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Barbie—the box-office smashing, record-breaking, highest-grossing film of 2023—didn’t do it for Shakira, as it turns out. The Colombian singer has revealed in a new interview that she took issue with Greta Gerwig’s award-winning feminist retelling of a divisive all-American icon in the way she “agreed” with complaints around the content “emasculated” men.
The 47-year-old began by claiming her sons “absolutely hated” Barbie for the ways in which (they believe) the movie reduced or deprived the ‘Kens’ in Barbieland. (Shakira shares two pre-teens, Milan, 11, and Sasha, 9, with her ex-partner Gerard Piqué—a Spanish soccer player whom she separated from in 2022 after allegations of infidelity arose).
“My sons absolutely hated it. They felt that it was emasculating. And I agree, to a certain extent,” the musician began. “I’m raising two boys. I want [them] to feel powerful too [while] respecting women. I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide,” she continued.
“I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well.” Shakira ended her verdict by stating her belief that men and women “complement each other, and that complement should not be lost.”
When prompted further by the interviewer, Shakira summarised her opinion by stating: “Why not share the load with people who deserve to carry it, who have a duty to carry it as well?”
It was an unexpected response from the songstress who spent a large portion of the profile discussing female empowerment and how her artistry and new body of work will “help women discover their own strengths”. “The songs are full of anecdotes and some very intense emotions I have experienced in these two years,” she said of the public breakdown of her decade-long relationship. “Creating this album has been a transformation in which I have been reborn as a woman,” she added.
“No one tells me how to cry or when to cry, no one tells me how to raise my children, no one tells me how I become a better version of myself. I decide that.” Of course, this idea of deprogramming from patriarchy and finding agency in yourself is the crux of Gerwig’s billion-dollar-grossing film. May we suggest a rewatch, Shakira?
