Bill Maher Uses ‘Barbie’ Takedown to Flex About Date with Woman in Her 30s
This Barbie is robbing the cradle — and proud of it.
It’s been 18 days since Greta Gerwig’s massively hyped Barbie hit theaters. The predictable machinations of the conservative outrage machine have already worked through their anger at the female-focused feature by burning Barbie dolls en masse to protest the remarkably measured criticisms of sexist power structures put forth by the kids film about talking toys. By now, everyone with an ax to grind in any direction of gender discourse has seen Barbie, formed their sensationalized opinions about its message, posted them on any and every social media platform and then moved on to talk about that insane Montgomery boat brawl. Barbie outrage is old news — which means Bill Maher, 67, is right on time to express his fashionably late and fully unoriginal take on the issue.
In a page-long diatribe posted by Maher on Twitter, the Real Time host attacked Barbie for its assertion that patriarchal structures still exist and women still face sexism in 2023. Calling the film “preachy” and “man-hating,” Maher complained that Gerwig’s approach to gender was aged and outdated — unlike his date the night Barbie threatened his manhood.
“I saw ‘Barbie’ with a woman in her 30s who said, ‘I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today,’” Maher humble-bragged in the middle of his men’s rights manifesto. Maybe if anyone else in the world wrote this fragile, surface-level rant about how Mattel misrepresenting the gender make-up of their own board in a fictional comedy about living dolls is proof that sexism doesn’t exist anymore, we’d chalk up the inclusion of his date’s age as a simple attempt to show that it’s not just old white guys who feel that Barbie was mean to men. However, this is the sultan of smug we’re talking about — a man who chastises his audience for failing to laugh at his chatGPT-level topical humor doesn’t just accidentally reveal that he dates women half his age.
Twitter users took note of Maher’s surreptitious mention of his companion’s comparatively youthful age — as Maher intended, a handful of his male fans were impressed with his dating habits, as one wrote, “great POV...and you were out with a woman in her 30's? equally impressive.”
Other repliers were less complimentary of the detail, with journalist Kathia Woods responding to Maher’s post, “You’re old enough to qualify for social security dating a 30 something & thought Barbie was gonna be like Hooters.” Stoner stand-up comedian Doug Benson was appropriately blunt in his appraisal of Maher’s review, writing in all caps, “BILL MAHER NEEDS TO OVERDOSE ON SHUT THE FUCK UP PILLS.”
