“What Was I Made For,” Billie Eilish’s existential Barbie single, has won the Academy Award for Best Original song. The win marks the second Oscar for Eilish and her brother/co-writer Finneas O’Connell, who also won in 2022 for their haunting Bond theme “No Time to Die.”
(In a perfect world, they would also have at least been nominated for boy band gold “Nobody Like U” from Pixar’s Turning Red.)
Eilish and O’Connell have been picking up wins all awards season long for their work on Barbie, taking home the Golden Globe and the Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media. The pair also performed “What Was I Made For” earlier in the broadcast, complete with an orchestra and a Barbie pink backdrop.
Other nominees for Best Original Song this year included “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon, “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony, and “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot, as well as “I’m Just Ken,” another hit off Barbie‘s soundtrack, which Ryan Gosling performed earlier in the evening.
Guess it’s true what Ken says: “Doesn’t seem to matter what I do — I’m always number two.” But when the competition is as poignant as “What Was I Made For?” can you really fault Barbie’s existential angst for coming out on top?
How to watch: Barbie is now streaming on Max.
