The Oscars have long had a reputation for choosing “artistic” films over popular ones. It’s part of their slogan: “recognizing excellence in cinematic achievements.”
But was the “Barbie” movie not a cinematic achievement? On one hand, it received a total of eight nominations. But to many audience members, the quality of the nominations (aka what they were actually for) fell short.
Ryan Gosling earned a spot on the Best Supporting Actor list for his role as Ken and “Barbie” was listed for Best Picture. It was a well-deserved nomination for the highest-grossing film of 2023, earning $1.5 billion.
Margot Robbie, the title character herself, did not receive a nomination. Greta Gerwig, the film’s director, didn’t either. So why were these two women left off the list?
Gosling said in a statement that “there is no ‘Barbie’ movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film.”
Oscar voters, however, did not consider a “story about a doll” as either history-making or globally-celebrated. This somewhat short-sighted view disregards the clever feminist messages woven into “Barbie”, as well as the social stigmas it addresses about women’s roles in society.
How can a movie, as a director’s project, win Best Picture without recognizing the director herself? And for Robbie, whose role arguably defined the movie’s success, what was she supposed to have done to earn a potential nomination?
If this wasn’t enough for the Oscars committee, then what would be?
Whether or not they intended it, the committee displayed the exact point that “Barbie” was trying to make– women can never do enough to truly be accepted the same way their male counterparts are.
For one X (formerly Twitter) user, Gosling receiving a nomination while Gerwig and Robbie went unrecognized “kind of proves the point of the movie.”
It turns out that he’s Ken, and she’s just Barbie.
At least at the Oscars.
