It’s not this year that Mattel will release Oscar-winning Barbie in stores. The list of nominations for the ceremony scheduled for March 10 was made official on Tuesday and two absences have since been particularly commented on. barbie received eight nominations, including one for best film (a trophy awarded to producers), but filmmaker Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, who plays the title role, were snubbed in the best direction and best actress categories. A real surprise, given that both were almost nominated every time during the various trophy presentations that punctuate the pre-Oscars season.
Ironically, Ryan Gosling is in the running for a golden statuette, on the supporting male side, for his incarnation of Ken. Tuesday, in a press release, after saying he was “extremely honored” to have been acclaimed by voters, he confided his bitterness. “There is no Ken without Barbie and there is no movie barbie without Greta Gerwig or Margot Robbie, he wrote. No recognition would be possible for anyone on film without their talent, courage and genius. To say I’m disappointed that they weren’t nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement. »
“Against all odds, with nothing more than a few inanimate, scantily clad and, thankfully, crotchless dolls, they made us laugh, broke our hearts, served culture and made history. Their work should be recognized in the same way as that of the other very deserving nominees,” he explained before rejoicing at the nomination of America Ferrara, another actress from barbiein best supporting actress.
“It’s disappointing not to see her on this list”
The latter, who plays Gloria, told Variety being “deeply disappointed that they were not named”. “Greta has done everything a director can do to deserve it. She created this universe, starting from something anecdotal for the majority and made it a global phenomenon. It’s disappointing not to see her on this list,” she explained.
America Ferrara also had a word for Margot Robbie: “One of her characteristics as an actress is that she makes everything she does seem easy. Maybe people thought the work she did was easy, but Margot is a magician in front of the screen. »
On social networks, as well as in columns and editorials, some feathers did not fail to draw a parallel between the “overlooks” of Gerwig and Robbie among the nominees and the remarks of barbie on gender discrimination. In a striking monologue, Gloria says to the doll that has become human: “Being a woman is literally impossible. You’re so beautiful, so smart, it kills me that you think you’re not good enough. We always have to be amazing, but somehow we’ll be told we’re doing it wrong. […] It is too hard ! It’s too contradictory and no one gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out that not only are you doing everything wrong, but it’s also all your fault.”
The other side of the coin of success?
Would these non-nominations reflect a form of sexism? Difficult to say (and impossible to prove) for obvious reasons on the “best actress” side. We would have to probe the intentions of voters to get the answer regarding Greta Gerwig. At the Oscars, nominations are established by college. That is to say that the directors who are members of the Academy are responsible for selecting those who will be eligible for the trophy for best director. The actors and actresses decide for their part for the interpretation categories. Each voter expresses their votes by establishing a top 5 in order of preference.
This system therefore involves a weighting which could have been detrimental to Gerwig and Robbie. We can hypothesize that they obtained several votes in their favor, but that the majority of voters placed them in second, third, or even fourth or fifth choice, obliterating their chances of appearing in the final list of candidates. nominations.
Another hypothesis: the director and the actress, who also produced the film, would suffer the downside of the great media coverage from which they benefited. The feature film earned a place among the fifteen biggest box office hits of all time with more than $1.4 billion in revenue and it did not go unnoticed. It can also be noted that Dance The Night by Dua Lipa, present on the Barbie soundtrack and which has established itself as one of the hits of 2023, was not selected for the Oscar for best song – while I’m Just Ken by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt and What Was I Made For? of Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell will compete for the statuette.
The candy pink dimension of barbie was perhaps taken less seriously by voters than the dark and tense universe ofOppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s film, which is the other summer box office hit, dominates the nominations with 13 nominations.