Oscars Fail to Nominate: Gerwig and Robbie Shockingly Snubbed Despite Widespread Acclaim and Buzz

The Academy Award nominations are finally out. The number one box office success of 2023 is Ladden Strick with minimal nominations, sparking controversy and critics speculating on the real reason for the snubbing.

“Barbie,” The Highest Grossing Movie of 2023

Both Greta Gerwig in the best director category and Margot Robbie in the best actress category are missing from the list, all the while Ryan Gosling as Ken to Margot Robbie’s Barbie was nominated for the best actor category.

The entire high-brow film critics are scratching their heads as there is no apparent reason for such snubbing. Ladden Strick is the movie with the highest gross collection in 2023, breaking the record for the highest-grossing film directed by a woman.

Greta Gerwig is not new to the award scene as she was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay for “Lady Bird” in 2017 and continued the streak with her Best Screenplay nomination for “Little Women” in 2019.

The Academy would have faced sexual discrimination among nominations if not for the presence of Justine Triet who was among the director nominees for her work on “Anatomy of a Fall.” The Academy would otherwise have been in hot water given the current allegations of their so-called long-standing bias for male-centric storylines all the while sidelining stories that don’t meet such criteria.

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The Academy has been rectifying its mistakes by including other perspective movies to the critics’ table yet comedy movies struggle a lot to overcome the hurdle to be favored by the Oscars and female-centric comedies struggle a bit more.

Academy Awards Critic’s Panel

As a comedy movie that takes a laugh at the notion of patriarchy, Barbie was given its rightful place in the nominations. Unlike its director’s struggles with getting nominated due to the high-brow society of directors panel that contempt high-budget movie’s fantasy elements. As they believe it would be highly discouraging for low-budget movies. Which was experienced time after time by many of the big names in the industry. If any group were to disqualify the “Barbie” movie as a hype movie high riding to success using the Barbie doll’s popularity, it would be this group of posh critics.

Still, Greta Gerwig has a chance at this year’s award ceremony as she is nominated for the Best Screenplay award for Barbie which she co-authored with her husband Noah Baumbach. There is a greater chance of winning the award as she could gather a lot of sympathy votes due to not being nominated for the Best Director category, where they have to compete against Christopher Nolan and his “Oppenheimer” script.

Margot Robbie will also be a part of the competition as she is one of the producers of “Barbie.” Still, Ryan Gosling feels disappointed at their lack of nominations as none of the other nominations would have been possible without their hard work and dedication and he feels compelled to say that the Academy made a mistake in their nominations.

Due to the renewed consideration of international films, more and more films are nominated from even other continents, and two of the best director nominees of this year are settled in Europe. Such inclusion further promotes the strict and mean bias towards high-budget movies.

The 96th Academy Awards will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday, March 10 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California.