Ranting On...the Barbie "Snubs"

My relationship with the Oscars has changed since I first became enamored.  I watched my first Oscar clips for the 1994 (i.e. Forrest Gump Oscars) and watched my first ceremony in 1995.  I was very much a child then, and the Oscars were quite different, much more of a pop culture moment, where everyone you knew stopped everything you were doing and watched them (they were even on a Monday!).  I have, in the years since never missed a ceremony, even driving through a blizzard to watch the 2004 ceremony on my little 13" TV screen, and it has been an omnipresent part of my life.  My friends and family, when describing me, will undoubtedly use the words "movies" or "Oscars" within the first two sentences.

But in that time, I've learned that while movies are always a source of magic, you need to temper your expectations with the Oscars.  I wasn't always this way.  I had an imaginary vendetta against Hilary Swank in 2004 when she beat Annette Bening for the Oscar (for the second time), and I am still actively angry about Crash beating Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.  But for the most part, when I became a fully-fledged, completely-employed adult, I gave up on putting a lot of stock in what Oscar chose.  There are exceptions (I still think Brendan Fraser beating the beautiful work that was done last year by Colin Farrell & Paul Mescal is insanity, given he was giving a truly bad performance), but for the most part, I am happy when Oscar makes the right call because I know what it means for the person I'm rooting for and just roll my eyes when they pick something foolish.

The internet, particularly Twitter, does not take such a lackadaisical approach to the Oscars, or to anything, let's be real.  Yesterday, in what was surely the most predictable Oscar nominations in eons, the internet lost their collective minds at the nominations, particularly Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie not featuring in Best Director or Actress.  I saw posters blaming Annette Bening, Ryan Gosling, and saying that this fulfilled Gerwig's whole argument in Barbie by having Ken get a nomination but Barbie going home empty-handed.  I initially thought this was just shock-posting for engagement, but eventually saw celebrities (including, somehow, Hillary Clinton) weighing in, so I want to, as someone who has lived through a lot of Oscars, give my two cents.

First off, let's address the obvious-Barbie had a great morning yesterday, the cherry on the sundae of an incredible year for the movie.  2023 was the year of Barbenheimer, and Oscar did not forget to wear some pink.  The film won eight nominations, including for Best Picture, and that is insane when you think about it for longer than two seconds.  The film is about a doll, is a comedy without much hint of drama, and came out in the summer.  These are not things that get you Best Picture nominations-these are things that get you, at best, a citation for Production Design or Original Song.  There is a world, in fact, where Barbie only gets those.  It is a testament to how well-constructed Robbie & Gerwig made this movie (and their flawless press tour the past six months) that it was able to get in at all.  The nominations it got were still a testament to its quality, box office, and ardent fanbase.

If you want to look at the nominations, let's look at them.  First off, Robbie didn't lose to a single man-Barbie didn't lose to Ken, they were in different categories, with different competition. Robbie likely lost it to Annette Bening, a pioneering feminist in her own right, playing a real-life athlete who stood against ageism & sexism to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.  You can get into all kinds of debates over whether or not Bening's performance is better than Robbie's (that's a legit convo to have), but first off, see her movie before you say Robbie was snubbed (which I suspect most people had not seen Nyad, Maestro, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Anatomy of a Fall who were proclaiming Robbie was "robbed" yesterday), and second off, it's not anti-feminist to have Annette freaking Bening instead of Margot Robbie.  It's also worth noting that Barbie did get a nomination yesterday, for Best Picture (Robbie is a producer on the film), which is arguably more in-line with the message of the film than anything else, and for America Ferrera, one of the other women in the movie, so it's hardly like none of the film's actresses didn't get cited for their work.

Gerwig's loss is also not a textbook definition of anti-feminist on its own.  For starters, the people complaining about her miss for sure haven't seen The Zone of Interest (it's barely been released) and likely haven't seen Anatomy of a Fall, which was directed by a woman (a woman who fought to get her film seen even as the President of France was working overtime to make it falter).  The reality is that in a contest where there are five director nominations and 10 Best Picture nominations, there's not a "I guess the film directed itself" joke here so much as it's simply mathematically impossible for all of them to be included.  And no, this isn't a case where we should expand the number of nominees...it's a case where we should be grownups and admit "not everyone is going to make it, and we shouldn't cry foul, particularly when we haven't even seen all of the nominees."

The last thing I want to say is around the people who were convinced that this was a sexist act solely because Ken got in but Barbie didn't, which is much of the plot of the movie.  First, leave Ryan Gosling out of this-he's championed the movie, and been a total cheerleader for Robbie & Gerwig on the red carpet all season.  Second, Robbie & Gerwig both got nominations in other categories-they are headed to the Dolby later this year.  Third, films get nominated for Best Picture without a Best Director nomination all. the. time...including when there were only five Best Picture nominations.  And last, this is kind of pathetic to be this upset over something as silly as an awards show.  It's reminiscent of the Millennial urge to call Trump "Voldemort" or "Thanos."  If you are an adult, you should be able to view the world through shades of grey, understand nuance, and not need a pop culture veneer to make a point.  It's okay to be sad if you wanted Gerwig or Robbie to make it into those categories-if they're your favorites, awesome (I thought they were good too!), but it's not okay to act like this is an anti-feminist act when there's really no indication it was.  It was just a case of a movie that is very out of the Oscar's wheelhouse getting a big awards haul, but not super big because, again, it's not to Oscar's taste.  If you want to create an awards show where Gerwig & Robbie get included...I make my own every year.  I encourage you to do so.  But having a hissy fit online over it is, well, something you should grow up about.