Transgender star Hari Nef is featured in 'Barbie' and said the movie encourages 'living your life and being in your body your way, on your own terms'
The upcoming "Barbie" film ignores its key demographic in favor of catering to "a small percentage of the population," a faith-based film review site claimed.
"Warning: Don't take your daughter to Barbie," Movieguide, a Christian movie review site warned ahead of the film's release July 21. The review criticized the film about the iconic doll of abandoning its core audience of families and little girls to instead focus on LGBTQ stories.
"The new BARBIE movie forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories. Furthermore, the movie was poorly made with multiple premises, losing even the most die-hard fans," the scathing staff review-penned piece began.
"They had a built-in market and audience for this franchise that they completely ignored," the story continued. "Millions of families would have turned out to the theaters and purchased tickets, but instead, Mattel chose to cater to a small percentage of the population who has proven over and over to abandon the box office."
Ryan Gosling's Ken accompanies Barbie to the real world in the new trailer for "Barbie." (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
However actress Margot Robbie defended the film in a recent interview, saying it was "literally crafted to be for everyone."
"This is such a thing people say when they do press for a movie. They’re like, ‘It’s for everyone.’ But it was literally crafted to be for everyone," Robbie said after being asked if the film was made for kids. Director Greta Gerwig crafted humor aimed at children and adults, the film's star further explained.
However, members of the cast and crew have praised the film's left-leaning messages on gender in media interviews.
"It most certainly is a feminist film," Gerwig said to ABC News Australia. "It's feminist in a way that includes everyone," she elaborated.
Transgender actor Hari Nef in ‘Barbie.’ (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
Transgender actor Hari Nef, who plays a "Doctor Barbie" told Out Magazine that the film had an empowering message about being transgender.
"As much as there’s a celebration of femininity and being a girl in this [movie], I think there’s also an encouragement of letting go of the checklist we ascribe to living and living your life and being in your body your way, on your own terms," Nef said.
Star Simu Liu has also praised the film for deconstructing "heteronormative" gender roles about toys and colors.
"And I’m so glad that this movie exists because I think it puts the final nail in the coffin of that very heteronormative idea of what gender is, and what is or is not gendered," he said during an interview with Screen Rant’s Joe Deckelmeier.
While discussing the film's feminist themes with Fandango, actress and "Saturday Night Live" alum Kate McKinnon revealed she knew she wanted to be in the film after reading about how the script deconstructs gender roles.
"I knew it was going to be something and then I read it, and it was like, sort of about how like gender roles deny people half their humanity and how like we need to just like be ourselves," McKinnon said.
Co-star Issa Rae praised the film for sidelining Barbie's male counterpart, "Ken", to be an "accessory" for Barbie.
Rae told interview host Naz Perez, "I think a Ken for me is just kind of there. I think a Ken is just a great accessory. That’s what I loved about Greta’s imagining of Barbie is that the Kens are just supplemental characters to these Barbies."
Warner Bros. Pictures, the studio behind the film, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News' Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
Kristine Parks is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Read more.
