‘Barbie’ Composer Mark Ronson Fires Back at Bill Maher: Hit Film Is a ‘F–king Magnificent Comedy’

The host of HBO’s “Real Time” had criticized the movie for portraying the Mattel board as all male

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Mark Ronson, who composed the music for “Barbie” (along with his frequent collaborator Andrew Wyatt) and produced the accompanying soundtrack album, has fired back at TV pundit Bill Maher, who called the movie “preachy, man-hating” and a “zombie lie” on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“We come to this place for magic. We come to AMC theaters to laugh, to cry, to care… and to furiously Google ‘Mattel board configuration’ while others are trying to enjoy a f–king magnificent comedy,” Ronson said while sharing Maher’s insane screed. Kenough is Kenough.

Ronson is referring to the fact that earlier this week Maher, using the blue check he pays Elon Musk for, rattled on about, among other things, the make-up of the real-life Mattel board. “The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I’m not the one who’s out of step – I’m living in the year we’re living in,” Maher, a host of HBO’s “Real Time,” wrote on X.

“Barbie,” of course, has become the phenomenon of the summer. Since opening on July 21, it has amassed more than $1 billion worldwide and almost singlehandedly turned going to the movies into an event. With the “Barbenheimer” meme/craze, which encouraged fans to see Greta Gerwig’s candy-colored adventure on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s historical epic “Oppenheimer,” the domestic box office had a healthy bump. And more than that it encouraged people to return to the theater, something that few of the supposed big screen events this summer could do (including pricey studio fare like “The Flash,” “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and “Haunted Mansion”).

Ronson won an Oscar (with Wyatt) in 2019 for their work on Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” from “A Star is Born,” and there are a number of songs on the “Barbie” soundtrack that could be in contention this year, including Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” Surely, Maher will weigh in when and if “Barbie” racks up nominations.

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