[Warning: this post contains spoilers for Barbie]
Lady Bird was a younger generation’s introduction to Dave Matthews Band. Will Greta Gerwig’s new film, Barbie, do the same thing for Matchbox Twenty?
Late in the movie, after Ken (played by Ryan Gosling) takes over Barbie Land and turns Barbie’s Dreamhouse into Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House, Barbie (Margot Robbie) hatches a plan with her fellow Barbies to return things to the way they were. (It’s impossible to discuss this movie and not say the word “Barbie” 7,000 times.) The scheme involves having all the Kens serenade their Barbies with an acoustic version of “Push” by Matchbox Twenty.
It may have seemed that Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach were making fun of Rob Thomas & Co. for their post-grunge angsty anthem, which was released when they were still “Matchbox 20” (this is important to me, a guy whose first email address referenced “Back 2 Good”). But that’s not the case.
“I will say there were many notes, many notes sessions on all fronts, but the thing is that anything that have in a movie, any reference — and we reference The Godfather, Matchbox Twenty, Dave Matthews Band — I love all of it,” Gerwig told IndieWire. “I never put anything in a movie I don’t love, and that’s true. I don’t really have use for things that I don’t have affection for, within a movie. That was the core of it.”
What ’90s song will Gerwig deconstruct next? My money’s on Everclear’s “Santa Monica.”
(Via IndieWire)