The Oscars Have Spoken...

The Oscars announced the nominations for 2024, and some of the choices were expected, but it wouldn’t be The Oscars if someone didn’t get snubbed. The biggest shock is The Barbie Movie being left out of the Best Actress and Best Director category.

The summer of 2023 was pink mania. Everything was about Barbie. The aesthetics. The branding. The controversy. The songs. You couldn’t go on social media without hearing Ryan Gosling’s ballad “I’m Just Ken.” I am probably one of the few who didn’t care much about The Barbie phenomenon that swept the nation, but I respected what the movie represented.

Females worldwide know what it means to be a woman in America. To exist in a patriarchal society, we have to compromise on what we want and push our feelings aside to have some equality. Generation after generation had to listen to taunts and discouragements about what we can or can not do because of our gender. Generation after generation, we have proven them wrong. The Barbie movie represented strength and femininity. It represented that social norms of being women should not matter because, at the core, we are all human. We have desires and wants. We strive for success, and success leads to happiness, and happiness is the goal.

When I heard about the snub, I was sort of surprised. I mean, Barbie broke a lot of records.

Barbie Record Stats

Then again, how many music artists and actors were deserving of a nomination or award, but didn’t receive one?

• In 1995, Samuel L. Jackson lost Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Pulp Fiction to Martin Landau for Ed Wood. Anyone would agree that Samuel L. Jackson is enigmatic in any role he plays, especially a memorable role like Jules Winnfield.
• Spike Lee only had one nomination in 2018 for BlacKkKlansman (Best Director) a film that was deserving of more nods and was completely left out of the Best Picture category for Do the Right Thing in 1990.
• Adele’s album 25 won Album of the Year over Beyonce’s Lemonade. I’m not part of the Beehive fandom, but Lemonade was a monumental album.

The snubs feel like a slap in the face. Being nominated for Best Actress and Best Director would have solidified the impact the movie had on the world, but after the sudden shock of a snub went away, I started looking at who was nominated in these categories. If Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were nominated for the respective categories, would they have won? Probably not, but I don’t think that matters. It’s the acknowledgment the public cares about. 

Either way, The Barbie Movie received eight nominations, one of which for Best Picture. They're just happy to be nominated.​