As we’ve discussed, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s Oscar nomination snubs in Best Actress and Best Director respectively have become the story of the week. The backlash to the snubs was immediate and loud, and we’re now in a “backlash to the backlash” cycle. One explanation for why these particular snubs have gotten so much attention is because the film was so popular and ubiquitous – Barbie made over $1.4 billion at the domestic and international box office. Which means more people have seen Barbie than any other Best Picture nominee. The second most-watched Best Picture nominee is Oppenheimer, and that film got a Best Director nomination and a nom for its lead actor. My take is still: sure, the conversation is kind of white-feminist-y, but this is also blatant sexism and a bunch of dude Oscar voters underestimating and undervaluing just what Robbie and Gerwig did. Anyway, People Mag did an exclusive piece with an unnamed “Oscar voter.”
According to one member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, this year’s exclusion of Margot Robbie in the Best Actress category and Greta Gerwig in Best Director are an example of “the ultimate in patriarchy.”
Robbie was nominated for Best Picture as a producer of the film while Gerwig was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay with her husband Noah Baumbach. For his role as Ken, Ryan Gosling received a Best Supporting Actor nomination, along with America Ferrera, who scored a Best Supporting Actress nod for her work in Barbie. But for some, the absences were glaring in Best Actress and Best Director. “I feel sad that that recognition, which is so deserving, was snubbed because it’s wrong on every level,” the source tells PEOPLE.
The source notes that largely, “each category, each branch nominates from their branch,” except for best picture, which is voted on by all members.
“That’s how the nominations work,” adds the source. “Every branch nominates for their branch and everybody votes for final voting.”
Academy members use preferential ballots weighted towards voters’ No. 1 and No. 2 favorites, but still, the source says given how well the movie did across the ballot, it’s unclear “how the algorithm worked that she [Gerwig] didn’t get enough votes for a directing nod.”
The film’s comedic nature may have also affected the outcome. “Comedies traditionally don’t do well at the Academy,” the source says. “And this is a film that, yes, was a comedy and it grossed over $1 billion. How do you not give credit to the director? How many female directors had films that gross that? This was a phenomenon.”
Although the source notes the headline-making snubs are “a terrible miss,” the nominations did showcase historic diversity, including Killers of the Flower Moon Best Actress hopeful Lily Gladstone, who is the the first Native American actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Emily Blunt, Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, America Ferrera and Cillian Murphy earned the first nominations of their career.
Yeah, I think a lot of Oscar voters realize how sh-tty they look for these two snubs. I also think the fact that these were two very prominent snubs together was particularly telling – if it had just been Robbie left off of Best Actress while Gerwig got a nom in director, people could have made the “fluke” argument and talked about how it was just a weird quirk of the voting system. But the two snubs together… the message is sexism, the message is “we don’t value what Robbie and Gerwig did.”
One of my favorite “backlash to the backlash” arguments is “well who would you have taken off??” Please, Martin Scorsese didn’t deserve a directing nom for four hours of “let’s focus on the white murderers.” KOTFM was poorly paced, poorly told and the script (which Scorsese co-authored) was so bad that it was also “snubbed” for a screenplay nom. While Annette Benning is always a sentimental favorite, she got nominated in Best Actress for a highbrow Lifetime movie.
Hillary Clinton chimed in too.
Greta & Margot,
While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you.
You’re both so much more than Kenough.#HillaryBarbie
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 24, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig wearing a FENDI Couture dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, and Pomellato jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835209548, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach arrive at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835210278, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Greta Gerwig wearing a FENDI Couture dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, and Pomellato jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835210307, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Greta Gerwig, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- SANTA MONICA, CA – JANUARY 14: Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley at the 29th Annual Critics Choice Awards on January 14, 2024 at The Barer Hangar in Santa Monica, California. Copyright: xJeffreyxMayerx,Image: 837150694, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
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- SANTA MONICA, CA – JANUARY 14: Margot Robbie at the 29th Annual Critics Choice Awards on January 14, 2024 at The Barer Hangar in Santa Monica, California. Copyright: xJeffreyxMayerx,Image: 837150710, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
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- SANTA MONICA, CA – JANUARY 14: Margot Robbie at the 29th Annual Critics Choice Awards on January 14, 2024 at The Barer Hangar in Santa Monica, California. Copyright: xJeffreyxMayerx,Image: 837150725, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
I’m probably going to get slaughtered, but I thought it was a pretty poor film. The showing I saw comprised mums and their (mainly) daughters. The kids didn’t really get it, and the mums (surely the target audience) laughed now and then, showed some interest, but ended up looking pretty bored after the first 20 minutes or so. Talking to each other on the way out there was a feeling that it had been hyped to the max and ended up being not that good. I completely understand the lack of nominations. I’m actually quite pleased it didn’t “sweep the board” because it didn’t deserve to. IMO. Go ahead, scream at me!
Well you’re in the minority on that one. I saw it twice in theaters here in a major city with a diverse crowd and everyone was engaged and entertained.
My experience was similar to Ameerah’s. Everyone seemed engaged. People laughed and cried. Even some men cried, including my boyfriend. We took my 13 year old son another mom, and her 14 year old daughter. The kids definitely got it and even my son liked it. The audience clapped when it was over.
