I think everyone who lived through summer 2023 was shocked when they found out Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were not nominated for best director and best leading actress respectively in the recent Oscars nominations. I don’t think the problem is that they weren’t nominated but rather the context around their not being nominated. The movie is about women, who while trying to understand their own womanhood find their lives ruined, uprooted, and taken over by men and the male gaze. So, it’s understandable for some people to be upset that this piece with such a poignant message got overlooked for another war movie. Personally, I loved the Barbie movie. I had a few issues with its marketing, however. It was marketed as this great feminist manifesto, but I found when watching it that it didn’t hold the pow! I was expecting, it wasn’t about women overcoming patriarchy but about patriarchy taking over and them needing to reclaim their space by unlearning taught patterns of oppression.
I realised though after watching it I misunderstood the aims of the movie. By assuming it was solely about feminism I was still putting men at the centre of my expectations. The Barbie movie was a story about women in which a man inserts himself because he needs to be the centre of the narrative. This then transforms the conversation to one about safe spaces for personal identity centred conversation being taken over. For some reason, be it historic or cultural, men have a need to find a place for themselves everywhere.
This week I went to my campus’s film club where we did trivia and talked about the upcoming Oscars. I enjoy movies but I wouldn’t call myself an expert, so I planned to sit and silently listen. The group had an even number of female identifying and male identifying people and yet the group felt overwhelmingly masculine. I thought that there were way more guys because of the amount they talked and yelled and added to the discussion. Why in spaces that are designed to be inclusive and don’t have a direct correlation to any gender topics does it feel like men are taking over?
Before I go further, I know it’s not all men. The club leaders worked to include me and my friends, asking the quieter members what they had to contribute. My problem is not with them or even the really loud guys who were clearly just passionate. Being passionate is wonderful and, of all places, a club for like-minded people is the space to be expressive. My problem is that afterwards talking with my friends we all agreed that we were scared of these guys. Not fearful of violence but the way they were able to speak so loudly and with such confidence on opinion-based topics was intimidating. What I’m getting at is that, like in the Barbie movie, sometimes and often without intention men are able to take over spaces that were supposed to be for everyone.
I’m in no way trying to ignore the wonderful America Ferrera’s nomination which she definitely deserves. For me, she made the movie and there would truly be no Barbie without her. I hope she wins because I loved her performance. I just feel that Margot Robbie deserves at least a nomination for best leading actress because of the journey through girlhood she was able to put into two hours. Her role was Barbie, but she played every woman. I also don’t mean to say Ryan Gosling does not deserve his nomination. Ryan put out a beautiful and poignant tweet in which he praised Greta and Margot and effectively took himself out of a conversation in which he was the topic to make room for the women who facilitated his nomination. He did a wonderful job as Ken and the song was iconic. He deserves the nomination, but so do Greta and Margot.
Women cannot allow men to continue upstaging them while trying to achieve their dreams, one will always get in the way of the other. We cannot keep assuring them we don’t want to replace them; we just want to work with them but are tiptoeing around their ideas and opinions to preserve their feelings. By now they need to know that our contribution is not a challenge it is just a contribution.
When I went to see Barbie with my beautiful grandmother and amazing brother, I remember a young family with three kids I assumed were under five. Throughout the entire thing I heard toddlers screaming, crying, and yelling, I was so frustrated. I looked over and saw the mom desperately trying to calm the two youngest kids, and next to her the dad was sitting with one quiet kid in his lap watching the movie. Eventually the mom picked up the two youngest and ran out of the theatre. I was sickened. I wanted to yell at the dad “how can you not see that this isn’t for you, it was supposed to be for her!” The Oscar nominations were a product of a system that loves watching women succeed but giving them no credit for it. I know and I hear that one person saying, “yeah but other women are being nominated.” But it is different because Barbie was, from my understanding, the only movie solely about women’s place in society. Even Poor Things had an overlying message about human tragedy that wasn’t entirely women centric. What men don’t understand is that Greta and Margot are every woman who has ever changed, sat down, or been looked over. They are every mother trying to watch a movie in a theatre being interrupted by their kids crying and every university student who didn’t feel like they were allowed to take up space in a group discussion. Barbie created something unifying that has not been seen on such a cultural scale in years. With trend culture on the rise everyone is so different and that can be beautiful but there was also something very special about coming together to watch Barbie. When Margot and Greta didn’t get nominated, it was like all those united fans who bonded over this universal experience were dismissed. The hard truth is that not all spaces can be for everyone’s voice. While everyone should be welcomed, some peoples’ contributions only serve as a self-indulgence to feel included in a space that is necessary for others to feel connected. I don’t mean to chastise; I just have a lot to say on the matter and hope America Ferrara can make us all proud with another powerful prize-winning speech.