Reposted from My Substack
Via Variety
When Tuesday morning’s Oscar nominations were announced, “Barbie” star America Ferrera was snuggled in bed alone and watching on her phone as her husband Ryan Piers Williams drove their kids to school.
“There was a moment where I wasn’t sure if I had made it up,” Ferrera tells Variety. “And then my phone started blowing up so I figured that I must have heard it right.”
The overwhelming emotion surrounding earning her first Academy Award nomination — for playing Gloria, the human lens through which “Barbie” is viewed in the $1.4 billion blockbuster comedy — has been shock. “I still haven’t really been able to get in my feelings because I’m still on like the top layer of ‘I can’t even believe that this is real,'” Ferrera explains.
But as you’ve no doubt heard, there were far more complications to this year’s Oscar nominations.
In addition to Ferrera’s nomination, “Barbie” also collected nods for best picture, supporting actor (Ryan Gosling), adapted screenplay (Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach), costume design, production design, and original songs (“I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For?”). However two notable nominations were missing from that group: Greta Gerwig (best director) and Margot Robbie (best actress).
“I was incredibly disappointed that they weren’t nominated,” Ferrera says.
The nomination would have been Gerwig’s second Oscar nom for directing, following her first bid for 2017’s “Lady Bird,” and she’d been viewed as one of the leading contenders to receive a nomination after landing recognition from the Critics Choice, Golden Globes and Directors Guild of America Awards, considered one of the most critical precursors to the Oscars. This year’s directing nominees are: Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Christopher Nolan (“Oppenheimer”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”).
So Barbie was nominated for Best Picture, Ferrera was nominated for Best Actress and Gosling for Best Supporting Actor - but Robbie for Best Actress and Gerwig for Best Director were snubbed.
That’s pretty much the plot of the movie.
“Greta has done just about everything that a director could do to deserve it,” Ferrera explains. “Creating this world, and taking something that didn’t have inherent value to most people and making it a global phenomenon. It feels disappointing to not see her on that list.”
As for Robbie — who earned a best picture nomination for producing “Barbie,” but was snubbed for what would’ve been her third acting nod — Ferrera has nothing but praise for her complex performance.
“What Margot achieved as an actress is truly unbelievable,” Ferrera says. “One of the things about Margot as an actress is how easy she makes everything look. And perhaps people got fooled into thinking that the work seems easy, but Margot is a magician as an actress in front of the screen, and it was one of the honors of my career to get to witness her pull off the amazing performance she did. She brings so much heart and humor and depth and joy and fun to the character. In my book, she’s a master.”
On a more encouraging note, “Barbie” did make history as one of three films directed by women to earn a best picture nod
So, to be fair both Robbie and Gerwig could walk away with Oscars this year — Robbie as a producer of “Barbie” for Best Picture, and Gerwig for Best Adapted Screenplay — but it should be noted that this is the 96th Annual Oscars and yet this is only the 3rd 9th nomination for a movie directed by a woman.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Via Forbes
Three movies directed by women—Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Celine Song’s Past Lives—scored nominations for Best Picture, marking a first in the 96-year history of the Academy Awards.
The other seven nominees for Best Picture are: American Fiction, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Poor Things and The Zone of Interest.
Triet also became the ninth woman ever to be nominated in the Best Director category, standing alongside contenders including Bradley Cooper, Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese. Triet is the only woman nominated in the directing category.
This year marks the fifth consecutive year at least one Best Picture-nominated film was directed by a woman.
Only four previous Academy Awards have included two films directed by women among nominees in that category: Lone Scherfig’s An Education and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker in 2010; Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone in 2011; Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman in 2021; and Siân Heder’s CODA and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog in 2022. The Hurt Locker, Nomadland and CODA took home the award for best picture.
The movie industry has existed for over 100 years, and this is only the ninth time a film by a female director has been nominated. If you assume that there’s been an average of 5 films nominated for Best Picture then there’s been at least 480 total films nominated — and only 9 directed by women.
That’s 1.8%.
Only 3 female-directed films have previously won the Oscar.
That’s 0.6%.
And that's supposed to be the “good news.”
Just recall that when this movie came out — the Right Wing lost their minds over its “Feminist Message.”
Piers Morgan called it an “Assault on not Just Ken, but all men.”
And for the record, I have been a bricklayer and a caregiver — they are nothing alike. Bricks are heavy, that’s all. Of course, there is a completely different view from people like Trans content creator Jessie Gender.
I admit, I have not yet seen Barbie.
But looking at the wild variety of reactions you can see why I may be ambivalent. I am male. I never played with Barbies as a kid. I don’t necessarily relate to the issue of female empowerment except as an ally. The central question to me is this: Does onscreen female empowerment require the disempowerment of males?
