The buzz around Barbie’s Oscar 2024 snub highlights the usual mix of joy and disappointment that follows the Academy Award nominations each year. This time, the frustration over overlooked talents reached an unusual peak when it was disclosed that director Greta Gerwig and producer-star Margot Robbie, key players in the success of 2023’s hit film Barbie, were absent from the list of nominees for best director and actor respectively.
Barbie didn’t go unnoticed by the academy, securing eight noteworthy nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and recognition for supporting actors Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera. However, excluding Gerwig and Robbie from the director and actress categories surprised many, not just as an unexpected twist but also as a glaring omission that seemed to echo the film’s central theme about the challenges women encounter in a male-dominated world.
Many people, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and co-stars Gosling and Ferrera, have weighed into the discussion. Find out more about what fans and critics had to say about Barbie’s Oscar 2024 snub below.
Celebrities Reaction to Barbie’s Oscar 2024 Snub
In the aftermath of Barbie’s Oscar 2024 snub, co-star America Ferrera, recognized for her role as Gloria in Barbie with a Best Supporting Actress nomination, expressed disbelief about her own nomination, stating that she can’t “even believe this is real.” However, she shared her feelings of disappointment about Greta and Margot’s lack of nominations, saying, “I was incredibly disappointed that they weren’t nominated.”
She told Variety that “Greta has done just about everything that a director could do to deserve it. Creating this world, and taking something that didn’t have inherent value to most people and making it a global phenomenon. It feels disappointing not to see her on that list.”
Another co-star, Ryan Gosling, who scored a nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category, released a statement saying, “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.”
Simu Liu, another Ken in Barbie, expressed his feelings on X, saying,
Being involved in a small way gave me a window into just how hard Greta and Margot had to fight to get Barbie made, and how flawlessly they executed. Together they started a movement, touched the world and reinvigorated the cinema.
They deserve everything. They ARE everything.
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) January 24, 2024
John Cena, who also appeared in Barbie as Ken’s mermaid version, shared with People, “I can let my friend Margot and I can certainly let Greta know that awards aren’t the only metric to success, and they have made a movie that has done tremendous business and changed a lot of lives in the process. And I think that’s one hell of an achievement.”
Additionally, Hillary Clinton expressed her support for the two beloved women, saying, “Greta and Margot, 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 went on to add the hashtag #HillaryBarbie.
And Michelle Yeoh also chimed into Barbie’s Oscar 2024 snub debate on the Today show. She said,
“Thank God the movie got nominated for best picture. But you do think, ‘How do you get nominated for best picture but not best director and not best actress?’ It happens, and I’m sorry it happened to them because it’s obviously one of the most successful and beloved movies.”
Understanding Fans and Critics’ Reactions
Determining if Barbie, or any film, truly deserves awards recognition is a subjective matter in the world of art. The strong reactions to Barbie’s snubs reveal that discussions about the movie go beyond evaluating the quality of Gerwig’s and Robbie’s work.
According to many critics, the academy’s choices shed light on the challenging path women face to be seen as equally valuable as their male counterparts, not only in the film industry but across our society. They argue that it also highlights a discrepancy in how art created by and for women is regarded, often lacking the same level of seriousness attributed to gritty male-centric dramas that typically dominate award shows.
According to Emily Maddick from Glamour UK, “Margot and Greta – the two most integral women of Barbie – being snubbed can only, in my opinion, be down to rank sexism, plus a whiff of snobbery.”
“Stories that center on death and/or mass murder, which fill most of the director category, have a certain level of tension and drama built in, and the film academy has a modern history of valuing, at least when it comes time for awards, movies that are tense and dramatic over anything bright and shiny. Even when the bright and shiny is also deeply moving and brilliant,” said Mary McNamara from the Los Angeles Times.
However, some critics who are both supporters and skeptics of feminism believe it’s not wise to view any individual piece of art as a stand-in for a complex movement. They assert that the academy made the right call by evaluating Barbie based on its creative qualities rather than what it symbolizes.“The issue is not that Barbie is too female-focused, too much of an audience-pleasing blockbuster, or too pink. It isn’t ‘too’ anything. The film just apparently wasn’t enough for Academy voters. … It’s not a snub, they just didn’t make the cut,” says Samantha Bergeson from IndieWire.
Moreover, Kady Ruth Ashcraft from Jezebel shares, “Barbie’s snubs are disappointing to some. Sure. But I’d argue that the out-of-proportion outrage fans are feeling highlights the film’s failure to convey a core tenet of feminism to its audience: A personal slight against some high-profile, privileged (white) women is not an affront to the gains of womanhood overall.”
What do you think about Barbie’s Oscar 2024 snub? Let us know in the comments below.
