It’s decidedly not a Barbie world at the 96th Academy Awards.
This morning (Jan. 23) the Academy announced its 2024 Oscar nominations, and two Barbie favorites were snubbed: Greta Gerwig for Best Director and Margot Robbie for Best Actress. But the film did walk away with eight nominations, including Best Picture, Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Best Adapted Screenplay, Ryan Gosling for Best Supporting Actor, and America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress.
For Barbie fans, Gerwig and Robbie’s snubs felt a little too close to the themes of the film. Fans pointed to Gosling’s Ken getting nominated instead of Robbie’s Barbie as evidence of patriarchy in the Real World, despite the actors competing in different categories — and Ferrera scoring a surprise nomination.
To some, this moment is the perfect encapsulation of Ferrera’s now Oscar-nominated monologue: “[Women] have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.”
As always, fans took to Twitter / X to air their grievances. One fan posted, “Ken getting nominated and not Barbie is honestly so fitting for a film about a man discovering the power of patriarchy in the Real World.” Another wrote, “Ryan Gosling, while deserving, got an Oscar nomination for Barbie while Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie didn’t? Completely proving the point of the movie in 20 fucking 24 you cannot make this up.” Dozens of posts echo this sentiment.
As Billie Eilish’s Oscar-nominated song goes, “When did it end? All the enjoyment.”
