Opinion
Oscar nominations Greta Gerwig ignored: Because of Barbieworld – Kendom still rules in Hollywood
Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, America Ferrera and Michael Cera attend the Barbie screening and question and answer session at the DGA Theater in New York on November 28th, 2023.
© Marion Curtis/StarPix for Warner Bros./startraksphoto.com / Imago Images
by Julia Hackober
24.01.2024, 12:42
2 Min.
Ken is nominated for an Oscar – but not Barbie? The Academy passed over Margot Robbie for best actress and Greta Gerwig as director, but Ryan Gosling can hope twice. Which would prove once again: Hollywood has a hard time with courageous women.
Wait a minute: the two women who came up with last year’s pop culture megahit and who brought the world‘s most famous and controversial doll to life in such a clever and charming way, who with their creativity and passion ensured that people are brought back to life Crowds in the cinema – the two women were overlooked? There is something wrong.
“There is no Ken without Barbie”
Sorry, but this decision seems absurd. Especially since Ryan Gosling as Ken could win a trophy twice, for best supporting actor and for his song “I’m just Ken” – a, how could it be otherwise, an anthem about fragile masculinity. Nothing against Gosling’s performance in the film, but even he himself seems embarrassed that the laurels of the gigantic Barbie success should now go to him (the film grossed over a billion US dollars at the box office). Gosling said in a press statement that he was more than disappointed that Gerwig and Robbie, the main people responsible for the Barbie film, were not nominated in their respective categories because: “There is no Ken without Barbie.”
Mojo Dojo Casa Oscar? Neither Margot Robbie nor Greta Gerwig are nominated for the Osacars 2024.
© Jaap Buitendijk / Warner Bos. / Courtesy Everett Collection / Imago Images
This idea apparently made sense to everyone except the Oscar jury – which has been accused of not having a diverse enough cast for years and therefore always being phenomenally out of step with the spirit of the times with their decisions. (13 nominations for the unbearably conventional supposedly brilliantMen-make-films-about-supposedly-genius-men-movies “Oppenheimer” by Christopher Nolan – really?!)
title
Gender Roles True Masculinity: When is a Man a Man?
30.08.2023
Rarely stupid in a perfidious way
You can think what you want about the Barbie hype. One can question whether the film is really as feminist as it claims to be, one can criticize that the film is not just all-round cinematic entertainment, but above all a brilliant corporate marketing prank for the “Barbie” company Mattel .
All legitimate.
But: “Barbie” is a bright satire that illustrates the distorted standards by which men and women are still judged, even in the era of equality hashtags. Of all places this one Not honoring the individual creative achievements of the women who conceived the spectacle and, in Margot Robbie’s case, produced it – that seems perfidiously stupid. And is reminiscent of the film scene in “Barbie”, in which Gosling’s escaped from Barbieworld Ken is informed by a company boss that the patriarchy is still very much intact in the real world: “We just hide it better now.”
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