the monologue and it struck me as powerful and meaningful. It was also, wow, what a gift as an actor to be able to deliver something that seems so catha...