‘Barbie’ Oscars snubs prompt a backlash, even from Ken (and Hillary)
“Barbie” was the largest hit of 2023, the highest-grossing film ever directed by a girl and a bona fide cultural sensation that turned film theaters pink and left a still-going path of suppose items within the wake of Greta Gerwig’s feminist fantasia.
But whereas “Barbie” acquired eight Academy Awards nominations on Tuesday, together with greatest image, it was simply bested by its unlikely double-feature associate on the field workplace, “Oppenheimer.” And when the Academy Awards handed over Gerwig for greatest director and Margot Robbie for greatest actress, many noticed among the identical patriarchy parodied in “Barbie” at work.
Even Ken was livid.
“There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no ‘Barbie’ movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally celebrated film,” Ryan Gosling stated. “No recognition would be possible for anyone on the film without their talent, grit and genius. To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement.”
By Wednesday, the backlash had already handed into the political realm. Hillary Clinton, posting on X, the platform previously generally known as Twitter, wrote:
“Greta & Margot,
While it could actually sting to win the field workplace however not take residence the gold, your thousands and thousands of followers love you.
You’re each a lot greater than Kenough.
#HillaryBarbie”
Clinton’s publish despatched the web in a frenzy that, from afar, appeared one thing just like the beachfront warfare that breaks out in “Barbie.” The firestorm on the heels of nominations ensures that the runup to the March 10 Oscars — which had began to really feel like a simple march to coronation for “Oppenheimer” and a handful of frontrunners — could have loads of drama.
Jimmy Kimmel, who will host these awards, has already weighed in. On Tuesday evening’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” he quipped that Gosling being nominated for Ken whereas Robbie and Gerwig have been snubbed “was kind of the plot of the ‘Barbie’ movie.”
If the summer time phenomenon of Barbenheimer was outlined by a wierd counter-programming synergy that lifted each movies up, the identical twin impact didn’t fairly switch to the Academy Award nominations. The disparity was placing, partly, not simply due to the sturdy help for “Barbie,” however as a result of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has a protracted historical past of overlooking girls behind the digicam and female-led movies.
Gerwig, herself, has already been in the course of that historical past. When she was nominated for greatest director in 2018 for “Lady Bird,” she was simply the fifth lady nominated within the class. At the time, solely Kathryn Bigelow had beforehand received greatest director. Since then, each Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) have.
At the identical time, Gerwig has been uniquely celebrated by the academy. Her first three movies as a solo director — “Lady Bird,”“Little Women” and “Barbie” — have all been nominated for greatest image. On Tuesday, Gerwig and her husband, Noah Baumbach, with whom she co-wrote the movie, have been nominated for greatest tailored screenplay. (In one other twist that didn’t delight “Barbie” followers, the academy deemed the script can be categorized as tailored.) Robbie, as a producer, shared in the perfect image nomination.
Neither Gerwig nor Robbie has commented publicly but on both the nominations the film acquired or those they didn’t. Representatives for Gerwig and Robbie didn’t reply Wednesday to queries.
Meanwhile, debates raged in regards to the nature of the “Barbie” snubs. Mary McNamara, the cultural columnist for The Los Angeles Times, wrote: “Did too many people (particularly women) enjoy ‘Barbie’ for it to be considered ‘important’ enough for academy voters? Did Robbie’s Barbie not suffer enough? Did Gerwig simply make it look too effortless? Was it just too pink?”
Sexism might need performed a task. Yet Justine Triet, the filmmaker of the Palme d’Or-winning French courtroom drama “Anatomy of the Fall,” was among the many nominees for greatest director, together with Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”). That left two Directors Guilds nominees — Gerwig and Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”) — on the surface.
One doubtless issue: the more and more worldwide composition of the movie academy. Partly to develop the variety of Oscar voters, the academy is unfold all over the world greater than ever; ballots have been filed from a document 93 nations this 12 months. Potentially, that will have favored Europe-based filmmakers like Triet, Lanthimos and Glazer.
The academy may additionally level to a different document: For the primary time, three films directed by girls have been nominated for greatest image: Gerwig’s “Barbie,” Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Celine Song’s “Past Lives.”
Still, the top consequence — with the artistic brains and star of the 12 months’s most-talked about film disregarded — simply felt improper to many.
“Greta Gerwig: Made a critically acclaimed, culturally profound, feminist movie about Barbie and the patriarchy that made a billion dollars at the box office,” activist Shannon Watts tweeted. “Oscar nomination goes to … Ken.”
Sometimes, a obtrusive snub can boomerang a flagging awards marketing campaign. After Ben Affleck went unnominated for guiding 2012’s “Argo,” voters rallied round his film, in the end handing Affleck the Oscar for greatest image. Whether the identical impact may comply with “Barbie” can be one of many largest questions main up the Academy Awards.
On Wednesday, Billie Jean King, who fought for and received equal pay for girls in tennis, posted that she was “really upset” in regards to the snubs.
“The movie is absolutely brilliant,” wrote King, “and Greta Gerwig is a genius.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
