Men On Twitter Are Calling Margot Robbie 'Mid'— 'She's Too Old To Play Barbie'
She's basically the epitome of the beauty standard.
Kathy Hutchins, Fred Duval / Shutterstock In yet another stunning display of men on the internet inserting their opinion into the cultural conversation when no one asked for it, Margot Robbie is getting dragged on Twitter as being the wrong choice for the titular role of Barbie in the Greta Gerwig-directed movie.
Men on Twitter are calling Margot Robbie ‘mid,’ and declaring she’s too old to be Barbie.
The word 'mid' is a slang term often used on social media to describe something (or someone) as below average or low-quality.
While multiple men on the social media platform are expressing just how unattractive they find Robbie, women on Twitter are taking a stand against their blatant misogyny, by calling them out for continuing to uphold impossible beauty standards.
“This new trend on Twitter trying to convince us that Margot Robbie is mid is insane,” commented one woman named Kira. She was responding to a tweet sent into the world by a man that featured a photo of Robbie, stating, “She is a hard 7. You used to find Margot Robbie in every Blockbuster Video in 1995.”
There’s many issues one could take with that tweet. To start, of course Blockbuster Video showcased women who looked like Robbie — as a company distributing movies, they made their profit by doing so. But it’s more important to point out the sheer toxicity of this man’s system of rating women’s appearances through a numbered ranking, as though beauty were a hard science, as though it were something objective.
Kira continued to fight the good fight on Twitter by issuing responses to the men who deigned to call Robbie ‘mid.’
As one man named Nick claimed, after posting a photo of her without makeup, Robbie is “definitely mid.” “You have never seen a woman in your entire life,” she stated, defending Robbie against the outrageous criticisms these men feel they’re entitled to make.
Robbie, 33, fits into the archetypal mold of what’s considered conventionally attractive — that’s to say, she hits the narrowly-defined marks of beauty in our society. She’s thin. She’s white. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. Yet even so, judging her solely on how she looks is ultimately dehumanizing. It whittles her down to nothing more than a face, a body, when in reality, she’s a nuanced person with a critical mind, a creative soul, and a rigorous artistic practice.
In another unwarranted claim from many men on Twitter, Robbie is also being criticized as being 'too old' to play Barbie.
Women on Twitter are taking a strong stance against that particular form of ageism, noting that not only is Barbie an imaginary character, she’s also an extremely accomplished one. Barbie is a homeowner, working multiple demanding jobs. She’s been a doctor and a scientist. She’s even been the President, a role with a minimum age requirement of 35.
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As one woman explained, she “saw some weird takes about how Margot Robbie is ‘too old’ to play Barbie, nevermind Ryan Gosling being over 40.”
She continued, “Even as a child I always thought Barbie was 30… Mine always had multiple kids and several careers, can’t do that at 21.”
Someone else asked the entirely valid question, “Does a Barbie doll age?”
To many, this conversation might seem trivial. It could easily be construed as a silly issue. Who cares about the Barbie movie? Who cares about a doll? Yet to frame it as such discredits the accomplishments of the women who made the doll, who made the movie, anyone who dares to take up space with their presence.
Ever since Barbie’s invention in 1959, she’s been a crucial player in our culture. She was played with by multiple generations of girls, who grew into women— women with houses, jobs, and families, women who deserve so much more than to be judged on how they look by men hiding behind their computer screens.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers celebrity gossip, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.