Reactions to Barbie Oscar Snubs: ‘The Optics… Are Not Good’
Warner Bros. Pictures
The Oscar nominations for the 96th Annual Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday, and as always, several people who deserved to be nominated weren’t. Warner Bros. blockbuster Barbie was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, but missing among the movie’s nominees were director Greta Gerwig and lead actor Margot Robbie, who played the titular character of Barbie.
First thing: Yes, it’s completely disappointing that Gerwig was snubbed as the director a literal billion-dollar hit movie, a movie that was masterfully, thoughtfully crafted around an iconic and controversial symbol of both feminism and objectification, that took so many artistic, creative, and financial risks that ended up paying off by leaps and bounds.
Greta Gerwig was Snubbed. She was nominated for Adapted Screenplay along with her partner Noah Baumbach, which (as a writer) is quite important… but still.
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Also Snubbed was Robbie, an executive producer on the movie, which means technically she is part of the Best Picture nomination. But Robbie danced her own risky fine line by portraying a toy that represented, in her own mind, everything that girls could accomplish without realizing she was also being held up as an unattainable ideal. This could have gone so wrong, and yet Robbie delivered something that went so much deeper than the hollow plastic many expected.
And a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Ryan Gosling for playing Ken AND for singing Best Original Song nominee, “I’m Just Ken” … Did the Academy see the movie?
But that’s not just my opinion.
Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter pointedly said that “the optics of excluding the women most responsible for a critically acclaimed film that became the biggest blockbuster of 2023 from the directing and lead actress categories are not good.”
Some even pointed out that Gosling’s nomination was so “utterly on the nose”:
Nominating Ken but not Barbie is so utterly on the nose that it feels like the Academy is helping them set up the opening jokes of the bigger budget sequel.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) January 23, 2024
Nominating Ken but not Barbie is literally the plot of the movie. #Oscars2024 pic.twitter.com/XxudjeX4nd
— Brad Meltzer (@bradmeltzer) January 23, 2024
No nom for Greta Gerwig? Can that actually be true?
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 23, 2024
Greta Gerwig: Made a critically acclaimed, culturally profound, feminist movie about Barbie and the patriarchy that made a billion dollars at the box office.
Oscar nomination goes to … Ken. #Barbie #Oscars2024 pic.twitter.com/mQ8xlYPzc3
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) January 23, 2024
the Academy on their way to nominate Ken but not Barbie pic.twitter.com/WWwP1Zs0Yw
— Rob DenBleyker (@RobDenBleyker) January 23, 2024
One thing that can certainly be celebrated in Barbieland: America Ferrara, who delivered the movie’s iconic monologue about how “literally impossible” it is to be a woman, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Watch that and bask in the irony of it all.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