Can you have a #GirlBoss without making all the males in your film into #Betamen? Piers Morgan argues that the strengthening of women into formerly male roles — Entrepreneur, President, Astronaut, Technologist — requires that men are displaced from those positions. The men are made into she-males. For a certain portion of the populace — this is a serious issue. Although, most of them are Incels. [Involuntary Celebates] and their AlphaMale buddies. Just picking on another example besides Barbie - because I havne’t seen it and can’t really argue it’s virtues or flaws - I give you the over-the-top lunatic reaction to the Disney+ Marvel TV series Echo by one of those Wanna-Alphas, Nerdrotic. [Warning: this does include many spoilers from the show]
This was my comment to Nerdrotic:
It's the "worst of the year?" Dude, it's January!! What are you comparing it with?
God, you're such a racist snowflake. Let's recall all the movies and tv shows before this with deaf lead characters - Oh, wait, there are basically none. Ok, what about all the movies and tv shows with Native American lead characters? Oh yeah, almost none.
So doing the first show with deaf native American EVER is somehow too much for you? You want Bruce Lee replaced by a white guy (Kung Fu), or Chuck Norris in red-face playing Geronimo instead of actually having a native person, play a. native. person?
And oh wait, you're saying it's just too fantastic to have a female hero do the same fantastic ridiculous shit that Dirty Harry, Death Wish and Rambo did? They have too much fantasy in this fucking fantasy? Pathetic.
The only reason we have some tv and movies now with super-capable women is because during the entire previous history of cinema, we've had women who were totally incapable and super-unable. Yes, there have been femme fatales and sex bombs, but that's been it. A show like this is a small price to pay - yes, it's overdone and ridiculous everything in Marvel is. "Super-soldier serum?"" - "Magic Hammers?" - "A blind hero with radar sense?" - considering the man-focused propaganda that preceded it for the previous 100 years. Lighten up.
[I do agree with him about the piece of glass that causes Maya to lose her leg — it shouldn’t have been one solid piece, cars have tempered glass.]
Much like Hollywood, the bulk of content from both Marvel and DC over the last 70 years has been white male-oriented. Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Aquaman and eventually you get to Wonder Woman for DC. Oh and then, Cyborg who is Black.
Power Girl
Women were an afterthought, or mostly a love interest. They were designed to fit the male gaze, with costumes that usually revealed their legs, arms, shoulders and chest for no practical or tactical reason. Powergirl’s costume actually has a window just to show off her boobs.
Most female heroes over the decades have been feminized versions of male heroes. Supergirl. Batgirl. Hawkgirl. [Notice they are slightly infantilized, and they only allowed one adult — Batwoman.] Then at Marvel, you get Ms. Marvel as the female version of the originally male Captain Marvel. You get She-Hulk. Now from Disney+ “What if…?” series we get Captain Carter, the female version of Captain America.
Iron Heart
Over the past 20 years, this trend at Marvel to replace formerly male characters with an ethnic or female counterpart has accelerated. A new Ms. Marvel appeared, only this one was a teenager and Muslim, years after the previous Ms. Marvel had finally transformed into the new Captain Marvel. There’s a new female Hawkeye - Kate Bishop. There’s a new black female Iron Man, known as Iron Heart. There’s a Black Latino Spiderman.
Young Avengers
There’s a female version of Giant/Ant Man - who is Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie - known as Stature. There was already a She-Hulk, but now there’s a Korean American Hulk, Amadeas Cho and a Gay Hulk, known as Hulkling who is the son of the male Captain Mar-vell and a Skrull queen.
Even at DC, Superman’s son Jonathan Kent has come out as being bi-sexual.
As their movie and tv franchise have caught up to the newer characters things have gradually changed. You may have noticed the latest Marvel movie featured that new Muslim Ms. Marvel along with the female Captain Marvel and a third former black female Captain Marvel who is now known as Spectrum — was a colossal bomb.
Jonathan Kent
Marvel has been largely successful up until that point. But then again, they took 19 movies before they first mentioned a female character in the title (Antman and the Wasp) and 20 movies before they had a female lead character - which was Captain Marvel. Since then they’ve only had two more female-led movies - Black Widow, which was pulled from theaters due to Covid, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever where the reveal of the original Black Panther T’chala being replaced by his sister Shuri was intended as a film surprise — and now we have Marvel’s 36th movie - The Marvels.
Hulkling
So that’s 3 female-led movies out of 36 - which is 8.3%. Half the planet is only represented in 8.3% of Marvel movies. And then people like fucking Nerdrotic thinks that’s too damn much.
If you want to understand the rage in Nerdrotic’s rant — it’s really about all these changes and all this gender, racial and orientational Representation.
