Every year, Awards Season is special for one reason: we all come together in outrage against a very specific group of voters, and publicly shame them until we grow bored. The Golden Globes and Emmys are great predictors of who will be ultimately nominated for an Oscar…but this year, it appears that the Academy stopped watching movies altogether.
When I woke up yesterday, I was bombarded by thousands of Tweets calling for the evisceration of the Academy after the 2024 Oscar Nominee list was revealed. It’s your modern-day mob mentality — and get your pitchforks ready, because there were quite a few notable snubs.
- Hunky Charles Melton for May/December
- Leonardo DiCaprio for Scorsese’s 10-hour epic Killers Of The Flower Moon
- Greta Gerwig as Best Director for Barbie
- Margot Robbie as Best Actress for Barbie
- Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night Away” for Barbie
- Saltburn, in general.
Okay, so I was already up in arms about the lack of nominations for Jacob Elordi and Charles Melton. But nothing was more offensive than the glaringly obvious Barbie irony: the Academy chose to honor “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling in a movie created by women, for women, about the struggles of feminism in a male-dominated society.
This is no hate to Ryan Gosling, who has owned his Ken-ergy in the best, candid way possible. He has supported his cast and uplifted its women during every single press event, red carpet, and personal statement. But the fact that they chose to nominate the one song about men taking over is laughable. Commenting on the lack of nominations himself, Gosling took to social media to say:
“ But 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…To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement,”
Sure, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” was nominated considering it’s a beautiful, haunting ballad that perfectly fits the film. But the Oscars have proven they’re Billie stans before by honoring her James Bond ballad. What about the two women who made Barbie possible? Who revived cinema and brought millions of moviegoers to the theaters dressed in pink? Who created a whole movement surrounding celebrating women after years of being told we should bring each other down?
Barbie was a statistically bigger first-week success story than its release-day twin, Oppenheimer, and the biggest film of the year. Yet, no nomination for the director and face of the film. It’s almost like the Academy realized this movie was about them…
Here’s the worst part: you don’t have to let them win if you don’t want to. To not even recognize Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s work and impact on the 2023 cinemascape is like saying Taylor Swift didn’t dominate the music industry this year. It’s just a lie.
So I will end this the way Taylor Swift would, with lyrics from “The Man”:
“I'm so sick of running as fast as I can
Wondering if I'd get there quicker
If I was a man”
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