Barbie’s Oscar snub has acquired such intense backlash that even divisive feminist icon Hillary Clinton has weighed in.
Barbie, the shock blockbuster hit of final yr, raked in $1.4 billion in international ticket gross sales, turning into the highest-grossing movie of 2023 and the first movie directed solely by a lady to earn over $1 billion within the field workplace. Regardless of the movie’s business success and favorable reviews, although, director Greta Gerwig did not receive a finest director nomination, and Margot Robbie, Barbie’s titular lead, was not nominated for finest actress. However Ryan Gosling, who performed Ken, acquired a nod for finest supporting actor.
Clinton, the previous secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee joined the Barbie Oscar snub discourse on Wednesday, posting on X, “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.”
Clinton’s feedback comply with these of Gosling and Barbie fans who’ve expressed disappointment within the snub.
Los Angeles Instances tradition columnist and critic Mary McNamara argued that the Mattel-backed movie’s scarcity of nominations strengthened its message that girls must go to excessive lengths to obtain validation and respect, and took intention at artworks that restrict roles for ladies.
“If only Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker. Or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot. Or stood accused of shoving Ken out of the Dream House’s top window,” McNamara wrote. “Certainly millions of ‘Barbie’ fans are currently wishing they could push someone — perhaps a member or two of the film academy — out of a very high window.”
Though Barbie was snubbed within the Oscars’ extra seen classes, it secured eight nominations, together with for finest image, finest tailored screenplay by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and finest supporting actress for America Ferrera. Oppenheimer, Barbie’s meme-making field workplace companion, took 13 nominations, together with these for finest actor for Cillian Murphy and finest director for Christopher Nolan.
The Oscars nominations celebrated ladies elsewhere, with Lily Gladstone getting the perfect actress nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Celine Tune’s Previous Lives receiving nods for finest image and finest unique screenplay.
However even these nods serve to spotlight the Academy’s traditionally patriarchal leanings: Justine Triet, a Finest Director choose for Anatomy of a Fall, is simply the eighth woman to be nominated for the category, which solely three ladies have gained.
Barbie’s field workplace increase may assist the sinking Oscars
Barbie has had a quiet award season to date, which doesn’t replicate the movie’s maintain on the cultural zeitgeist, recalling the struggles of superhero films normally, and Marvel Studios films specifically, to be taken severely by the Academy. The truth is, considered one of Barbie’s two Golden Globes was for the inaugural “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement” award created to honor “how movie theaters are kept alive,” according to Golden Globes President Helen Hoehne.
Barbie’s contribution to conserving the movie trade kicking may additionally breathe some life into Oscar rankings, because the award present has didn’t get better from years of declining viewership.
Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian informed Fortune that blockbuster movies can assist entice audiences to award reveals, and that “Barbenheimer”’s success—which made up 88% of the perfect image nominees’ home field workplace haul—has the potential to bolster Oscar rankings.
“We would think that if there is a bigger box office total for the grouping of films, that then in turn means more people saw them, and therefore, more people would have the vested interest in watching the telecast,” he mentioned. “Certainly Barbie and Oppenheimer may be the epitome of that.”
Dergarabedian warned the Academy’s Barbie snubs may additionally work of their favor by producing social media buzz.
“That just adds to the intrigue and the drama,” he mentioned.
