Can Barbie Fans Please CALM DOWN?????
It's literally just a fun doll movie!
As we all know, the Oscar nominations were announced yesterday. I wrote a newsletter about it—although I forgot some snubs including: Are You There, God? IT’s Me, Margaret, Bottoms, and Theatre Camp. Probably because I live in the real world where it’s not likely that these silly gay movies would be nominated. And the world where Rachel McAdams did not leave her house to do any Oscar campaigning, but did show up for Renee Rapp’s SNL performance, because she believes in #gayrights.
Yet…here we find ourselves…in a world where Barbie received some Oscars noms….and according to the internet—and actual critics/columnists, like Mary McNamara from the LA Times who wrote some truly crazy, problematic shit—NOT THE RIGHT ONES! GOD, DID THEY EVEN WATCH THE MOVIE! OF COURSE THEY NOMINATED RYAN GOSLING AND NOT THE WOMEN AND WOW OF COURSE THEY DIDN’T NOMINATE GRETA GERWIG LIKE HELLO DID THEY NOT WATCH THE MOVIE AND UNDERSTAND THE MORAL OF THE STORY WOW. Right only….they did nominate a woman….her name is America Ferrera…..and….also…the movie for Best Picture…as well as the production and costumes and songs….and…objectively, Ryan Gosling was fucking funny in that movie. He has, like America (Ferrera, not the country) been working on screen for decades. He is well liked. He is a good actor. Please calm down.
Now, if anybody had some SENSE, they would relax and take a step back. And if you know me in real life you might be thinking, “Darby, didn’t you submit an article on Barbie to an academic journal?”. Yes I did. Because it’s FUN to write about movies and critique them. To write about something is not to say you LOVE IT. I mean sometimes it is, but that’s not what’s happening here or there. I digress. Back to the mayhem.
Some of these fans should…maybe do a Google? Margot Robbie has very much campaigned for this film in her role as producer. Every interview has been about getting the film made, how they pitched it, and what it was like collaborating with Gerwig (and Baumbach). Actors on Actors might have been the only time she really talked at length about the acting process—and again on some acting roundtables, but even then, she often brought it back to how the film got made. Because she was a producer. Her production company, that she owns with her husband and their friend, produced the film. There is even a magazine cover with the three of them on it. Because she campaigned for the film. As a producer. Because she produced the film.
You might be thinking, Darby, this whole newsletter is utter nonsense about movies and who you like and you just did a newsletter about SNUBS. Sure, but I would hope that most people can glean a tone of facetiousness when its present. I do not in any way think that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie not getting Oscar nominations is some affront to feminism or a great injustice.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it was a fun doll movie! It is not THEE beacon of feminism and the select nominations are not an injustice toward women. PARTICULARLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER THE OTHER WOMEN BOTH IN FRONT OF AND BEHIND THE CAMERA THAT WERE NOMINATED THIS YEAR. FUCK THEM, I GUESS???? OR the Black women and people of colour who were SNUBBED for real this year????????? But of course, White Feminism is going to do its thing.
I leave you with the following tweets that actually make sense:
White women have not been normal about this movie for one fucking second which has kind of made the film itself more annoying and made me, a professional and principled hater, like it less and less. Yes, it did have “feminist” elements and likely made clear some things to people who have never engaged much with feminist ideas and needed it distilled for them in a commercial movie about a popular doll. NO it is not some sort of radical art. YES I did laugh when I watched actor roundtables and Margot Robbie talked about becoming a doll while other actors were talking about Very Serious Acting. It was funny. She was a fucking Barbie.
Barbie made BILLIONS of dollars. I doubt anybody involved thought that the film would become a fucking Oscar winner. Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig will be fine, at home, with their heaps of money, which they can use to keep making movies.
Can everybody please CALM DOWN?!
Go watch a movie that isn’t made by white people and then send a letter to your representatives about the ongoing genocide they are funding with THEIR billions of dollars. Okay??? Okay.