Barbie, the Oscars, What Was it Made for…

I’m not going to lie and say that the discourse around Barbie vs. the Oscars hasn’t gotten to me. Or that my thoughts are also soured by the weird discourse we see every year about who deserves what nomination and who does and doesn’t deserve their flowers. This year that discourse is about the Barbie movie and the snubs in the Best Actress category excluding Margot Robbie, and Greta Gerwig not being nominated for Best Director. Both of these snubs have brought out this familiar air of discourse we see every year at the Oscars that I usually don’t pay attention to. 

But this one in particular seems different to me when Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, Former First Lady, and Presidential Candidate enters the chat. 

For me Clinton’s commentary on the discourse reeks of the mid-2010 “Go Woman or Go Broke” kind of feminism I think we have at this point left behind in this post-Trump era. This singular way of thinking in the case of hindsight, might be perfect for my feelings on the Barbie Movie itself: A romantic representation of feminism that is shallow and plastic at its face value. Mary Mcnamara’s Article: Shocking Oscar snubs for ‘Barbie’s’ Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie just proves the movie’s point and seems out of touch with the reality of this year's Academy Awards.  It also devalues and dismisses all the great things that happened this year for movies and the other women who worked so hard too. Mcnamara’s Los Angeles Times article rubs me the wrong way; by starting by calling out other films,

“If only Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker. Or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot. Or stood accused of shoving Ken out of the Dream House’s top window.”

implying that the people in these films (all of which feature women heavily in leading roles and as Directors) are somehow infringing on a woman’s success. And to dismiss the film's own merits with the context of Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Ken receiving The Best Actor nomination And America Ferrera receiving a Best Supporting Actress nomination is astonishing. 

Yes, to have its director, a prominent figurehead in the industry snubbed was a blow. But this discourse has an unsettling air of this stale notion that rocks media in the name of absolutism when it comes to women in the film industry. It steamrolls this idea that the Oscars are the be-all and end-all of taste. 

It also bothers me as someone who has looked at the past year and seen strides in pop culture and feels disheartened when at the same time we’ve looked at the real rational feeling behind the disappointment. It’s been a year of escapism almost for people, and I get it: Barbie was that escapism.   

 I loved the film. I watched it with my mom for the first time and saw it again with my best friend. I cried and had tiny existential crises when I heard Billie Eilish's soft outro with “What was I Made for..”  But at the end of the day, I also can’t buy into Barbie and only Barbie being all there is to be excited about for women this award season. It brings me back to the place I was in January of 2017. Or even more recently the summer of 2022… 

When the film was announced and people on TikTok and Instagram said: ‘ this will be our Joker’ they meant this would be the end all and be all for us as women and feminine people who exist and have our existence rewarded. And there is more to say obviously about how men often win Oscars, other awards, and notoriety for their existentialism all the time (see my letterbox review of Mystic River for more of that commentary).  The pairing we’ve made in this film with Christopher Nolen’s Oppenheimer and their nominations in comparison highlights this frustration as well. Barbie is the nuclear bomb for girls and women who grew up with her. She is something we regret owning and emulating but also someone we unabashedly want to be at the same time. Her existence has been to the sword of Damocles in talking about women’s issues like, body image and all other intersectional discourse there is to have about what we were made for. And that importance will always be there.  However, comments like Clinton’s and internet discourse boil down to: Why can’t a woman director make the same cultural impact? What does this say to girls? Why is the film industry sexist? This movie made my son feel awful so I’m fine with it! It makes us seem overzealous or the skewed weirdness that is the Academy feels almost too powerful which I can assure you it’s not. 

For me, 2023 will be highlighted not just by Barbie but by Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, both for their record-breaking tours and the concert films that followed; The Color Purple (Which was also nominated); and the work of many talented and amazing directors. But under the surface there are the things we were escaping from: The first full year of consequences after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade here in the United States; The growing violent internet rhetoric around women in the UK and the US among the alt-right; and the fear for what 2024  has to bring. 2023 was a year of escapism for women and Barbie was a big part of that. However, there are other wins for women in film this year that we shouldn’t undermine in the process. Eyo Edebri won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Critic’s Choice Award for Bottoms and The Bear; Lily Gladstone was nominated for Killers of The Flower Moon, being the first native woman in history to be nominated in that category; Justine Treit being nominated for Best Director; as for Greta Gerwig, she is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, and along with Robbie and the rest of the cast Best Picture.

But if that is not enough for you then that is your right as well. But the Oscars and its yearly discourse is a strange hill to die on because in the end…What was it made for? They can’t tell you not to love Greta and Margot and be angry…if that’s how you feel…fine. 

I think it’s safe to say that I don’t care about the Oscars in the way that it should be a validation of my tastes. I’ve fallen into this trap before every award season, where if I’ve seen the thing and liked the thing then it should automatically be validated by a board of people in the entertainment industry and millions of dollars of campaign money. And that the validation of a nomination should impact how I, a meager person writing this tangent to you, should feel about something. It automatically must mean something important to me personally. This conundrum of thinking about what makes the film in general impactful represses our ability to also open ourselves up to other successes this Award Season. It’s not all about winning. It’s not all about the nomination. It’s that our collective culture recognizes something as novel and impactful. And The Academy politics aside: I can only shrug. At least we all got to dress up in pink and make …herstory.