Hollywood has never loved
Barbie
as much as it has despised her.
After six months talking about the film (and many more about its arrival), the doll, feminism,
marketing
, what is frivolous and what is profound, what is high and low culture, what is valid for most powerful film industry in the world, the one that has set the standard for a century, a new controversy arose last week.
Eight Oscar nominations, which the film written and directed by Greta Gerwig, produced and starring Margot Robbie, has achieved are not few.
Among them, best film.
But neither of the film's two most visible women appear in the main categories.
It wasn't even six in the morning when the nominations were announced, in the hills of the city it had not yet dawned, but the debate was on: what about
Barbie
?
From the first moment Hollywood has maintained a love-hate relationship with the film about the Mattel doll, a relationship that has bordered on cynicism.
For starters, because money is the standard by which everything is measured in a place like California, where seven out of every thousand people are millionaires (and counting), according to
Bloomberg
.
And this film has left an incessant flow of dollars: more than 1.4 billion in theaters, being the highest grossing in Warner's history.
And not only: all brands have jumped on the bandwagon, in what has not only been a
marketing
strategy , but also a way to achieve income with a social and cultural milestone.
“Barbie has become the head of pop culture,” associate professor of Marketing at the University of Southern California (USC) Therese Wilbur, a former Mattel employee, explained to this newspaper (she was the
firm's international
marketing
director for six years). ), following the release of the film.
More information
Even Ken complains that the director and actress of 'Barbie' have not been nominated for the Oscars
Success was assured, but the bombshell has been immeasurable, beyond what was imagined.
But after the big premieres and the triumph in numbers, awards season has arrived.
And from then on
Barbie
seems to have gone from strength to strength.
Her actors, her director or her songs were nominated.
But they didn't achieve anything.
Beyond the competition with
Oppenheimer
, the film could have had opportunities, but that has not been the case.
It was obvious at the Golden Globes, which basically created a category for something to win, that of best cinematographic phenomenon.
Margot Robbie, the protagonist and producer of it, saw that it was going to be one of her few, if not the only, opportunities to go up and collect an award.
She dedicated it, of course, to the fans, to all those who paid her entrance and showed their enthusiasm in the rooms, dressed in pink, in costume.
A unique phenomenon that has changed the way we interact in movie theaters, as seen at the Golden Globes.
But why?
Is a movie ticket bought by a 10-year-old girl, or a 20-year-old girl, or a 30-year-old woman, dressed in a pink T-shirt to see
Barbie,
worth less than the one purchased by a man who wants to see
Oppenheimer
or
Spider- Man?
Man
?
For Hollywood it seems so, from the first moment.
It was all laughs with
Barbie
.
Teasing, giggles, complacent glances;
machismo, after all.
A social dichotomy that has expanded to the core of the film: is
Barbie
a purely Hollywood product or is it exactly the opposite?
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in a still from the film.alamy
Its packaging seems to prove it: Hollywood stars, a big studio and a big budget, with a product as popular as a best-selling doll as a base, with catchy songs, saturated colors and the beaches of Los Angeles in the background.
But maybe it's not so much.
With an eminently feminine script, production and direction, with an ironic story full of nuances that highlights the tyranny of patriarchy, the frequent uselessness of bosses dressed in gray, the complications of being a woman in the 20th century... They are not comfortable topics for this always politically correct industry.
Is it too pink?
Too cheesy?
Does criticism rain down on you for being too feminine, too feminist;
or for an excessively white, simple feminism?
With an increasingly open Hollywood, which this year leaves the canonical and opts for a different cinema, the decision is complicated to understand.
It is a pitched battle between two parties that do not agree on what is already, without a doubt, the most overanalyzed, dissected film of the year, with hundreds of reviews and editorials about it.
But the 9,800 Oscar academics have known which way to go.
Or at least the actors and directors, because for the award nominations, the academics vote only for their corresponding branches (makeup artists, producers, composers...), as well as for best film.
And the 1,294 actor members of the Hollywood Film Academy have apparently not seen in Robbie the potential that the millions of viewers who have given him billions of dollars at the box office have.
According to the specialized media
Variety
, it is very difficult for “fantasy” films to obtain nominations for their actors: “Voters, year after year, choose spinach over sweets.”
But last year, the winner was Michelle Yeoh for the very fantastic metaverse madness
Everything at Once Everywhere
.
And who, along with Lily Gladstone, seems to be leading the bets this year, Emma Stone, for
Poor Creatures
, does so for a character and a film full of imagination.
Ella, who already won it seven years ago for the no less fantastical
La La Land
.
“They like serious, meaningful movies,” continued journalist Steven Gaydos in
Variety
, one of the most powerful outlets in the industry, “and actors tortured in real life with physical disabilities, addictions, mental illnesses and all the oppressions and injustices that this crazy world of ours has to offer.”
Barbie has seen a couple of oppressions and injustices throughout the movie.
As the columnist of
Los Angeles Times
Mary Macnamara: “Sure, if
Barbie
had been a sex worker for a while, or had barely survived being the next victim of a mass murder plot, or had been accused of pushing Ken out of the highest window in his Dream House..."
Ken is the one who doesn't know where to go.
As so many memes lamented these days, with his nomination the film's own plot seems to be fulfilled.
If Ryan Gosling was already surprised a few days ago by winning the award for best song at the Critics Choice Awards, now he could only feel disappointed by the fact that he was nominated but not his colleagues, only America Ferrera.
“No recognition would be possible for anyone in this film without their talent and courage.
Against all odds, with nothing more than a pair of soulless, scantily clad, and thankfully crotchless dolls, they made us laugh, broke our hearts, advanced culture, and made history.
“His work should be recognized along with that of other nominees who also deserve it,” he stated in a statement a few hours after the nominations were announced.
“To say that I am disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement.”
In an interview, America Ferrera stated that she felt “incredibly disappointed” by the lack of nominations from her colleagues.
Even the writer Stephen King or the former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, expressed their surprise on social media: “Your millions of fans adore you.”
The recognition at the box office and by the public, as well as the fact of becoming an original cultural product, not franchised or in search of sequels, whose echoes will be heard for years, probably gives Barbie
much
more power than certain nominations for the Oscar.
In fact, in the US it has returned to movie theaters for a week, which shows the interest it continues to generate.
But these awards, with almost a century of history behind them, continue to be a measure of the industry and the validity of the films.
A complex duality.
As Barbie herself cries in a line from the film: “I'm not good enough for anything.”
Not even for awards, apparently.
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