It was the Oscars snub heard ’round the world: When nominations for the 96th annual Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie—you know, that film you’ve been hearing about for the entirety of your adult life—came away with a total of eight noms, including for best picture and best adapted screenplay, but Gerwig herself wasn’t nominated in the best director category. Margot Robbie’s turn as Stereotypical Barbie was also ignored, in favor of nods for America Ferrera and Ryan Gosling in the supporting categories. “To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement,” the latter wrote of Gerwig and Robbie in a statement.
As an unreserved Barbie stan myself, I totally get where Gosling is coming from; not only is it gentlemanly in the extreme of him to look out for his colleagues, but it is sort of dystopian (and very in line with the message of Barbie!) to see Gosling—the film’s most prominent male actor—among the two performers singled out. Was he flawless as Ken? Absolutely, but the whole movie is about female friendship and feminism—a message that it seems the Academy still desperately needs to hear, given that Anatomy of a Fall helmer Justine Triet is only the eighth woman ever to be nominated for the Oscar for best director.
Gosling isn’t the only person jarred by the Oscars‘ Barbie imbroglio, as no less an authority on gender-based snubbing than Hillary Clinton weighed in on Wednesday with a message of support for Gerwig and Robbie. “While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold,” Clinton wrote on X, “your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough.”
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