Side note: I don’t understand why Tiffany is attacking you for commenting but it’s weird.
I had to go more than once because there was so much laughter I couldnt hear
I was also underwhelmed by the movie. Yes probably sexism at play ( hello a bunch of white male voters) but I also think Barbie isn’t the typical Oscar movie. I don’t even think it should have been nominated for BP but it was a huge cultural phenomenon so I get that recognition was paid for that and I respect how it’s done well at the box office. I personally thought it was a bit formulaic. I do think Ryan was terrific – the best thing about it besides the set, makeup, costume, etc.- sadly I thought he was the best party of the movie. America had that famous monologue and was a touching character. Hollywood is sexist but I can see why Gerwig didn’t get the best director nom (movie could have been more focused) Robbie didn’t get actress (she didn’t have a lot to do).
The global box office is ~ $ 1.5 billion so far.
I don’t think it would have earned that by being a “pretty poor” movie. Even critics who can sometimes be quite curmudgeonly nasty if a film is beneath them, were charmed.
I know many people who went more than twice, just because the whole vibe at the theater was big fun pink party.
Let’s just be clear, a movie bringing in a bunch of money at the box office does not mean it’s Oscar worthy and the end all, be all of film. Case in point, Super Mario Bros made $1.36 billion globally. The movie was fun and cute but y’all are delusional if you think it’s actually an Oscar contender or that that was Margot’s best performance
“I don’t think it would have earned that by being a “pretty poor” movie.”
Wow, sorry, no. Hard disagree on that. Look at the list of top grossing films of all time, a lot of absolute GARBAGE has made over a billion dollars. (Anyone weeping over the “snub” of Transformers 3 and 4?).
I thought Barbie was terrific, so the discourse swinging towards “but it was a phenomenon!” as a reason to be nominated does no one any favours. I mean, I get that the Oscars are not the subjective thing they pretend to be (the public narrative matters), but it is one of the best PR resources for small films like Anatomy of a Fall, etc. Best case scenario would still be popularity does not matter for the Oscars.
@Nanea
Good thing they gave their opinion on the movie . If you liked it, fine, here’s a cookie. Clearly, they clearly didn’t .
Maybe the Academy didn’t like it because it was missing the white savior narrative? Crash, The Blindside, Green Book….
Interesting how we define “Oscar-worthy”. It’s almost like the Academy is mostly comprised of gratuitous, self-congratulatory white men who have a preference for films that make themselves feel good about being, ya know, white men.
Just one couple here, but my husband and I have watched it three times. In the first viewing, I didn’t laugh a whole lot. I found it desperately sad and nearly cried in a couple of scenes. Had to watch it a second time to get the laughs. And we watched the third time because there’s a zinger every other line and we wanted to catch everything.
You’re in the minority. I saw it with my husband, mom, and sister in law in a packed theatre in Fort Saint John BC Canada, which is a small rough oil and gas town, and there were as many men as women, and the men were laughing along with the women. It was a fantastic experience. Seriously, it was delightful to see men and their daughters together at this film.
Maybe Barbie will win Best Picture? Or maybe Hollywood wanted to remind GG that they haven’t forgotten her affair with heavily pregnant Jennifer Jason Leigh’s husband? JJL’s parents were/are friends of some of these old-school voters.
@Enthusiast, do you know for a FACT that Greta Gerwig was having an affair with Noah Baumbach while Jennifer Jason Leigh was “heavily pregnant”?
Per Wikipedia: “Their son was born on March 17, 2010. Leigh filed for divorce on November 15, 2010, in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized in September 2013.[52]
Baumbach’s romantic and creative collaboration with actress, writer, and director Greta Gerwig began in late 2011, after they met during the production of Greenberg.”
Your description of these vindictive “old-school voters” sounds like something the BM or Rota Rats might have cooked up. I surprised “snub” wasn’t in there.
In any event, Greta and Noah are now married and have two sons of their own. Is is really necessary to drag them them through the mud?
Not sure if she had an affair or not, but I do think “likeability” affects whether someone gets a nomination or not. Leaving aside the affair issue, I did wonder if GG or MG were “liked”enough or not.
I do think it’s hard for a woman to get a nomination for Best Director, though. You have to either direct a film about war or be Jodie Foster.
I was underwhelmed by Barbie too. I enjoyed it, thought it was a fun summer movie – but it wasn’t lifechanging or anything. I went with my husband and our two sons and they enjoyed it too, maybe not as much as I did bc so many of the Barbie references were over their heads, but they enjoyed it.
I think I might have liked it more actually had I not heard repeatedly how amazing it was.
Agree! it was fun time but that’s really it and I don’t see myself rewatching it. I’m kinda surprised at the noms it did get outside of the more technical stuff like lighting, production, make up and wardrobe. If those were snubbed then I think I’d be more like “wtf” as they were hands down the best part of barbie imo. Especially the fashion!
Dearest Sparrow, I agree with you. It was sophomoric, juvenile, and boring.
