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“‘Oppenheimer,’ the epic film about the World War Two race to build the first atomic bomb, landed a leading 13 Oscar nominations on Tuesday and cemented its role as frontrunner for the prestigious best picture trophy… ‘Barbie,’ last year's highest-grossing movie, received eight nominations, including supporting actress for America Ferrera - who gave a memorable monologue about the challenges of womanhood - and supporting actor for Ryan Gosling.” Reuters
“When the Academy Awards passed over Gerwig for best director and Margot Robbie for best actress, many saw some of the same patriarchy parodied in ‘Barbie’ at work. Even Ken was furious. ‘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 said.” AP News
The right argues that Barbie did not deserve additional nominations.
“Never mind that Barbie has been nominated for eight other awards… Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig are both highly successful, celebrated women who will be just fine without an Oscar nomination. Barbie was the greatest box-office success in 2023, grossing $1.4 billion…
“In Gerwig’s category, Best Director, the nominees are Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest, Yórgos Lánthimos for Poor Things, Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Justine Triet — a woman — for Anatomy of a Fall. I happen to have seen all of the above, as well as Barbie, and agree wholeheartedly that those nominated were far more deserving…
“As for the Best Actress nominations, there are a couple of performances on the list I haven’t seen, but Robbie’s exclusion can hardly be viewed as sexist given that all the nominees in that category are women.”
Madeleine Kearns, National Review
“Barbie was a wildly overrated film, and Gosling was the best thing in it… Yes, the script contained plenty of funny lines… [but] when it wasn’t being funny, it was, for long stretches, garbled and outright dull. At the screening I went to on a Sunday afternoon, there were large numbers of children present – and it was impossible to avoid noticing how bored they were… Perhaps not every young girl of today is quite ready for a two-hour sermon on the evils of the patriarchy…
“[Critics of the nominations] are obsessed with ‘the optics’ of not shortlisting some women who made a film about sexism. But why should ‘the optics’ matter? What are we saying here? That if a film has a feminist message, it must automatically be given all the top prizes? That if a film deplores sexism, it’s sexist not to hail it as an unparalleled masterpiece? But films shouldn’t be judged on their message. They should be judged on their merits.”
Michael Deacon, The Telegraph
“By touting their film as pro-woman and feminist, the makers of Barbie attempted to critic-proof it. In the eyes of a lot of people — almost all on the political left — to criticize the film itself was to criticize women…
“Whether you want to call it wokeness, or political correctness, or whatever other term you prefer, the discussion around Barbie reflects an increasingly common move in Hollywood to associate your film or show with a cause, and then to act as if any criticism of the film or show represents criticism of that cause. The more this works, the more we’ll get heavy-handed, insufferable message movies.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
The left is divided.
The left is divided.
“Every frame of ‘Barbie’ feels like a Gerwig creation, a sunny yet subversive take on an iconic aspect of American girlhood. You cannot separate director and picture here. Or I guess you can, but it sure as hell doesn’t mean you should…
“There’s just one woman (always just one, if that) nominated in the best director category. This year it’s Justine Triet for ‘Anatomy of a Fall.’ And with no disrespect to that highly acclaimed movie, it’s a small film that most people haven’t seen. ‘Barbie,’ on the other hand, was a colossus… As the twice-snubbed director Marielle Heller has said, ‘…the world doesn’t know how to handle more than one good female director at a time.’ Which seems to be as true as ever this year.”
Sara Stewart, CNN
“Not to detract from anyone’s achievement, but stories that center on death and/or mass murder, which fill most of the director category, have a certain level of tension and drama built in, and the film academy has a modern history of valuing, at least when it comes time for awards, movies that are tense and dramatic over anything bright and shiny…
“Even when the bright and shiny is also deeply moving and brilliant. As Barbie herself discovered, some people have a difficult time believing that something fun and beautiful can also be quite smart and important…
“It’s all but impossible to imagine the original ‘Mary Poppins’ making its Oscar sweep today. Which is absurd; excellence comes in all forms and color palettes, and if the Oscars are honoring actual achievement in filmmaking, who thought a big Hollywood film about a doll, and one that most modern children reject after the age of 6, would make audiences of all ages laugh, cry and cheer, sometimes all at once? Who thought ‘Barbie’ would become one of the most successful female empowerment films in history?”
Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times
Others argue, “Just because a film is primarily ‘about feminism,’ as we seem to have decided is the party line about Barbie, even though it was—and I’m not going to bang on about this simply because it’s sophomoric and boring—a film financed and officially sanctioned by a toy manufacturer about its most profitable toy, that does not mean that the women involved in making it automatically deserve awards…
“I liked the film. It was fun; I loved the costumes and the sets and the music, and the story was wacky and I laughed some. But there is no need to go to bat for Barbie to win more Oscars than the large number it is already nominated for. It is not a feminist issue that two vastly successful and acclaimed women did not get nominated for some additional awards.”
Imogen West-Knights, Slate
