Ben Shapiro Compares Barbie Fire Backlash to Someone Burning the Quran

Ben Shapiro is claiming that he has received death threats for burning Barbie dolls in a video, with the conservative commentator comparing the backlash to "the reaction of the Islamic world" to Quran burning.

In a 43-minute video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, Shapiro protested the release of the new Barbie movie by setting fire to Barbie and Ken dolls and a pink toy car in a trash can. Shapiro complained that the film, which has been wildly successful at the box office, is "woke" and "one of the worst movies" he has ever seen.

During Monday's episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, the pundit said that the reaction to his fiery stunt was "totally crazy." He said that he had received death threats, while citing tweets that purportedly asked if "something" could be done about him setting fire to the dolls.

"I take, like, a match and I light the Barbie stuff on fire—and this is apparently terrible," said Shapiro. "The reaction to me burning a Barbie car with, like, a Barbie and Ken in it, is like the reaction of the Islamic world when someone burns a Quran in Sweden. It's totally crazy ... I don't even. Like wow, guys. Wow."

"There's a really serious undertone to a lot of this stuff, I mean, I actually got some death threats over the Barbie movie," he continued while chuckling. "I'm not kidding you. There are people on Twitter who are literally tweeting out about, like, 'Can we do something about this Shapiro?'"

Shapiro also denied that he had intentionally gone to a screening of the film while "dressed like Ken." An image of Shapiro at a movie theater to see the film in clothing similar to that worn by Ryan Gosling's character sparked online ridicule after the pundit shared it on Twitter.

"Apparently being dressed like Ken now amounts to you wear black jeans and a black shirt," Shapiro said. "The question was whether I had purposefully worn that outfit to the Barbie movie. No, I hadn't seen it guys, that's just what people tend to wear a lot."

Warner Bros. declined Newsweek's request for comment. Newsweek also reached out to Mattel for comment via email on Monday.

In his Barbie review, Shapiro attributed the film's high Rotten Tomatoes rating to moviegoers supposedly praising "woke" politics while ignoring the content of the movie.

Shapiro went on to criticize the film, which is rated PG-13, for including some sexual innuendo and jokes. He also objected to transgender actress Hari Nef, who plays Doctor Barbie, being "treated normally."

A number of other conservatives have also lashed out at Barbie for being "woke," with some calling for a boycott in the days before the film was released.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "woke" as being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."

"It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement," the dictionary states. "By the end of that same decade it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning."

Update 07/24/23, 8:02 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to reflect that Warner Bros. declined comment.