I’m replying under you, Jananell, not just because you had a similar experience but because sometimes my comments land right at the bottom or midway on a different thread, making zero sense. I’m so glad that I’m not alone on here in my reaction. It was a strange event because I went as part of a group of mums making up a birthday party with kids. There were other parents in there doing the same. Plus a mix of adults and teenagers. The women in my group were a mixed bunch – some had played with Barbies as kids and loved her, others had never owned a Barbie but went because of all the noise about it, and some because their kids play/ed with them now. I was neither here nor there about it but was more engaged about going because of all the hype; I thought this has got to be good because it’s everywhere. I’ve never had such a let-down experience film-wise. It’s really interesting to read people’s positive experiences because it just shows that we’re all human and responses are different. I am not one to stay to the bitter end of a film or a book and sense that I’d have left early if I’d been on my own, but I didn’t and tried to get into it. But no. I imagine the money it raked in is testament to the hype it ramped up at the start. It got me in!
It wasn’t that great of a film and this entire discourse is screaming peak white feminism.
I’m surprised that was your experience. I went with my husband, stepson, and then-11 year old son.
We were all laughing, I cried (during the hard to be a woman speech), and my son said, “that was an awesome movie!” after it was finished.
Everyone that I spoke to afterwards said they weren’t expecting a lot and were very impressed.
You’re not alone, I was very underwhelmed. I hated that Barbie was a supporting character in her movie. I know what they were trying to go for but it fell flat for me. Side note, by making the men seem like total doofus, it kind of undermined the insidious nature of actual patriarchy. If men are really that dumb and still have all the power, it doesn’t say what they think it says about women.
That being said I feel the same way about Oscar nominations as I do about Ivy League schools. No one is entitled to either. For Oscar’s, the choices are totally subjective and selected by peers. I don’t think there’s a rule that says any one has to be nominated because their movie was huge. If that’s the case the Oscars would look very different.
At the end of the day you have five slots for each category (save for BP) and every year it seems a shoo in or a lock misses out. And usually it’s Black talent and other people of color. And since they’ve expanded BP there are always Directors left out from Best Director when their picture gets a BP nod. That is nothing new and not a personal dig at Greta Gerwig.
Yes, I’ve said below that the feminist message was muddled and all over the place. I’m not trying to be trendy in not liking the film: I actually feel most of us who didn’t like it are up against a barrage of people who loved it and very vocal in their loving of it. That’s fine.
It really is gross. And what’s so weird is the rush from some women to defend the Academy LOL, as if the Academy hasn’t been showing us who they are for decades now. Instead of coming up with elaborate theories at to why Margot and Greta didn’t get nominated, maybe just use the Occam’s Razor principle here folks: the more excuses you have to make, the more unlikely the explanation. The Oscars have long been a racist and sexist institution and this snub is just the latest example of that.
Since the 19th century, women’s culture and women writers in the US were negatively associated with low brow culture and popular culture, while men’s craft was deemed serious and respectable for the mid to upper classes. (That’s why Nathaniel Hawthorne is known for saying “America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women” and I should “have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.”….”)
Then and now, women artists and laborers are deemed not serious, not smart, too sentimental, and too popular. Of course– this is def about patriarchy. Anything related to women—esp if it’s popular– is read as implicitly inferior. And yes, women participate in their own oppression all the time!
Yes, everything you said here–beautifully stated.
Totally agree that art made by women has been denigrated. I love Jane Austen novels for example – and I bet she isn’t recognized as much as she would be if women ruled the world. I also love rom-coms and don’t like big action movies, which dominate the film industry now. So my feeling about Barbie isn’t because it’s made by women. Honestly Barbie to me felt like the big action marvel movie- formulaic, great production values, etc. but not that interesting or compelling to watch. But hey I’m glad that it did well, because that means women can do well being somewhat mediocre like the men. Again just my opinion but it’s why the outrage over the lack of noms for Gerwig or Robbie seems overblown to me. And as others pointed out, they were recognized in other categories.
This is what really got me about both the snub and that terrible joke from the Globes; what Gerwig and Robbie pulled off (specifically, making a critically acclaimed AND hit movie about a plastic doll) is several orders of magnitudes more challenging than what Nolan did with Oppenheimer, a biopic where history provided the hook. He didn’t have to convince people to car eabout Oppenheimer; they already did (or at least had an investment in the story).
Gerwig and Robbie had to get people to care deeply about characters who were based on no one more famous than a plastic doll. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. If you asked me to make a Cabbage Patch Kids live-action movie, I’d have no idea where to start! And making it so it appeals to everything from pre-teens to (some) Boomers is a feat, esp without sacrificing the vision of a very, very strange but strongly feminist mention.
I know that any time white women complain about sexism that we have to remember that we are, first and foremost, still starting from a place of privilege, but there is no reason that Gerwig and Robbie had to be snubbed so that other woman could “have” those spaces. When we pretend like the real issue is that Gerwig or Robbie might have taken the place of a WOC in any of those nomination categories, what we’re really doing is giving the (mostly) white men a pass to keep nominating each other for awards without having to look up from their navels just as long as ONE non-white person was nominated in the category in question.
Our ships can rise together; patriarchy’s true power is in convincing us that we can’t and that it is either the scraps they give us or nothing.
