Barbie may have blown up the box office over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean Greta Gerwig's Mattel-based phenomenon has been without its issues.
And one scene, in particular, is giving audience members cause to demand a "trigger warning".
Several viewers have taken to social media to vent about a scene in which Ryan Gosling's Ken serenades Margot Robbie's Barbie with an acoustic cover of Matchbox Twenty's 1997 single 'Push'.
While that may sound innocuous enough, it's safe to say viewers had their opinions on it... especially those who had previously experienced being serenaded by a man.
One Twitter user said of the scene: "i needed a trigger warning for the guitar scene in the barbie movie LMFAO", and another added in agreement: "Barbie needs a trigger warning for the guitar scene."
The trigger warning demands didn't stop there, though, with another user adding: "Needed a trigger warning before the Ken singing at Barbie scene," while a further user tweeted: "the barbie movie needs a trigger warning for any girl who’s ever had the guitar played at them by a man."
Despite the scene apparently inducing the ick in a big way for some viewers, Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas has revealed that he thinks the scene is "hilarious".
"When I got the call for Barbie, they told me, 'Ken’s by the fireside, he’s playing the song and it’s his favorite band,'" Thomas explained in an interview with USA Today. "So I did this thinking I’d be the butt of the joke, and I was fine with that. I’m pretty thick-skinned. But Julie Greenwald [from Atlantic Records] came to the Hollywood Bowl a month or two ago. She had just seen the movie and was like, 'You come out of it loving Ken and loving 'Push.'' And I was like, 'Aww. Alright, really good!'"
Thomas also acknowledged that, during his band's '90s heyday, they became ripe for people making fun of their work as they became more and more successful, citing a specific scene in Bring It On, where Kirsten Dunst's "douchey boyfriend" has a Matchbox Twenty poster in his bedroom.
"There’s a scene where he was in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background. There was a whole period during the '90s where the more successful we got, the bigger target we were. We were an easy takedown."
Thomas would go on to explain that his work being included in Barbie only further cemented the long-term crush he has had on the film's director Greta Gerwig.
"Greta Gerwig has been one of my crushes forever, to the point where I was on a plane one time and I called my wife, like, 'Baby, Greta Gerwig just came on the plane, oh my god,'. So just the fact that it didn’t diminish my crush of Greta, that’s even better," he joked.
