Want insight into the sheer power of angry white women? Look no further than their response to Academy Award nominations for an extraordinarily mid film.
“Barbie” received eight Oscar nominations on Tuesday, but none are for Best Actress for the film’s star Margot Robbie or Best Director for Greta Gerwig. Given the responses to the snubs, you’d think someone climbed on stage and slapped Taylor Swift in the face mid-concert.
Considering our years of dealing with #OscarsSoWhite and the consistent snubbing of Black films and actors, I’m experiencing a hefty dose of schadenfreude watching the alabaster collective get up in arms.
It’s even more amusing (or galling) considering what they’re angry over: “Barbie” is an aggressively aiight film. I realize a lot of white ladies have a strong nostalgic and emotional connection to the Barbie brand, but “Barbie” is nowhere near a prestige film and it should be grateful to get the eight nominations it has.
Robbie was perfectly watchable, but she doesn’t exactly need to go method for the role of a gorgeous, flighty blonde woman. And “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Ferrari” were all better-directed film. Critics are suggesting that Ryan Gosling being nominated for Best Actor as Ken is too on-the-patriarchal-nose considering the film’s message, but he really is one of the best parts of a film that didn’t wind up on most critics’ top 10 list for a good damn reason.
But even given that, folks are doing what the world has done since time immemorial: toss on the cape for white women. Even Gosling himself had to acknowledge the undeserved asterisk over his nomination by addressing the snub and defending his director and co-star.
Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton became the most viral responder to the snub, having taken time out of her busy (I guess?) day to shout out Gerwig and Robbie.
But the most appalling response is that of Los Angeles Times critic Mary McNamara, who wrote a piece criticizing the fact that the director and star of a successful “female empowerment” film didn’t get nominated.
“If only Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker. Or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot. Or stood accused of shoving Ken out of the Dream House’s top window.”
McNamara threw the other nominees under her Lululemon-branded bus, including Lily Gladstone – the first Native American to ever be nominated for an Oscar for her depiction of a real-life Osage woman who did indeed survive a murder plot in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Part of the irony of this all is that the women of color who were nominated are being diminished under the weight of the controversy: Like Gladstone, America Ferrera made history as the first nominee of Honduran descent in Oscars history 20-plus-years into her career. Of course, she too has had to qualify her nomination by being queried about her poor white lady colleague whom she outacted.
Any of this sound familiar…? Yeah – we’re used to it.
Black folks have spent years bringing attention to #OscarsSoWhite because we’re perfectly aware that the awards committees historically consist of stodgy old white folks who don’t have the same emotional response to material made by and for us. This year saw some notable Black snubs: Everyone I know who’s seen it says Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” is magnificent, but no nominations. “The Color Purple” was also shut out, save a much-deserved nomination for Danielle Brooks.
I could go hard in the paint listing all the Black Oscar snubs here. But for my money, the most egregious in history is Denzel Washington losing Best Actor for “Malcolm X” in 1993 to Al Pacino. Black Twitter would’ve been on fire if it existed then.
Whoopi Goldberg starred in the 1985 original “The Color Purple,” which still holds the record for the most Oscar nominated film with no win. And yet, she still fell through with the hard truth for the angry “Barbie” crowd on “The View:” “Everybody doesn’t win,” she said.
The very nature of film and television awards dictate that someone has to lose and that someone will always believe they didn’t have a fair shake. But with the “Barbie” snubs, we aren’t talking about a superlative film or one that deserves more than it got – we’re talking about the pink pussy hat contingent thinking about no one but themselves, per usual.
And those are salty white tears that taste so sweet.