I feel like cis het men are once again, the winners here. They get to sit back during all of this when we really need to start pushing back on the typical auteur Oscar bait movies. These films are usually centered around a tortured (emotionally or physically) man (white man), often based during a war, with a bloated run time (aka could use some editing). Attach a prestige director name to this (because its usually white men who have that honor), and its usually an automatic Oscar nomination. We need to be discussing much more often if these films are genuinely great movies.
Also, I appreciate how much Robbie has talked about the role of producer because it gives us an idea as to what that role might entail. As a producer, she hit it out of the park, and maybe we need to think about a Best Producer category (beyond Best Picture) because she would really earn that.
Film, music and popular culture aimed at women is generally perceived as light, frivolous and unimportant whilst anything male dominated somehow possess integrity and credibility.
Yet female audiences create movements and fandoms that define eras in the way men don’t. From The Beatles, to Madonna, to the Spice Girls to Taylor swift. Women drive and create cultural moments and icons in a way that men do not.
Even when you think about it it was women that made princess Diana one of the biggest icons of all time.
Whilst men enjoyed the Barbie film, it’s was female audiences made that film cross over the one billion mark and highlighted its significance. Yet as an audience we seem to be belittled and pushed aside like out opinion doesn’t matter.
Where was this energy for Viola Davis and Gina Blythewood for The Woman King, which was also a hit for the studio. It was never gonna be a billion dollar box office, but it did well to make back production and marketing.
Huh? #OscarsSoWhite is a whole thing that happens every single year precisely because of snubs like that.
You mean the campaign started and fueled by Black women? The same one lots of white women rolled their eyes at? Y’all cannot be serious
@TIFFANY
Right, and you know why that energy was not there.
No talk about PoC dominating the majority of nominated supporting actresses.
@Tiffany precisely. I’m really confused by the noise of this on every level. Woman King should have been nominated, and the press talked about the snub a little bit, and it was kind of discussed, but this level of outrage over Barbie is OTT compared to the outrage that Woman King should have received for being snubbed and that was an honest snub, and if my memory serves correctly, it was “well who should be take off/remove then?” and everyone was in agreeance with that line of thought. Yet here we are a year later, and now it feels patronizing to hear, “Well, who should be removed then?” which is frowned upon as a legitimate argument. I’m lost in the sauce here.
The Woman King absolutely should have been nominated for a heap of Oscars, it was a stunning piece of art, but I think at least some of why this is getting more attention is the irony of Ken getting nominated for a movie about Barbie, but not Barbie. The Woman King was shut out of the nominations as a whole, if I recall correctly. Certainly a multitude of other factors go into the discrepancy between the two discussions, but the life-imitating-art thing with Barbie is very easy for people to latch onto.
I don’t generally pay as much attention to Oscar nominations but my memory was that this *was* covered at the time as a massive snub. Am I wrong? Was that only on here? (To be fair, Viola Davis is from my home state so it may have been covered in our local paper too, which might be why I saw more coverage about it).
I wish there were space within this discussion for nuance because dismissing the very real issues revealed about the Academy by these Gerwig/Robbie snubs because they are (a) white and (b) historically, POC have been treated exponentially worse is exactly how the Academy continues to get away with this year-over-year. The Oscars LOVE tokenism (as you well know – I’m not pretending to invent the wheel here); this is a great opportunity for “yes, anding” (to paraphrase Kaiser (I think) from yesterday). Because it can be both. This is a major snub AND the Oscars So White campaign can also be right that Gerwig and Robbie are getting treated with kid’s gloves.
But, if we’re going to get people to care about making some real changes to the Academy, blatant examples like this are the sorts of snubs that are dinner-table conversation simply because it WAS such a box-office hit.
I guess what I’m saying is that the best trick the Oscar nominating process has played is convincing people that one Token per category (or even per movie/genre/race) is all we’re going to get because that pits all of us who may have loved Barbie AND The Woman King and felt that both were blatant snubs of female-led movies.
(I say all this with the acknowledgment that I haven’t seen an adult movie all the way through other than the Marvels [in theaters or not] in something like 2 years because my toddler has the attention span of a gnat.)
My comment on a post from yesterday:
Vanity Fair said it even better:
“It’s the Oscar snub so egregious even the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation felt compelled to weigh in: “Hypothetically, if I was going to nominate a film about a badger, starring a badger, called Badger, for best picture…I would also nominate the badger, right?”
I think this comment quoted in Vanity Fair says it all!
I think why the backlash is so big is that the industry as a whole made a big deal about the money Barbie brought it and what it did for the movie going experience post Covid. Then to not give the two women who were behind it their due credit is rather incredulous.
A number of the other actors/movies/directors who didnt get nominations made amazing works/acted their heads off but as a whole their films didn’t have the cultural impact Barbie has had.
My husband, five yr old daughter and I all love watching it together. We have choreographed a dance to I’m just Ken, my husband wants an I’m Kenough hoodie. It’s become one of our go tos that we all love and we love the message it is giving to our daughter.
So for us it’s the best film of the year because it’s one that we as a family have created memories and experiences around that will last for a lifetime.
Agree! Barbie was the first movie in YEARS/Pandemic to drag my lazy, cheap a** out to a movie theater. I went with my sister, wore pink and laughed/cried with all the others in the PACKED theater.
