Fox News Panel Debates Why Barbie Movie is So Much Bigger in Red States Than Blue: ‘What’s Going On?’

As right-wing commentators carry on with their outrage over the Barbie movie, Fox News’s America’s Newsroom held a fascinating conversation about how the flick is storming the box office, particularly in the Red states.

Fox News’s Lisa Kennedy Montgomery and Taylor Riggs joined Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino to talk about the early movie theater dominations of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Kennedy described both films as “completely authentic,” adding, “They know their audience, and they’re giving them a multi-dimensional experience that they can be completely attached to and invested in.”

“You have something for both types of movie fans,” she explained. “You have a big bubblegum experience where you get to dress up, and then you have something for the intellectual crowd that lets you think and reflect and appreciate history with phenomenal performances, writing, and directing. So it’s rare that all of those things happen at once, but we will take the perfect storm.”

Perino then pulled up a graphic showing Oppenheimer trending in America’s northeast and the west coast, while Barbie seems to be most popular in the southern states.

“I don’t know what’s going on down South,” Perino said. “They like this Barbie movie a lot.”

“A little bit more fun down South,” Riggs called it. Since she acknowledged the trend of Oppenheimer–Barbie double features, Diggs described it as “You can start with like a little black coffee of Oppenheimer, and then a fun Diet Coke or a soda in the afternoon.”

Hemmer demanded they bring the map up as he asked, “What’s going on” with Barbie’s Red state popularity?

“I think people in the South like to party,” Kennedy said. “And people in the North, you know. They maybe have a little bit of intellectual guilt about the way Western civilization has unfolded.”

Perino chalked it up to the weather, saying “It’s really hot” in the South these days, so movie theaters give a cold dose of relief to audiences there.

Judging by the map, it seems people aren’t going along with right-wing pundits and commentators who’ve accused Barbie of carrying “woke” messages or imagery favorable to China. Fox News’s commentators panned the film last week by accusing it of putting men down to espouse feminism.

Watch above via Fox News.