A creepy profile on Margot Robbie has resurfaced amid the Barbie buzz.

Margot Robbie is on top of the world right now. 

She's spread across every infinite scroll on Instagram and TikTok, her fashion moments from the Barbie press tour remain imprinted in our collective consciousness, and, of course, she's leading the biggest movie of the year.

Greta Gerwig's Barbie has already broke the record for the biggest opening weekend for a female director, and the film had the biggest domestic opening ever for a non-superhero film or sequel. 

This is no easy feat for a biting feminist manifesto disguised as a movie about girls and their dolls. 

Watch Mamamia's Laura Brodnik's interview with Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. Post continues after video.

While Barbie has divided some critiques, Margot's portrayal of the iconic doll has been universally praised. As we said, the Australian actress is on top of the world. 

But it wasn't always smooth sailing for Margot when it came to the media. 

If we cast our minds back to 2016, Margot Robbie was the talk of Hollywood after her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street, and her upcoming turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. 

As her fame loomed larger than ever, the actress was profiled in Vanity Fair by contributing editor Rich Cohen. Nothing unusual, right? Wrong. 

The profile would blow up online for the bizarre way both Margot, and Australia in general, were described in the article. 

And with Barbie fever showing no sign of slowing down, the profile has resurfaced on Twitter. 

with Margot Robbie all over the news again, I cannot stop thinking about the 2016 Vanity Fair profile of her that my country will never forget pic.twitter.com/fV2vaA4mY8

— Alexander Wells (@ajbwells) July 29, 2023

In the profile, Cohen claimed that Australia was a "sunny and slow" version of America 50 years ago, which is populated by "throwback people," who apparently "still live and die with the plot turns of soap operas." 

For any Aussie reading, it was baffling in its ignorance, but we're here to focus on how Margot Robbie — a human person with thoughts and feelings — was described in her introduction. 

"She is 26 and beautiful, not in that otherworldly, catwalk way, but in a minor knock-around key, a blue mood, a slow dance," the article begins. 

"She is blonde but dark at the roots. She is tall but only with the help of certain shoes. She can be sexy and composed even while naked but only in character. As I said, she is from Australia." 

The response to the interview was overwhelmingly negative, igniting an online discourse around how male writers describe women in their articles by making leering comments on their looks rather on the merits of their work. 

One commenter wrote, "I can't believe this article was written in this century, the levels of sexism are medieval." 

Hey now! Listen to this episode of The Spill about Ryan Gosling. Post continues after podcast.

Margot addressed the profile on The Project shortly after the interview went viral. “I remember thinking, ‘That was a really odd interview, I don’t know how that’s going to come out,'” she said. 

“Then when I read it and I was like, ‘Yeah, the tone of this is really weird, I don’t really know what he’s trying to get at or play at.”

Following the backlash, the article's author defended his description of the then-26-year-old actress by saying that it was all just a joke. “I was mostly joking. It is a goof. Supposed to be funny,” he told Sydney Morning Herald in 2016.

Whether his words were a 'joke' or not, the expectations that weigh on women is a topic that the Barbie film specifically targets. In the way that Cohen said that Margot was "beautiful" but not in a "otherwordly, catwalk way", this is a contradictory double standard the film tackles in America Ferrera's rousing monologue as Gloria. 

"You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much," the character says at the end of the film. "Or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood."

In the film, Gloria's speech builds to her screaming at the other Barbies by the end that "It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you!"  

Thankfully for us, this Vanity Fair profile is now just a distant memory and Margot Robbie has gone on to bigger and better things. 

Feature image: Getty + Vanity Fair.