I love Hillary Clinton’s tweet. If any woman knows what that’s like, it’s her!
I haven’t seen all the nominated movies, but until this list was announced the other day, I’d forgotten all about Annette Benning or that she was even still working.
HRC feeling their pain more than most of us I’m sure. And, yeah, Nyad is a Lifetime movie. Not Oscar worthy. I have no problem deleting noms to make room for Gerwig and Robbie.
I just don’t get it. Margot and Greta were both still nominated for Oscars, and arguably in categories that they might actually win. Yes, Barbie was a huge commercial success. But the Oscars are supposed to celebrate the craft of acting, yes? Not box office numbers? So I don’t think that Barbie being the biggest movie means that they should automatically clean up every single award at the Oscars.
Personally, I think celebrating Margot as a producer is so much more impactful than giving her another Best Actress nom. Isn’t celebrating woman producers producing feminist content the entire point? I think she was wonderful as Barbie, but she wasn’t the best of the year and so to give her a nomination just because she should be *nominated* but not because she deserves to *win* seems unfair when there are plenty of other incredible actresses who deserve a little shine, too. But, the producer Oscar? 100% she earned that.
Same goes for Greta, sure we need more women directors nominated – but one was this year, just not Greta. Sure, I’d love to have ALL women directors in the category like we’ve had all men for years, but if Greta *had* been the one woman included, would we still be having this convo, because somehow it doesn’t seem like it.
I’m not defending the Academy, I just think conversations like this are such a waste of time when there are actual women and people being oppressed and snubbed and left out and talked over, even at this exact same awards show!
Agree fully. There’s no reason that they should be nominated simply because the movie was (and the movie I’m skeptical about as BP).
Fully agree. Especially with Margot! Her getting a nom as a producer is freaking HUGE and I can’t believe more people are not recognizing that. Maybe people don’t understand what all goes into producing a movie but this nom is so much more important than a nom for best actress that she was absolutely NOT going win anyway. I’m just really shocked people care more about nomination she had no hope of winning vs a producing which is huge and a win for female producers. Everyone is doing entirely too much imo.
@Sunday you are spitting straight facts. I’m not really seeing this as a snub. Box Office has never been a straight translation to Oscar nom.
…… yeeeeaahhhh I don’t get why you folks don’t get it.
– Massive cultural response (from both fans and haters)
– Timely, relevant themes (feminism and patriarchy) especially for an industry with a “Times Up” movement
– Shattered box-office records
– Original script
– Profound attention to historical detail…. Barbie’s looks and sets and line of toys span 50plus years of Americal pop and consumer culture.
SO comparing Barbie to Transformers 4 just seems ridic, and you must know that right?
Everyone has been talking about Barbie for a full year, whether we liked it or hated it or didn’t even see it. That’s why these are snubs, plain and simple. No need to contort ourselves into pretzel shapes to argue simple facts.
But again, it got nominated for those things! It’s nominated for Best Picture. It’s nominated for Best Screenplay. It’s nominated for costume design and production design. Two acting nominations, two song nominations.
That’s not nothing. 8 Oscar nominations is pretty significant.
@Jules, people were talking about Woman King for at least 2 years before its release. It had prestige, it had a truly original script, it had the indie circuit, it was culturally relevant and important to the African Diaspora, and the pedigree and talent from all aspects of the film criteria were in full force. Yet, it still got snub and tossed over to make a yt feminism message get a seat at the table. So, really, no, I don’t get the ire over a heavily nominated film (8 Oscar noms) not getting 2 more.
Repeating myself from down below but to go in a different direction I truly was not impressed with Oppenheimer (and its total silence about many terrible legacies of the circumstances of Oppenheimer’s work) enough to think Nolan deserved that nomination, though Murphy was brilliant. But I expected it. I think these are actually the kinds of nominations that make it so difficult for films like The Woman King (repeated nods for established white male veterans regardless of comparably lesser work and it frankly feels like a consolation prize for its simultaneous release with Barbie). Because a phenomenon like Barbie is rare but the above example happens every year. Gina Prince-Bythewood or Celine Song would have been great in his spot imo.
I’m not really bothered about the Best Actress nominations given Margot’s recognition as a producer. But I think the Best Picture one is definitely intended as a snub.
I’m sure they’re them asking themselves: do they play the patriarchy game & show up to all the pre-events, or no? That’s the question we all ask ourselves when the patriarchy shows itself.
Considering how incredibly petulant and condescending that would be to the scores of other female artists who could only DREAM of the success Barbie has achieved (both culturally AND at the Oscars), no I don’t think Greta and Margot are asking themselves that. They seem way too smart and self-possessed to the same myopic approach to these nominations that the unhinged corners of their fandom have taken.
Looking at the directors nominees, what jumped out at me is that there were two directors of smaller international films. Someone was pointing out that the Academy has been expanding membership, including far more non-American/British members. This voting bloc likely has very little interest in righting Hollywood’s historic wrongs
All this outrage for a two women who have still been nominated and nary a word over the decades of black women and brown women routinely snubs from these awards.
Make it make sense.
The voters had no idea who would end up winning the Nominations. So had zero idea while voting. It is misogyny. This all proves the point of the movie tho.
