Oscars Expert Says Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Snubs ‘Will Be Remembered for a Long Time’ (Exclusive)

The individual omissions of Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig in the recently announced nominations for the Oscar 2024 will not be forgotten so soon, according to an expert.

“It’s definitely not a good look that the Academy members left out Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie for directing and starring in a movie that’s mostly about how impressionable women are often marginalized,” he says. Dave Kargerhost and author of Turner Classic Movies 50 nights of the Oscars.

Karger is referring to Barbie, the box office hit that became the highest-grossing film of 2023 after its release in July. The comedy earned eight Oscar nominations this year, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling and Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrer.

But surprisingly, star and co-producer Robbie, 33, was not recognized in the Best Actress category, and Gerwig, 40, was left out of the Best Director nominations.

“Although they both received nominations for their work on Barbie in other categories, these two high-profile lapses will be remembered — and sting — for a long time,” Karger tells PEOPLE.

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Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig on set Barbie (2023).

Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

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The film’s comedic nature may also have influenced the overall nominations, he adds.

“I think the Academy membership has a bit of a bias, unconscious or otherwise, against straight comedies and heavier dramas,” says Karger. “Greta and Margot must have landed on thousands of ballots, but since those ballots are for voters’ No. 1 and No. 2 favorites, we can assume they just didn’t earn enough of those top-level votes.”

Meanwhile, Robbie has won numerous awards this year for her lead role in Barbie, including acting nominations at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. This year, she has the right to an Oscar as a co-producer of the film, because she is in the running for the best film.

In previous years, Gerwig — who co-wrote Barbie along with her current husband Noah Baumbach — received the award for best director in 2017. Lady Birdher debut, although she was not nominated for her second film, in 2019 Little woman. She credited writers for both of those films.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

For Barbie, Gerwig earned directing nominations from the Directors Guild of America, Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards earlier this year. She and Baumbach (54) are nominated for best adapted screenplay at the upcoming Oscars.

However, there were many nominations on Tuesday that showed a remarkably diverse class of nominees. Among this year’s nods in history are Killers of the Flower Moon Best Actress hopeful Lily Gladstone is the first Indian actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Many other stars are also marking their first acting Oscars, including Ferrera, Emily Blunt, Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown and Cillian Murphy.

Nine women are competing for awards in the best film category, and one woman – Anatomy of a Fall’with Justine Triet — is in the running for best director.

Triet, 45, is the eighth woman to be nominated in the category (only three have won: Jane Campion in 2021, Chloé Zhao in 2020 and Kathryn Bigelow in 2009). And one third of the nominees in all categories this year are women – more than in the last three years.

After the nominations were announced on Tuesday, Gosling, who plays Ken in the Barbie, issued a strong statement of support for Robbie and Gerwig.

“To say I’m disappointed they weren’t nominated in their categories would be an understatement,” he said of the pair.

Margot Robbie entered Barbie (2023).

Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

While Gosling (43) added that he was “extremely honored to be nominated”, the father of two added that “there is no Ken without Barbie. And there is no Barbie a movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie.”

He then called Gerwig and Robbie “the two people most responsible for this globally acclaimed, history-making film.”

Just hours after the nominations were announced on Tuesday, Ferrera, who played Gloria in the film, also revealed she was “incredibly disappointed” that her co-stars were not mentioned.

– said the 39-year-old actress Diversity, “Greta has done almost everything a director can do to deserve it. Creating this world and taking something that had no inherent value to most people and creating a global phenomenon. It’s disappointing not to see her on that list.”

As for Robbie, who has received two Oscar nominations in the past (best actress for I, Tonya 2018 and Best Supporting Actress for Bomb 2019), Ferrera told the magazine that what she has achieved as an actress is “truly incredible” in Barbie.

Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at the Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, California on January 14, 2024.

Kevin Winter/Getty

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“One of the things about Margot as an actress is how easy she makes everything look. And maybe people have been fooled into thinking that the job seems easy,” Ugly Betty the alum said.

“But Margot is a magician as an actress in front of the screen and it was one of the honors of my career to see her give an incredible performance,” she added to Diversity.

The 96th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be broadcast live on Sunday, March 10, from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, beginning at 7:00 PM ET.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education