America Ferrera Had A Poignant Reaction To A Girl Reciting Her Viral Barbie Monologue

One of the most memorable moments from Greta Gerwig’s massive hit movie Barbie was not given by a Barbie at all. It was a speech delivered by Gloria, played by America Ferrera, all about how absolutely “impossible” it is to be a woman. And it’s a speech that was repeated by a young girl in a recent theatrical audition, which Ferrera saw and found to be both “hilarious” and startling “sad” to watch.

Ferrera sat down with People recently and talked about seeing a young girl on the internet repeating the speech she delivered in Barbie as Mattel employee and single mom Gloria about the “impossible task” of being a woman.

“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass,” she says in the film. “You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.”

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star told People that, while she found the idea of a young girl delivering such a poignant speech “hilarious,” ultimately it was “also super sad that 11-year-old girls resonate with that monologue and already feel like they know what it's saying.”

It is difficult to think that a young girl might identify with Gloria’s speech, delivered in the film to break the spell of Ken’s newfound patriarchal hold over the Barbies. And it was a speech that resonated with women everywhere, perhaps most especially mothers. “I’ve had a lot of moms come to me and say, ‘I was watching with my kids, and afterward they said, Why were you crying?,’” Ferrera told People.

That speech was, as Ferrara told Vanity Fair, “one of the first things Greta mentioned to me even before I read the script. She said, 'I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I've always imagined you saying this,’” which left the actress feeling “flattered” but also “felt like, wow, what a gift as an actor to get to deliver something that feels so cathartic and truthful. But it also felt like this pivotal moment that I obviously didn't want to mess up. There was a little bit of healthy pressure around it.”

Not only did she not mess it up, Ferrera’s delivery of that iconic speech has become something of a rallying cry for women, and young girls, of all ages.