⁷I’m so confused by your comment in response to Girl_ninja comment?
What does your comment have to do with the little or no outrage for the snobs of black, brown, and Poc.
@IMARA219
Right all these historic moments ( sad that it took decades to happen), and it’s still getting overshadowed and pushed to the side as unappointment.
Yes this whole thing is bewildering to me, my comment from yesterday:
This entire conversation is starting to feel like peak feminism because so many POC and even BIPOC were nominated this year, yet there is outrage that these privileged YT women didn’t get a shot at this particular brass. It doesn’t sit right in my spirit. I had no idea that America’s nomination is actually historic or that an Afro-Latino man also picked up a nom because the headlines want to make this about Barbie. This is not cool.
Yes. You see, this is another element about Barbie that I didn’t like. I saw it, didn’t enjoy it. It was only afterwards that I heard Gerwig speak about the project, and it was as if she and MR had made the movie to end all movies on behalf of all women. That in itself speaks to an arrogance. Watching the film, I felt hit over the head with a feminist message that was muddled. Now it’s an affront to have not got a nomination, and as if all women should feel pain on their behalf.
Oh. my. gawd. Make it stop.
Margot is nomiated as a producer this year, Greta got a nom for the screenplay, America got a supporting actress nom.
Mutiple-Academy-Award-nominee Margot Robbie and mutiple-Academy-Award-nominee Greta Gerwig are going to be just. fine.
There was absolutely nothing Oscar-worthy about this film. It was light fun. It was not complex, nor subversive.
That doesn’t mean the academy isn’t sexist, because it is very sexist. Two things can be true at the same time.
Glad white feminism on social media platforms is preoccupied with this while the rest of us take on fascism and genocide, makes the struggle a little easier, I guess.
Is there anything more tedious than the those that rush to show their hipster cred by hating on the popular thing? This movie was not only the box office champ but just if not better reviewed than the other best pictures nom. While noms are subjective-not nominating the woman who directed one of the best reviewed movies of this or any year that had a number of complicated scenes and set pieces is weird. Also that only one woman can be nominated it seems for director.
Yes other snubs happen but like last year some just are egregious and get noticed more. Annette is this years Leslie but I also think Margot was a long shot. The showy role was Ken and often that gets rewarded. Margot was like Tom cruise in Maverick. Movie does not work without them but also not the kind of performance that gets honored
Ultimately I liked Holdovers and American fiction better than Barbie but the artistry of Barbie is great.
It is kind of tiresome. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I see people making an entire personality out of hating this film.
It’s literally a post about the movie so people are going to offer opinions on….the movie. I don’t think anyone on here offering differing opinions on Barbie has made it their entire personality.
some people thought it was an excellent amazing movie that deserved every nomination out there. Some people didn’t. It doesn’t mean that people in the latter category are anti-feminist women haters (sure, some are, but not everyone.)
See, to me these posts are about sexism in the Academy–it’s not a post talking about the release of Barbie and all the associated press. We’ve had PLENTY of posts for people to give their opinion on whether they liked the movie or not yet we have the same commenters opining over and over again about how the movie wasn’t good or Oscar worthy on threads that are addressing a different issue entirely. It’s weird to see so many people going to bat for a racist, sexist institution simply because they disliked the Barbie movie. After a while, it starts to feel like a poorly-disguised attempt to shut down a more important conversation.
Respectfully, this is factually inaccurate: “This movie was not only the box office champ but just if not better reviewed than the other best pictures nom.”
The only Best Picture nominee with with worse reviews is Maestro (6.7 on IMDB and 80% on RT, compared to Barbie’s 6.9 IMDB and 88% RT). The other eight nominated films have scores 7 and above on IMDB and well into the 90s on RT. So. Make of that what you will. I’m not saying Barbie isn’t good! But this discourse is is running amok so we should fact check where we can 🙂
@Kitten
No one here going to bat for a Racist sexist institution. What you fail to see is that we see the sexism and ivory in the snubs, and a lot of us notice that this outcry on this level doesn’t happen when the woman isn’t white. When it happens to BIPOC there are always excuses on why they didn’tget nominated.
Look at the last year, Oscar nubs a very different response to those snobs.
Also, I don’t see how people made hating the movie their entire personality? When they didn’t spend the last year talking about how much they didn’t like it.
I thought the holdovers was OK but not great. To me and my husband, it was a pretty average movie – and we love Paul G. It was like I’ve seen that movie before because of the Old curmudgeonly X (teacher neighbour etc) the young punk /upstart then road trip! The woman who played the cook (sorry I don’t know her name and I’m not looking it up) – SHE was excellent and nuanced. I’m shocked it was nominated for best film. I loved barbie and I think Greta should have been nom. I’m not upset about Margot like I was about Viola. Margot was fine and that Tom Cruise ref above is it exactly.
Gerwig is maybe a snub, but Robbie not as much. She was good, but not Oscar good, particularly when you put her alongside performances like Sandra Hüller’s.
There were also a number of other excellent films this year by female directors who were not nominated: Celine Song for Past Lives, Emerald Fennel for Saltburn, Sofia Coppola for Priscilla…. I would definitely replace Scorcese’s nom with any of these (including Gerwig); he’s a great director but also makes the same movie over and over again.
