Greta Gerwig had to cut ‘fart opera’ moment from Barbie movie after it bombed during test screenings

Although Barbie is filled to the brim with hilarious jokes, Greta Gerwig has spoken out about one rather stinky joke that didn’t make the final cut.

In an interview with IndieWire, Gerwig sat down with Nick Houy who worked as the editor for Barbie.

“Barbie was so much more a comedy than Lady Bird and Little Women,” said Houy, who was also an editor for the two other films Gerwig directed.

The two spoke about the process for making the comedy, which involved several preview screenings of jokes to gauge audiences’ reactions.

“Everyone’s different and every screening’s different,” said Houy. “We’ve definitely learned, over the years, that you really have to let things have their fair chance and then act accordingly.

“Once you know it’s dead, you have to get it out of there.”

Sadly, one of those jokes that didn’t make it past the preview screening was a classic fart joke.

“We had like a fart opera in the middle,” said the director. “I thought it was really funny.”

Houy also chimed in saying: “It was in the wrong place, too.”

But this isn’t the first time Gerwig and Houy have tried to sneak in a fart joke.

Apparently the pair previously tried to add one into Lady Bird and Little Women.

“We’ve always tried to get in a proper fart joke and we’ve never done it,” said Gerwig.

While this may have been the third attempt at the joke, the pair seems determined to squeeze a fart moment into whatever future projects they come across.

“We need to work it into a more significant narrative moment next time,” said Houy.

Speaking on the editing process, Huoy said it can be a bit like playing whack-a-mole.

“Even if you get a perfect scene, then if you cut out all these other scenes or you’ve changed the order or you’ve done work to these other scenes, now you have to rework the scene that was originally great," he said.

While Gerwig and Houy seemed slightly disappointed that the joke didn’t make it, many fans of the film are relieved.

One said: “I think if there’s anything that Barbie didn’t need, it was a fart opera."

Another added: “I’m not exaggerating when I say this would have ruined the entire movie for me."

While a thirdjoked: “Boycotting all Warner Bros releases until they #ReleaseTheFartCut.”

Featured Image Credit: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Instagram/Barbie the Movie

Topics: TV and Film, Barbie

Velentina Boulter

Velentina is a freelance journalist for LADbible who is currently studying journalism at The University of Melbourne. When she's not typing away at her laptop, she can usually be found overanalysing movies or making terrible jokes.