The Academy announced its list of final nominations for this year’s Oscars and while ‘Barbie’ was nominated in the Best Picture category, the film’s director Greta Gerwig and actor Margot Robbie didn’t bag any nominations.
The Academy announced the final list of this year’s Oscars nominations on Tuesday evening. Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ got the highest number of nods – 13 while Barbie, released on the same date, bagged 8 noms. The film, directed by Greta Gerwig, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the lead, didn’t bag any nomination in a major category, except for the ‘Best Picture’ title. The fact that neither Greta nor Margot got any recognition in a category has turned the world upside down for Barbie fans and cinema lovers all across the world. But, why did this happen?
Why does the Oscars leave Margot and Greta but recognise Ryan for playing Ken?
Leaving out Margot and Greta from the nominations has once again triggered the debate around the Academy being ‘sexist’. The film itself is a beautiful, colourful commentary on the patriarchal world and how women must try thrice as hard as men to get recognised for their efforts in any field. The Academy’s decision to leave Margot and Greta out of the nominations list but give Ryan a nod in the Best Supporting Actor category seems to prove the ultimate point the film makes. Or at least that’s what a section of the fans believes.
‘Oscars so-sexist’
As reported by a website called Screenrant, the Academy has nominated only seven women in the Best Director category out of which only three have won in the 95-year-old history of Oscars. The absence of Greta’s name from the nominations only shows the long-standing sexist decision-making strategies of the Academy. Further, the decision to nominate Ryan, the Ken to Barbie, and not the one who played ‘Barbie’ [even when Ryan is very well deserving of the nomination] – tells a lot about how the Oscar system is flawed or perhaps delusional. This lopsided view of recognising a film which was one of the biggest Box Office successes of 2023 worldwide, is why a section of cinema lovers has been asking for a boycott of the Oscars for a long time. It’s not without any reason that the Oscars’ so-white or Oscars’ so-sexist have been the popular trends associated with the ceremony considered the biggest night for world cinema.
All the categories Barbie can still win in
Barbie has found only one nomination in a major category – Best Picture, where it is more likely to lose the trophy to other influential titles including Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’, Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of The Flower Moon’, ‘Poor Things’, ‘The Holdovers’, ‘Maestro’, ‘American Fiction’, ‘Past Lives’, ‘Anatomy of a Fall’, and ‘The Zone of Interest’. And even though Ryan has found a nom in the Best Supporting Actor category, he is also more likely to lose to names like Robert Downey Jr, nominated for his performance in ‘Oppenheimer’. Even Barbie’s America Ferrera, who has grabbed a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category for her fabulous monologue in the film, might just lose the trophy to Da’Vine Joy Randolph who played Mary Lamb in ‘The Holdovers’.
The rest of the categories left where Barbie can expect a win include Best Original Song for Billie Eilish’s ‘What Was I Made For’ and ‘I’m Just Ken’, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. However, it is yet to be seen if out of these eight nominations, Barbie ends up winning anything… or not.
