The Oscars’ Snubs and why it’s not surprising that Oppenheimer won Best Picture

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Hannyah Alford

The Oscars’ Snubs And Why It’s Not Surprising That Oppenheimer Won Best Picture

The 2024 Oscar’s took place this past month and although some nominations and awards were arguably well deserved, there is always something the academy just can’t seem to get right. It’s no surprise that the biggest films of the last year were Oppenheimer and Barbie, both making their box office debut at the same time. Greta Garwig received eight nominations for Barbie, while Oppenheimer landed thirteen. Barbie received worldwide acclaim from critics and made over 1.4 billion dollars in the box office. From the soundtrack, costume design, and diverse casting, it’s no surprise that the film received recognition in several categories. America Ferrera and Rylan Gosling were nominated for best supporting roles. However, fans of the Barbie film couldn’t help but notice that Margot Robbie received zero nominations for her leading role as Barbie.

It’s no surprise that Ryan Gosling was given the Oscar nomination for Ken, considering his performance of “I’m Just Ken”, featured in the film’s soundtrack and awarded “Best Song” at this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards. Gosling gathered much sympathy for his role of Ken with the popular hashtag and retail merchandise of “I am Kennough”. There is no denying that Ryan Gosling put on quite the performance in his role as Ken; however, it’s still questionable that Margot Robbie was not also critically acclaimed for her role as Barbie. Margot’s depiction of Barbie was extraordinary in the sense that she brought a sense of humanity and emotional depth not conventionally associated with the doll.

It should also be noted that alongside Greta Gerwig, Margot helped in the production of Barbie. Alongside Robbie, Gerwig was not recognized in the “Best Director” category. Barbie is the highest grossing film ever to be directed by a woman in box office history, for her to not receive recognition for this particular feat is unusual. Barbie also lost Best Picture to Oppenheimer, which comes at no surprise given that the entire film was male-dominated. Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan was nominated and awarded for his director role in Oppenheimer, making it his eighth Oscar nomination and his second win overall. It’s important to mention that the Best Director award always goes to a male director. Only one woman has won in this category in the 96 years that the Oscars has been held. That woman was Kathryn Bigelow for her direction of the film “Hurt Locker” in 2009. Furthermore, the films with the most Oscar nominations in history were all male directed. This includes Titanic, All About Eve, and La La Land all being nominated for fourteen categories.

Studies have shown that women are consistently being underrepresented at the Oscars. Since 1929, only 17% of nominations have been for women at the Oscars, meanwhile 83% of Oscar nominations have been for men. Women of color are even less likely to be included, only making up 2% of all Oscar nominations and 6% of nominations for underrepresented racial/ethnic groups overall. With this in mind, America Ferrera’s nomination as Gloria was very well deserved, given her incredible monologue during the film about the burdens of womanhood, and her assistance in freeing the Barbie’s from Ken’s patriarchal rule.

Da’vine Joy Randolph was the only woman of color to be awarded at the Oscars for her role as Mary Lamb in The Holdovers. Randolph’s win is certainly one to be proud of, however, the Oscars’ has a history of only nominating and awarding black women in supporting roles to their white peers. Only 10 black female actresses to date have won an Oscar and only one of them was for a leading role, that being Halle Berry for her role in Monster’s Ball.Considering the Oscars is one of the most acclaimed award ceremonies in American history, it has quite a bit of work to do regarding its representation of women and women of color. Awarding Barbie for Best Picture at the Oscars would have been quite the moment for women, especially for women directors that are consistently being overshadowed by their male peers. I can only hope that women and women of color will continue to insert themselves in these spaces and remind the world that they are beyond deserving of recognition for their contributions to the film industry.