Renowned comedian Jo Koy hosted the Golden Globes last week on January 7, 2024. His comments on artists, actors, movies, and TV shows started out as harmless, yet dry, jokes, poking fun at the audience members present. But one joke stood out among the rest: a misogynistic joke about the Barbie movie. 

Koy compared two summer blockbuster films, Oppenheimer and Barbie, which competed for cinematic office box achievements. He described Oppenheimer as a 721-page Pulitzer Prize winning book, while Barbie was based on a plastic doll with “big boobies.” This joke unfairly compared two amazing films with vastly different genres. 

Koy’s joke was poorly received by the audience. After an awkward silence, Koy got defensive and began rambling about how he didn’t write the jokes himself, and that the few jokes he did write were the ones the audience found funny. 

Famous comedian Steve Martin defended Koy online, saying he understands how Koy must feel. 

“So, congratulations to Jo Koy who took on the toughest gig in show business, hit, missed, was light on his feet, and now has twenty minutes of new material for his stand up,” said Martin. 

Actress and singer-songwriter Renee Rapp, who plays Regina George in the 2024 remake of Mean Girls, called out the sexism in the jokes. 

“Also, my out was the man that was making a bunch of jokes about women last night at the Golden Globes,” Rapp said, while sharing her “ins” and “outs” for the new year on TikTok. 

I was appalled by the joke. Not only was it offensive and misogynistic, but it proved exactly why the movie was significant and necessary! The premise of Barbie was about men objectifying women based on their looks. It exemplified the toxicity of the patriarchy. And Jo Koy represented those oppressive, patriarchal values at the Golden Globes.