This week, the blockbuster “Barbie” received eight Oscar nominations including a coveted one for best picture.
Pretty good, right?
Of course not. In fact, it’s hugely offensive. Call your congressman.
To sum up the internet’s truly nutty response to a movie receiving accolades: How insulting and demeaning. The patriarchy strikes again! This film that’s grossed $1.4 billion at the box office has been egregiously robbed by our unfair system.
The pink mob’s deafening whine comes from the fact that despite the doll film’s healthy haul of nods, it failed to secure any for best actress (Margot Robbie) and best director (Greta Gerwig).
Never mind that Robbie is nominated for Best Picture as a producer, and Gerwig also snagged a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Chump change, folks.
Their blackballing has become such a to-do that Hillary Clinton pointlessly chimed in on social media Tuesday sounding like she was giving her 2016 concession speech.
“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.”
All of a sudden she’s Hillary Hallmark. The shameless pandering makes me wanna #Barfenheimer.
Why can’t fans (and attention-hungry politicians) grasp that some of their favorite movie’s elements (costumes, screenplay) are more worthy of honoring than others?
Why aren’t these proud feminists elated that Robbie’s co-star America Ferrera was nominated for best supporting actress, even if the lead fell short?
Why can’t they remember that for the past seven months Ryan Gosling, who is nominated for supporting actor for playing Ken, has been the beneficiary of the vast majority of this movie’s award season buzz?
And why are they complaining about the Oscars as if it is as consequential as the Senate or the Supreme Court?
It isn’t — it’s a silly ceremony with sliding ratings. And these exclusions make a lot of sense.
Let’s first admit that Robbie did a perfectly adequate job of playing, ya know, a plastic toy.
She was an awkward fit for an Academy Award from day one. Her character is called Stereotypical Barbie — the dull, blank slate, most basic resident of BarbieLand. Everybody around her, including Gosling’s Ken and Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie, have much bigger, more interesting personalities. Ferrara’s Gloria gets a rousing speech.
At the Oscars, Robbie was understandably pushed aside in favor of grander, more human turns in a stacked field: Emma Stone as an unpredictable science experiment discovering herself; Lily Gladstone as a Native American wife whose family is killed off one by one; Annette Bening as Diana Nyad, who swam hundreds of miles through unforgiving ocean; Carey Mulligan as the wife of Leonard Bernstein, who cheats on her with men; and Sandra Huller, who gave two of the year’s most acclaimed performances.
Robbie’s work in “Barbie” was not at the level of any of them, and including her would’ve amounted to rewarding the film’s popularity — not her acting.
Confusingly, the Barbites are also furious that Gosling was nominated instead, insisting that the move proves the film’s point that we’re living in a Ken’s world.
Eh. All it proves is that the supporting actor category is a lot weaker than best actress.
And then there’s Greta.
Many are wondering how “Barbie” could possibly be nominated for best picture but not for best director.
As anybody who got through third-grade math knows, it’s quite easy. There are 10 picture slots but only five for directors. At least half won’t make the cut. Such is life.
There are four other top-nominated films whose celebrated helmers, men and women, were left in the cold: “The Holdovers” (Alexander Payne), “American Fiction” (Cord Jefferson), “Past Lives” (Celine Song) and “Maestro” (Bradley Cooper).
The chosen nominees Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Yorgos Lanthimos, Justine Triet and Jonathan Glazer, meanwhile, all directed much more artful, deeper and, well, more Oscarsy films than “Barbie.”
But Gerwig was snubbed because the Academy hates women, her boosters say.
That must be why they also picked Triet this year for the excellent “Anatomy of a Fall,” and why Chloe Zhao won best director for “Nomadland” in 2021 and Jane Campion got the award for “Power of the Dog” in 2022.
Sorry, the directors branch simply didn’t admire “Barbie” as much as the other directors’ films.
Wanting to score some nice-guy points, Gosling gave an “It’s a scandal! It’s an outrage!” statement to People in the wake of the non-troversy.
“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,” he said.
“Their work should be recognized along with the other very deserving nominees.”
It wasn’t. Move on.