The Academy Awards used to be a cultural phenomenon. The Oscars ceremony was the pinnacle of the entertainment world, with glamorous stars jockeying for statuettes. For generations, the most deserving actors, actresses, and films usually won — though not always, and I wrote a series a few years ago about the most undeserving winners.
What is it about the Oscars that has traditionally captivated America? It’s largely because Hollywood has dominated the cultural landscape for so long.
“People care about which movie is the biggest blockbuster of the year, and which one wins Best Picture, in a way that people don’t care about which health-insurance plan is rated highest of the year,” National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote in his “Morning Jolt” email on Thursday. “Every industry has fabulously wealthy people at the top. Hollywood has fabulously wealthy people at the top, and lots of famous and beautiful and glamorous people, too.”
But sometime in the past couple of decades, the Oscars have abandoned that history. From emphasizing obscure films over more popular ones to rule changes that magnify “diversity” to a general commitment to wokeness, the Academy Awards aren’t what they used to be.
This year’s nominees saw somewhat of a return to glory days, with two of 2023’s biggest hit movies scooping up nominations. “Oppenheimer” is more traditional Oscar bait, a historical, biographical picture with prestigious writing and casting, while “Barbie” isn’t usually the type of film the Academy goes for. What turned “Barbie” into a prestige flick was the feminist plotline that caught the fancy of the left.
Geraghty put it this way:
Throughout the second half of last year, we were told, over and over again, that Barbie’s pink “captured the zeitgeist,” that the film “undeniably captured the zeitgeist of the summer,” that it “successfully captured the cultural zeitgeist,” that “pink has dominated in both the box office and the zeitgeist,” that it was “capturing the social media zeitgeist,” that “even AI-generated Barbieheimer fanart captures the zeitgeist”... you get the idea.
“Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” captured 21 nominations between the two of them, but it’s a pair of nominations that “Barbie” didn’t receive that is stirring up controversy. Among the eight nominations that “Barbie” scooped up were the coveted Best Picture nod, along with two Best Song nominations. Ryan Gosling received a Best Supporting Actor nomination, as did America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress.
Flashback: Oscar's Only Human: The 10 Biggest Academy Awards Blunders
But it’s a crime in the eyes of the left that Barbie's Margot Robbie didn’t secure a nod for Best Actress and Greta Gerwig didn’t receive a nomination for Best Director. (For what it’s worth, Gerwig got a nomination for the screenplay she co-wrote, while Robbie shares in the Best Picture nomination as one of the film’s producers.)
Noted film aficionado (and “hair icon,” according to her X bio) Hillary Clinton weighed in:
Greta & Margot,
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 24, 2024
While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you.
You’re both so much more than Kenough.#HillaryBarbie
The Babylon Bee’s Kyle Mann commented, “If anyone knows what it feels like to lose, it's you.” Oof.
“Greta Gerwig not being among the five best director nominees for this year’s Oscars is one of the biggest shocks in recent memory,” mourned the Associated Press’ Lindsey Bahr. After all, didn’t we all cry when the nominations list came out without Gerwig’s name on it? It was the saddest day our nation has seen since Jan. 6, 2021.
Naturally, the omission of Robbie and Gerwig is sexism in the eyes of leftists. Never mind that a female producer, a female screenwriter, a female costume designer, a female songwriter, and two female production designers snagged nominations. And a vaunted woman of color received a Best Supporting Actress nod.
Our cultural tastemakers met “Barbie” with near-universal acclaim; after all, it was a feminist take on the classic doll, so everyone was supposed to like it. Pamela Paul wrote in the New York Times that the film “felt like a political statement. Disliking ‘Barbie’ meant either dismissing the power of The Patriarchy or dismissing Modern Feminism. You were either anti-feminist or too feminist or just not the right kind.”
Here's the thing: it’s not that Academy voters necessarily think that Robbie and Gerwig don’t deserve nominations. There just happen to be five leading actresses and five directors who are more deserving this year.
We all know that the actors, producers, technicians, and executives are almost exclusively of the left, so are they the ones who are “sexist” for denying Gerwig and Robbie their chance at a statuette? Intersectionality and wokeness will always come for somebody, and in this case, it’s the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that has run afoul of the left.
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