That’s why I snorted when Scorsese was banging on about superhero movies. A—Hollywood has always had popcorn movies. It’s not a new phenomenon. In fact his contemporaries Spielberg and Lucas gave birth to the modern blockbuster. And some of them are great and indelible and will be remembered long after The Irishman. B—he *does* make the same movie over and over. Some are great, some not so much. But he’s really only stepped out of his wheelhouse once. For Age of Innocence. Even KOTFM is a mobster movie just in Oklahoma. That’s why he couldn’t center it on the Osage.
All this outrage is peak white feminism
It’s actually not.
“The goal of white feminism is not to alter the systems that oppress women—patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism—but to succeed within them.”
@Blanca I agree. And I am glad to see more discourse about the problematic undertones of this outrage.
Ever since 2016, when way too many white women voted for Mr “u can just inject bleach to beat vid, right?”, I have been totally unable to defend a lot of white feminism.
But call me old fashioned – I think this was irrational and unfair, in the same way that all sexism and racism is irrational and unfair, and I don’t see how staying silent is any better.
Yeah the argument that all white women should shut up and take it isn’t sounding too pro equality.
I personally can’t stand GG for cheating with NB on Jennifer Jason Leigh. I didn’t think the movie was so awesome it deserved all the awards nods it’s received – yes it was good, a bit underwhelming for me personally. And no one I knew even wanted to see it. But do I think it was great – or even award caliber great? NO. As a screenwriter, I’ve read the screenplay and while the dialogue was decent, the plot seemed lacking.
But that’s the thing about films – everyone is entitled to have an opinion, it’s purely subjective and rightfully so.
@Becks “But again, it got nominated for those things! It’s nominated for Best Picture. It’s nominated for Best Screenplay. It’s nominated for costume design and production design. Two acting nominations, two song nominations.”
… And all of this excellence is somehow, magically, totally separate from the director and lead actress?
Let me say it back… “The work is great, the impact exceeded expectations, and we will happily praise and benefit from all of it… but we don’t acknowledge that the women who did this work, had this impact, are in any way noteworthy.”
Losing the Oscars in Best Director and Best Actress would have been one thing. They were not even nominated.
But do you have that same anger and energy for the other 5 movies that are up for Best Picture and not Best Director, including Celine Song, another female not nominated for Best Director?
EVERYONE! Get! A! Grip! It was nominated for EIGHT Oscars! Margot and Greta were BOTH nominated! It’s a good movie that got a lot more recognition that other (arguably better!) good movies (hello May/December, Origin, Fallen Leaves) to name a few. OK Greta wasn’t nominated for best director…that does kind of suck, but neither were 5 other directors of BP nominees!
Also can I just respond to this: “But the two snubs together… the message is sexism, the message is “we don’t value what Robbie and Gerwig did.”
Respectfully, can I point out that Margot’s “snub” from a best actress nominee can be attributed to several things, but sexism isn’t one of them? Now, if a male actor had taken one of the Best Actress slots that would have presumably gone to Margot, we could have the “sexism” conversation. But as far as I am aware, all 5 Best Actress nominees are women.
As for Hillary’s tweet…I don’t really think it’s the “slay” that some of you seem to take it as. If anything, it seems to mark a curdling point in this discourse that unfortunately is fast-tracking Barbie and its girl-bossy finger-snap die-hards (something that the film actually satirized!) towards Oscar Villain-hood.
If you love this movie as much as you purport to, savor the amazing 8 (!!) nominations, Greta and Margot’s respective nominations, and AMERICA FERRARA’s nomination, and pour one out for the fans of the other women-helmed films that gotten little-to-no recognition and don’t have the millions and millions of dollars to take home as consolation prizes.
Thank you! I’m not understanding the outrage at all. I feel bad for America, her nomination is completely getting lost in all this.
I’d say the ultimate in patriarchy was the SCOTUS rolling back fifty years of women’s rights with one decision lol. This being said, stuff like this should be getting women’s attention because it’s definitely part of a trend. Insidious misogyny seems minor by itself, but those tiny, isolated things build up over time through media. Since media is the way we express how we see the world, we should be keeping an eye on what it’s saying.
The last two years have seen a flood of LGBT+ and women’s programming cancelled. Romance novels, the single largest selling genre, are displaying increasingly cartoonish and infantilizing covers, shifting away from any hint of sexuality or erotica. You’ve got the tradwife brigade and Andrew Tate types collecting millions of followers on TikTok. Women, beware. None of this is coincidental. The backlash is here.
Yep, this is the comment.
There is so much passionate investment in explaining why white women who liked this movie need to shut up and be grateful that it got some nominations.
Interesting takes.
So much explaining and telling that no one should care and should calm down. Lol. The backlash writes itself, but seems unaware of how it satirizes the entire point.
Agree absolutely. Also, I’m not white. And while I liked the movie, I wasn’t blown away by it.
BUT the following talking points are just too much to ignore
– that a nuanced and controversial film about feminism and patriarchy is “just a light comedy.”
– that if we weren’t outraged about other instances of racism and sexism, we “aren’t allowed” to be outraged about this one without being called racist (or white, or something like that.)