He argues — incessantly — that the market for Marvel Superhero characters is young adolescent boys. By making all these female and ethnic characters and putting them in the positions of the (white) males a) the men are being “displaced” — as if they always belonged in those positions instead of being artificially installed - and b) the (white) male fans of these books are not being well served. By trying to include “forced representation” Marvel has been losing their young male fanbase and they haven’t been able to replace it with new female fans who simply aren’t really interested in Superheroes - even if they happen to be female. Or gay. He’s pretty angry about it, and he’s not alone. He has over 960,000 subscribers so his message of white male grievance in media is very popular.
This attitude was shown by Piers Morgan is part of the same backlash that we saw with Barbie, only in that case that franchise was *always* targeted at young women. It’s one thing to complain about the feminization of Marvel (which mostly occurred because of women and ethnic writers who wanted to be able to see themselves in the stories) it’s another to argue that we should remove the success quotient from an already feminist Icon such as Barbie.
There’s a reason why over the past 50 years there have been so many Barbie toys that went far beyond just being a wife and a homemaker. From being the sex-object that is desired by males, but not worthy of value in her own right. Barbie became a race car driver, an athlete, and a CEO decades ago. This was done deliberately to help young girls imagine themselves with unlimited options, with an open world that they can experience.
Again, this is the same reason that many Marvel characters have stopped being almost entirely and exclusively white straight men. Imagine a black kid seeing a Black Spiderman. It’s opens up new horizons, new ideas, new possibilities. It’s not about skin-color - it’s about opening up hope that someone can become someone they couldn’t have previously imagined. That may not mean the same to white men who’ve always been told and shown they could be and do anything. The rest of us haven’t had those types of stories told about ourselves.
So when we get to the new series Echo — who is a female Native American character who is also deaf and (as the actress chosen for the role is an amputee) she has a prosthetic leg — we practically have a Tur-Duck-en of representation. People like Nerdrotic might consider it a series of “boxes being checked” but I think it’s much deeper than that.
Representation actually does matter. White men like him have been able to see themselves doing literally everything. They’ve been the most famous heroes — they been the most famous villains — Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, Kang the Conqueror, and the Joker. White men all. (Until Marvel cast Jonathon Majors as Kang) Even when that character is supposed to be an Arab like Ras Al Ghul he’s still been drawn and portrayed as a White man. At a certain point, this monopoly has to be thinned out.
Some of all of these white male characters might have to be shoved aside. I’m not saying that they deserve to be turned into the white equivalent of Steppin Fetchit and endlessly emasculated and ridiculed as black people were with vaudevillian black-face, but they just might not always be the focus of all attention. Sometimes.
Every once in a while we might have a film like Crazy, Rich Asians or Everything, everywhere, always.
Every once in a while, a yapping white man-splaner just might end up smashed by a boulder in mid-yap. Sometimes a group of talented women just might save the day.
Frankly, that’s nothing compared to what everyone else has been enduring for decades.
In order to make room for the rest of the planet it’s a sad reality that their monopoly on the media has to be challenged. Other characters who are emerging now are not “illegitimate” and “false representations” — we’ve had nearly 100 years of white people playing ethnic characters under red face and black face. But ethnic characters and stories are the expressions of real people with real hopes for a more expansive and inclusive future — they aren’t mere “tokens.”
It’s not enough to simply have a “token” ethnic or female character in a story — it’s about how that character is portrayed. Are they simply shown as a racist cliche or is it something we specifically haven’t seen before? Are they shown as fully-rounded people or are the creators making use - yet again - of a stereotype? Are they merely another black criminal, Asian sexpot, or Jewish schemer - or are they something more? And then once you decide to include an ethnic character as a main star, if you show them with flaws and you again, giving into a stereotype? This may be why in many “woke” movies and shows, the bad guy is likely a white man. Not just because people want to exact racial-gender revenge, but also because having the ethnic character as the bad guy — is something that was always done for decades. Sometimes to avoid repeating racial/gender cliches the only person left who can do the “dirty work” is a white guy. I’m pretty sure that’s part of what happens to Ken in Barbie.
Wonder Woman was literally invented by William Moulton Marston to be an icon of female representation and empowerment in the 40’s. That was actually the point. Black Panther was specifically invented as an expression of African empowerment in the 70’s. Someone has always had to champion and push to have these characters included in the midst of an ocean of white men. If someone doesn’t make it an issue, it simply doesn’t happen.
We are not going backward. We are not going to return to the All-White All-Male world where black people, women and gays are kept at the back of the bus, in their place and in the closet.
But as you can see by how long it took Marvel movies to start having lead female characters — let alone lead gay characters — and how long it is still taking the Oscars to honor female-directed films and female directors. We may not be going back, but we still have a long long way to go before the Nerdrotic’s Precious Patriarchy is truly threatened.
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