American comedian Jo Koy has recently come under fire for some arguably questionable jokes he made during his time presenting the Golden Globes earlier in January.

The hosting made for an awkward watch; the laugh track in the background seemingly being the only laughter in the room, the cutaways to blank-faced celebrities and Koy’s undeniably harsh throwing of the writers under the bus in an attempt to save face all amounted to a brutal set.

However, one joke in particular stuck out to audiences and has caused a fair amount of outrage on social media - a joke about the Barbie movie.

A film that received a great critical reception as well as a wealth of glowing reviews from audiences was the butt of one of Koy’s jokes as he compared it to Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’. Koy then went on to describe the Barbie movie as a film about “a plastic doll with big boobies”.

Many people found this joke to be in bad taste as the Barbie movie is about so much more than that.

The movie is a love letter to womanhood and femininity. An empowering and uplifting tale of what it means to be a woman. And Jo Koy’s reductive and ignorant comments about the film did not go down well with audiences.

People have begun saying that jokes like this are the reason that ‘Barbie’ is such an important film in the age of today. The cut-aways to Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig’s hurt and disappointed facial expressions in reaction to the joke have gone somewhat viral on social media as people have described the expressions as a summary of the overall tone of Koy’s set.

Not to mention the fact Koy repeatedly seemed to get frustrated with the audience, telling them the jokes he was telling were indeed funny. “What! That’s hilarious!” Koy said during a moment of awkward silence after dropping one of his jokes that went down like a lead balloon.

All in all, attempting to fill the shoes of comedy legend and past Golden Globes presenter Ricky Gervais may have proved to be a tougher gig for Koy than anticipated, yet his jokes and audience interactions proved to be a tougher watch for audiences at home. 

  • This article was written by Mia Bavington, from Peter Symonds College, as part of Newsquest's Young Reporter scheme.