The Barbie trailer dropped earlier this month, and the collective response from fans was really positive. They couldn’t get enough of the vibrant colors, the really fun tone and, well, also Margot Robbie’s feet. The footage opens with the starlet stepping out of her heels, and the subsequent shot of her bare feet wound up being, without question, the single most screenshotted, memed and talked about still from the teaser. I’d love to say that heightened interest was surprising, but if you’ve been paying attention, it’s really not.
The Internet has long been obsessed with Margot Robbie’s feet. She’s repeatedly removed her shoes in movies, and there’s always been an outsized reaction. If it was just contained to the dark corners of the internet that are always excited about uncovered feet, I’d be a lot less interested. In Robbie’s case, however, the subsequent conversation has always been louder and more mainstream, which is why it makes sense she's the star whose feet will become a major plot point in Barbie.
So, let’s talk about it. Here’s a quick history of the internet being a little too interested in Margot Robbie’s feet...
The Heel Scene In The Wolf Of Wall Street
Margot Robbie was in other movies prior to The Wolf Of Wall Street, but the 2013 Martin Scorsese film turned her from obscure actress into Hollywood’s new it girl. Perhaps fittingly, she wasn’t wearing shoes when she found out she got the role, but she was certainly in them during one of the Best Picture nominee's most memorable scenes when she put her heel on Leonardo DiCaprio's head.
The seductive scene turned big comedic reveal is a fantastic moment within a fantastic movie, and to the surprise of no one, it was a hot conversation amongst many viewers after they saw the film. Initially, much of the focus, at least in mainstream discourse, was on Robbie's larger look and the tone of the scene itself, but as her feet have become a source of conversation in subsequent movies, their role here has taken on renewed focus.
The Bare Feet At The Movies In Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
It's no secret some of Quentin Tarantino's movies are a little hoof-forward. The beloved director has been asked a lot over the years, including by GQ, about his sockless choices, but the conversation got a whole lot louder when the fabulous Once Upon A Time In Hollywood dropped and featured a lot of feet shots, to the point where someone made a YouTube compilation that's nearly three minutes long. Just to say the quiet part out loud, that means almost three minutes of the movie's entire runtime is people walking and/or close-ups of people's feet.
Obviously Margot Robbie gets in on that. She attends a movie screening, takes off her boots and just puts her bare feet all over the seat in front of her like a shoeless Rick James stomping all over Eddie Murphy's couch. To be clear, no one is sitting anywhere close to her, but it's still a wild move and I say that as someone that wears shoes the minimum societal norms allow me. The camera lingers on her and her toes for a hot minute too.
Were this were a normal movie, that would most assuredly be considered the feet scene, but considering we also get Margaret Qualley rubbing her dirty toes all over Brad Pitt's windshield, this would not the main contender for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's feet scene.
Picking A Lock With Her Feet In The Suicide Squad
Without question, the most badass example of Margot Robbie's feet comes in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad in which she chokes out her captors, steals a key and picks the lock, all using her feet and toes. It's extremely impressive, especially because Robbie did the stunt herself. In fact, director James Gunn later complained that the props and set-up of the scene caused some fans to assume it was a stunt double. It was not.
Given the nature of the scene, it's no surprise the camera zooms in very closely on her feet, and given her history, it's no surprise the internet had thoughts. Following the film's release, the conversation online was a mix of 'Can you believe how cool that was?' and also 'Can you believe her feet were featured so prominently in another key movie scene?'
The First Shot Of Barbie's Trailer
And that brings us to Barbie. The full movie hasn't been released yet, but the first live-action shot of the latest railer is the title character walking in heels, removing them and standing on her tiptoes. Obviously the internet collectively lost its mind over this Barbie shot. Chrissy Teigen even called for a documentary just on that one shot in a tweet that was liked by more than two hundred thousand people. It was also a hot topic of conversation over at Wiki Feet, which, thanks to this article, I have now discovered is a real thing.
The chatter around Robbie's feet in Barbie is louder than it's ever been mostly because people are interested for very different reasons. To some, it's a sign of how much attention to detail the movie is paying since Barbie's feet are really like that. To others, it's a fascinating point of curiosity that the actress' feet have been zoomed in on so many times, and to the Larys Strong's of the world, well, they're always interested in feet.
To Sum Up
Margot Robbie knows the internet is into her feet. She was asked about it in an interview and said she thinks it's weird, but she's also flattered. As such, I think it's probably fair to say the number of times she's been shoeless in a movie is almost certainly happenstance. Given how talented she is and how many years she almost certainly has left as a Hollywood A-lister, however, I think it's very likely we'll see her feet again at some point. When they come out, expect this conversation to start all over again.
Regardless of whether she bares her sole again or not, consider this article a sales pitch for kicking off your shoes and going barefoot for awhile. There's nothing quite like feeling your toes against the ground. It's one of life's great pleasures, and if more of us did it more often, perhaps people wouldn't care so much when Margot does.
