Following a year of record-breaking box office sales from major motion pictures, the 96th Oscar nominees were finally announced on Jan. 23. Each category presented a variety of phenomenal movies that graced audiences in 2023, including Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
However, many Barbie fans’ excitement for the awards ceremony fell short as Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid revealed the nominations for Best Actress and Best Director. Barbie, which brought audiences worldwide to tears with its depiction of the female experience in society, was noticeably missing from those categories.
As Ramenda Cyrus put it in her article, “The Joy of Being a Girl,” the movie represented “the nostalgia of a generation of women who are navigating a world that is still actively trying to restrict their bodily autonomy, despite all the lessons learned from recent history.”
So what does it mean for women when two of the most prominent figures of the movie – director Greta Gerwig and starring actress Margot Robbie – aren’t nominated for the Oscars?
Supporting actor Ryan Gosling and supporting actress America Ferrera have spoken out regarding the nominations.
“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,” said Gosling, who played Ken. The actor’s disappointment speaks not only on behalf of the crew, but also the fans.
In a recent interview with Variety, Ferrera said she was “incredibly disappointed” that Robbie and Gerwig didn’t receive nominations in the stated categories.
Although Barbie was the highest grossing film of 2023, coming in at over $1.4 billion in the Worldwide Box Office, the movie was absent from the Best Director and Best Actress lineups. The Oscar Voting Committee didn’t seem to understand how substantial this movie is.
Even the Golden Globes seemed to underestimate the film. Barbie failed to win Best Director, Best Comedy, Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Musical or Comedy, Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Screenplay – losing to Oppenhiemer, Poor Things, and Anatomy of the Fall.
The only category the movie did end up winning was Cinematic and Box Office Achievement.
Given Barbie’s take-home at the Golden Globes and some of the Oscar nominations, what can we expect from the Oscar ceremony itself?
For many viewers of the movie, this is an incredibly disheartening way to start the year of the Academy Awards, especially after the message of Barbie conveyed how forgotten women are in a world dominated by patriarchy and high expectations.
Ferrera’s entire monologue in the scene where she attempts to reverse the brainwashing of the Barbies illustrates this idea perfectly. Her message spoke volumes to how real and raw the movie is.
“It’s literally impossible to be a woman … Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong,” Ferrera’s character, Gloria, says.
Gerwig’s Barbie, with its originality and impact on audiences, deserved to at least be nominated for Best Director. Instead, the film industry’s continual and casual sexism has won out once more in the form of their nominations.
BBC News commented that “Oscar voters refused to take the toy-based film seriously, ignoring how inventive it is, dismissing it as a billion-dollar popcorn movie when it is also a funny, subversive cultural statement.”
As Oppenheimer and its director, Christopher Nolan, sweep the film industry’s award shows, Barbie and Gerwig are missing nominations that they should not only be considered for, but that they should be winning.
“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us,” Ferrera says as Gloria in Barbie.