Giulio Zoppello January 24, 2024
Barbie was the big loser of the nominations for the next Academy Awards, a result that was achieved little by little and of which, in fact, there was little doubt the night before, apart from the difference that Oscar night always had compared to that Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and other major awards. The Oscars remain a separate affair, but what came out of the nominations is of course a source of debate, especially due to the exclusion of the two: Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig.
A lot of fuss about Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the greats who are excluded from the Oscars
Barbie currently has Ryan Gosling nominated for Best Supporting Actor, America Ferrera nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay for Gerwig and Baumbach, and of course Best Picture. Then there are other nominations in the worker category, but they do not carry the same weight as the main categories, and there Barbie has currently suffered a clear defeat, even more so when you consider the chances of victory for the remaining candidates.
The irony isn't wasted on the internet when they point out that in a film that came out as a great feminist narrative, it's essentially the male protagonist Ken who has the best chance of winning in the end. Ryan Gosling himself said he was disappointed with the academy's decisions. “There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie film without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this world-famous film that went down in history,” said L'actor.
In fact, at first glance there is something strange: how can you nominate Barbie for best film and then not recognize the stature of the protagonist or the contribution of the director's hand? Absurd decision? Let's talk about. The Barbie doll made Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan touch the sky. But if the earnings certainly rewarded Gerwig's fantasy comedy more, critics immediately agreed clearly about the biopic that the British director had dedicated to the father of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer's 13 nominations were far from surprising, in line with the Golden Globes and other awards and nominations from international critics. Barbie, on the other hand, has been gradually downsized in favor of films like The Holdovers, May, December (another big loser in the nominations), not to mention Poor Things! and Anatomy of a Fall. In recent years, the Oscars have become largely a way to steer the general public in the right direction, often sidelining artistic merit in favor of a certain populism or convenient political choices. But something the academy seems to have realized is not working, is destroying credibility and has led to some internal conflict.
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Barbie, a film that couldn't stand up to competition at a very high level
Let's look at the reality of the facts. Barbie is a fun, hilarious and colorful film that is very accessible to the general public as it aims to become a metaphor for women's issues in the post-MeToo world. But when we evaluate the competition, the reality is that Barbie is included in the Oscar nomination for Best Picture only because the shortlist has grown to ten names over the past few years, and in the name of box office success alone. There were other excellent offerings, most notably Michael Mann's Ferrari, not to mention May December and Nyad, with Annette Bening in the running for the Best Actress statuette.
The truth is that Ryan Gosling was literally the best thing about Barbie, his performance the best in terms of meaning and development. Margot Robbie was brilliant, but ultimately her character wasn't much different from the many she's played in the past. The scandal was not to nominate her last year for “Babylon” and not to reward her then for her extraordinary performance in “I, Tonya,” one of the most sensational thefts of recent years. To be honest, America Ferrara's candidacy is absolutely unthinkable if we count who was excluded to make room for her, almost as much as Emily Blunt's was for Oppenheimer.
The script doesn't deserve the nomination either, let's be honest, from the middle onwards Barbie completely loses her bearings, the dialogue moves somewhere between rhetorical and predictable, everything becomes a burden that only Ryan Gosling could carry admirably on his shoulders. The basic point is that there are films that know how to seize the moment, others that bring something deeper and more meaningful, and then very few exceptions that know how to be both.
“Barbie” was an event film connected to the present that went beyond its current artistic qualities and, above all, a great success of marketing and contemporary storytelling. But unlike other films nominated for the next Oscar night, it cannot boast who knows what boldness, sophistication and artistic caliber. Still on the topic of feminism: even the comparison with the film by Yorgos Lanthimos is quite humiliating, like the one between a Ford T and a Ferrari. The fundamental point is that the voice of the people is not always the voice of God, especially when it comes to cinema, where it is often assumed that revenue is a sign of greatness and quality. That's not the case, it's never been that way and these nominations have reminded us of that.