Barbie Was Always About Ken.

Too much and not (K)enough.

Well it’s Oscars day and it’s probably the most controversial Academy Awards since… last year, when Andrea Riseborough politicked her way into a Best Actress nomination for To Leslie over arguably more deserving contenders like Viola Davis for The Woman King and Danielle Deadwyler for Till, as if everyone else who “campaigns” for an Oscar isn’t going the same thing. But I digress…

This year, the controversy was around Barbie’s “snub” in some of the major categories, like Best Director for Greta Gerwig (which I think she should have received) and Margot Robbie’s failure to secure a nomination for Best Actress, which I think was a deserving performance, but perhaps not more so than most of the other five actresses who took up those slots.

Though I wasn’t as big a fan of Barbie as I had hoped since I basically crafted my whole personality around it for the better part of 2023 in anticipation for it and in the fallout from it, where I believe it succeeded was in the production side of things, specifically sets, costumes and Robbie’s championing of it as a producer (I’ll have something coming up about this, whether I end up writing about it here or elsewhere), all of which Barbie is nominated for. And it’s pretty much a shoo-in for Best Original Song, whether that be “I’m Just Ken” or “What Was I Made For?”

But where some of the most surprising results occurred was in the supporting acting categories, specifically America Ferrera for her one and a half feminist monologues in a Supporting Actress trench coat, and Ryan Gosling as Ken, which I thought was overwrought and overrated but which I hoped would get a nomination so I could write this very piece #hatersgonnahate #criticsgonnacritique #theydontbuildstatuesofcritics