On Tuesday, the 96th Annual Academy Award nominations were revealed, bringing celebrations and criticisms about who the members nominated. After a movie year that was dominated by two movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer, it’s more than shocking to see that Greta Gerwig was left off the best director list. The film made the cut for best picture, but her glaring omission makes it seem like the voting body missed the message of the entire movie.
When the paparazzi photos first emerged from the Venice Beach location on Barbie in the summer of 2022, fans were a little shocked by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s neon rollerblading gear. It felt like a fatal mistake in their careers, but they proved everyone wrong. Gerwig and her husband, Noah Baumbach, wrote a sharp, funny, and pensive movie on how an iconic Mattel doll drove the gender stereotypes for decades and then tried to reverse it by having Barbie do it all — doctor, astronaut, mother, teacher, and beauty queen.
That message had families of all ages, including men, running to the box office and driving sales to over $1.4 billion. The reviews of the movie were also solid, but it’s the fact that it became an intergenerational pop-culture touchstone that made it the movie of the summer. With personal essays and think pieces by writers, moving snapshots and captions from women who saw the movie more than once, and men who finally got insight into the pressure of what it’s like to be a woman in a world that often tells you that you aren’t equal, and you will never be enough. (Or “Kenough.”)
So, when those ballots went out to the 10.500 members for the 2023 film-year nominations, how did they miss the mark with leaving Gerwig off the list? This has happened to her back in 2020 when she was snubbed for best director for Little Women. It’s hard to believe that it happened again, but here we are.
The misogyny is still there in Hollywood and some critics will try and say that Gerwig’s Oscar nomination with Baumbach for adapted screenplay is enough recognition for her work. But we all know that the best director category is still an old boys’ club, — the statistics don’t lie. Only seven women have ever been nominated in that category, and only three of them have won. Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) carry the mantle for all women in the industry because the Academy, for some baffling reason, doesn’t think Gerwig deserves that honor.
Before you go, click here to see more of the most shocking Oscars moments.
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