– that we should just shut up and be grateful it got the noms it did.
– that being outraged about this is somehow disrespectful to the BIPOC actors and actresses nominated
I mean, it’s all just rank nonsense. It’s almost like people are – for some reason – just really invested in making sure women don’t work together to get some wrongs righted.
@ JULES
( that if we weren’t outraged about other instances of racism and sexism, we “aren’t allowed” to be outraged about this one without being called racist (or white, or something like that.
I mean, it’s all just rank nonsense. It’s almost like people are – for some reason – just really invested in making sure women don’t work together to get some wrongs righted.)
All women weren’t outraged about the Women King and other instances of racism and sexism, but all women should be outraged about Greta and Margot.
Do you not hear how hypocritical you sounds and how you contradict yourself? Also your comment tells me you have no idea what the term white feminism means. Hate to tell you this, but your implying that the support should only work one way .
Also not all the people that “disagree” are BIpoc some are white funny how you assumed ither wise.
I’ll be honest I don’t think any of the acting performances in Barbie were Oscar worthy but I was shocked at Greta not getting nominated for Best Director. It’s very odd for a movie this huge that got so much crirical praise for its direction get a boatload of noms including Best Picture but not Best Director. It reminds me of Ryan Coogler not getting nominated for Black Panther even though, like with Barbie, the film had multiple other nominations and it was the direction which so wholly transported you to another world which makes the movie great.
It definitely reeks of sexism but the responses from some have been so over the top. They’re acting like this movie is the most important thing to happen in feminism thos century and that these snubs are a great crime. The movie’s message was subversive and I appreciated that but lets be real; it didn’t really change anything. There’s a difference between a cultural moment, which Barbie was, and a cultural movement and it doesn’t help that most people loudly up in arms about this are quiet about women in gaza having no access to menstrual products, good prematal care, or even FOOD. Honestly I feel like that last part is the reason for so much of the backlash to the backlash.
I also didn’t think Barbie necessarily deserved to be nominated for Oscars and I say that as someone who enjoyed it and found it entertaining. They really beat you over the head with its message about the patriarchy and none of it was stuff I haven’t heard before. Maybe it’s new to men/white dudes which is why it had to be so in your face, but it wasn’t exactly groundbreaking content message wise.
I loved Ryan and Margot’s performances but I didn’t think Ryan deserved an Oscar either. That being said, if you nominate the male lead you are going to have to nominate the female lead! America Ferrara’s speech seemed to be an almost carbon copy of the ad that Cynthia Nixon did for the “Be A Lady She Said” (which I found more effective given it’s a nearly 3 minute ad versus a two hour movie) which was only a few years ago. I love America but I didn’t find her performance Oscar worthy either.
Interestingly, the only other movies on the Best Picture list for 2024 that I want to see now are the ones directed by women: Anatomy of a Fall and Past Lives. Maybe also American Fiction? (I saw Maestro and didn’t think it was that great). I’m okay missing Oppenheimer.
Honestly regardless of anyone’s opinion of the film, the snub to Greta is very stark, especially considering Academy precedent. Directors like William Friedkin and James Cameron both got Best Director nominations for mainstream, not so “artsy” releases that made major box office and were also major cultural phenomenons. Gerwig’s film made 1 billion in a post-Covid world where movie theaters are becoming obsolete and her previous works have been nominated. There was really no reason to ignore her.
That said, I would have replaced Christopher Nolan with Gina Prince-Bythewood personally.
Best costumes, sure. Best Actor/Director? No. It was fun but definitely not Oscar-worthy.
I’m not going to wade into the white feminism debate of all this (a) because it has been discussed exhaustively above and I chimed in there but also (b) because whether Gerwig/Robbie are white is a bit of a red herring here.
Because, Barbie doesn’t have to be your favorite movie, but in an industry that has spent years now lamenting how Marvel/superheroes and streaming have ruined the movie industry, Gerwig/Robbie took a character that (literally by design) had no personality beyond the personality we have projected on it over the years and created a movie that uses that doll as a jumping off point (utilizing an actually pretty diverse cast) to make a critically acclaimed movie that ALSo did well at the box office.
With the superhero backlash in the industry, you’d think they’d want to at least recognize, if not encourage, more people to make these kinds of box-office hits that harken back to the days where box-office success (let alone streaming success) was much less formulaic than it is now.
But, let’s be real, there’s a reason that the Oscars are almost always dominated by white men. Because white men may snark about the current state of the movie industry until their faces turn blue but they’re frequently the kind of Boomers (even if they’re not boomers) who think that if something is different or (gasp) not made FOR them, that it must be bad.
This is why KOTLM and Oppenheimer did so well; those are movies about white men told from the white gaze … even when ostensibly the story is about historical injustices against the Indigenous community. Or the literal invention of the atom bomb which might as well have had the label “Pandora’s box” on it.
To (roughly) quote RBG, forget about equity. I want to see *dominance* by women, POC, and *especially* WOC.
Thank you, I think said it much better than I did.
I would add – absolutely no one is obliged to be outraged over this. But trying to silence, minimize, and shame those of us are outraged isn’t right. And kind of proves the point.