Barb Wired

I wasn't gonna comment on the BARBIE controversy, but...

I’ve been thinking about the whole hue and cry around the so-called “snubbing” of Barbie by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—although not sharing my two cents anywhere on my socials, of course! I’m in show business, so you can just imagine the geschrei that’s gone up from the “hive” since the Oscar noms were announced. Barbie is a hugely successful film, expertly marketed, with a brilliant design vision and aesthetic…and a feminist message that clobbers you over the head with a hot pink sledgehammer. The film’s greatest achievement? Getting people excited to go out to the movies again, which they did, in blinding fuchsia droves. For that alone Barbie deserves recognition and applause. But, ugh, cringe!! “Just Ken” is nominated and Barbie isn’t??? F*ck the patriarchy!!

Has Ryan Gosling done infinitely better work in his film career to date? Of course he has. He doesn’t stand a Malibu chance in Hades of beating Robert Downey, Jr. It’s his year. But it really is…frankly…dumb to read into Gosling’s nomination and Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s so-called “snubs” some proof positive that the oppressive patriarchy succeeds once more in keeping women down! Puh-leeze. Both of these women are hugely successful, and have proven their box office value thousandfold with this movie. And, Ms. Gerwig is nominated for her Barbie screenplay, and Ms. Robbie, as producer, for Best Picture of the Year. Barbie has also received an additional six nominations in other categories.

See, this is the problem with Woke Hollywood and the Woke elites in general: they’re utterly unreflective. They react in the most predictable ways to any perceived injustice that supports “the oppressor narrative” even when they shoot themselves in the foot in the process. All this hooplah diminishes, not only their own accomplishments (I mean, come on, it’s up for Best Picture!—Barbie is not Sophie’s Choice)—but what about those non-famous artists whose costumes and production design (by far the stars of the film) were deservedly recognized? Don’t their achievements get lost in the shuffle here? I mean, without looking it up, name the genius costume designer of Barbie.

Director/Writer Greta Gerwig and Star/Producer Margot Robbie

Ms. Robbie and Ms. Gerwig will be just fine—and yes, you bet, we do need more female directors being nominated, and winning, Oscar. Lest we forget, however: Gerwig has been nominated for better films, including her Best Director nom for Lady Bird. Robbie is charming and lovely as Barbie, but she’s the least interesting character in the film. You can groan about Gosling’s nod all you want—but his is the most amusing and layered performance in the thing. Jeez. It’s not some patriarchal conspiracy. America Ferrera is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance of one speech: the feminist soapbox moment that packs the punch amidst all the pink.

But there are other forces at work this year. I frankly find it baffling that folks aren’t looking at the nominations and lining them up alongside the Academy’s new diversity requirements for eligibility that kicked in this year. Those requirements mandate significant representation of people of color, particularly women of color, as well as LGBTQ+ representation, etc. That Ms. Ferrera, a Latina, is nominated alongside two black actresses, Danielle Brooks and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and an out lesbian, Jodie Foster, in the same category, seems to me to be following the hymnal, chapter and verse. And look at Oscar history: it is extremely rare for a leading performance (be it male or female or other) in a comedy, to be nominated, let alone to win the trophy. Robbie’s Barbie just doesn’t belong in the same category with brilliant Lily Gladstone and the other Best Actress nominees.

Now I could compose a dissertation breaking down the big America Ferrera speech, exposing just how much of that rant has less to do with male oppression and more to do with what women inflict on each other that holds them down. I worked for fifteen years in the beauty industry, in high end retail in Manhattan, waiting on a who’s who of rich and famous women, and I can tell you without any hesitation that sentences like “You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin” have nothing to do with men and “the patriarchy,” and everything to do with the impossible standards women impose on each other. I’ve seen it, up close. Despite the speech’s statement that “you’re supposed to stay pretty for men,” Gerwig, to her credit, does include an acknowledgement: you don’t want to be too pretty as it might “threaten other women, because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.” Honey, there ain’t no billion dollar beauty industry because men require women to be pretty. In fact, ask most men how they feel about the women they love wearing makeup and getting botox, and they’ll tell you they find them more beautiful without it. No, no, women set the impossible standards, and then claw at each other and undermine each other trying to maintain them.

And this line about how women “tie themselves into knots to get people to like them?” Mmm…we’re post-”me too” and we’ve got plenty of loud, pushy, unlikeable women taking the spotlight on screen (see: She-Hulk) and off, and high-fiving each other for it—and you know what I say? You go girl! Women have the right to be just as crass and odious as men. We need look no further than Disney executive Kathleen Kennedy’s proposed director for the new Star Wars “Rey” sequel, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who just loves to “make men uncomfortable” and whose activism, not directing chops, elevated her to this plum assignment she’s unqualified for. I find it hard to believe that there aren’t capable, experienced female directors of every color in Hollywood who’ve been assisting male directors for years on big budget features, waiting for their Greta Gerwig moment, who genuinely deserve that opportunity!

Look—you can’t pretend it’s still 1972, and you’re meek Mary Richards at WJM, hoping to get all the guys to—aw gosh, gee whiz—like you—whilst creating the biggest box office hit of the year, popular largely due to its in-your-face feminist message! And then you pout because Ken got nominated and Barbie didn’t?? No fair! Ms. Robbie, Ms. Gerwig: be gracious; applaud your film’s nominees (who are, many of them, women) and just start planning your next mega-budget, guaranteed-to-be-greenlit feature film. I mean, proving your work can be massively successful, paving the way for more and better projects—isn’t that what success in Hollywood looks like…?