I can't help it, I'm going to talk about Barbie. Not about the film, actually, but about the recent commotion that has been created regarding the Oscar nominations that she has received. For those who don't know, the issue – the 'scandal', some say – is that, while Ryan Gosling has received a nomination for best supporting actor, Margot Robbie, lead actress, and the director, Greta Gerwig, have been left out. of the shortlist of nominees. This fact has been interpreted by many media – some of the influence of the The New York Times– as a “machista bias when evaluating a feminist film.” Headlines like “The Oscars agree with Barbie”, and Ryan Gosling has gotten out of the situation with apologies that are as unnecessary as they were expected by many.
Let's go in parts, I'm getting dizzy.
The question “the Oscars and Barbie” It is the most outlandish example of understanding feminism that I have seen.
I will not get bogged down in assessing on a moral level this film that claims to be feminist, because it is not from there, from the moral point of view, that I am interested in approaching art, although the issue of 'war of the sexes' and the roll Men are from Mars, women are from Venus what vertebra Barbie It couldn't seem more decaffeinated, outdated and unproductive to me if the goal is to contribute socially through a film. Which, of course, is not the function of cinema, although sometimes it can take it and it is totally legal for it to do so.
Barbie is, beyond a film that can entertain more or less – in my opinion, less – a phenomenon of marketing totally explosive. It has been the highest-grossing film of 2023 and has grossed more than a billion dollars. In addition, it is nominated for best film. We can say that the move has not turned out badly for its director, Greta Gerwig, and Margot Robbie, one of her producers. Despite everything, there are those who cry out loud about the supposedly unfair assessment of both professionals, while he – Gosling – the 'boy' of the film, is nominated for best supporting actor (as, by the way, , to America Ferrera, supporting actress of Barbie who has not even been able to celebrate this joy of his career because the media, Internet users and 'opinionists' have decided that what they have to do is get angry).
Let's start with the most obvious.
A film, just because it contains a supposed feminist message, does not have to entail the valuation of the women who have participated in it above that of the men. One's 'particular' performance in one's discipline is being judged. The Oscar nominees for best leading actress this year are Sandra Hüller (wow), Lily Gladstone, Carey Mulligan, Anette Benning, Emma Stone (double wow), all for more complex roles and more accomplished performances than Margot Robbie in Barbie, a role too simple to be among those of the previous actresses. We already know that the awards also depend on the competition, which is usually more demanding in the main roles. Margot Robbie was nominated years ago for I, Tonyawhere she is magnificent, just as Greta Grerwing was nominated for best director for Ladybirda film in which he deserved this recognition more than in Barbie.
We all know that awards are not always fair to everyone.
However, we live in a time in which awards for women – and even more so for works of a feminist nature – are sadly used as a whitewash by institutions with a sexist or simply masculinized trajectory, which unfortunately overshadows the true quality of the works. award-winning works. Often we do not talk about the works themselves, but rather the identity of the person who writes them. Which may or may not come up, but what it certainly cannot do is monopolize the entire dialogue. Affirm that there are sexist motivations behind the nominations of Barbie It is living on another planet, inventing insults, distorting reality, and the claim that the protagonists of 'feminist' works should be recognized for being 'the women' in charge of those works is childish and fallacious.
Not only that: the gratuitous discourse about the affront suffered by these women is anything but useful for the new generations. By giving such hype to a supposed patriarchal injustice when it comes to recognizing female talent, we are telling girls this: whatever you do, whatever excellence you achieve, you will never be recognized. They will be, you won't. And meanwhile, no one talks about Justine Triet, director of the wonderful Anatomy of a fallnominated precisely for best director, we don't even remember that just two editions ago Jane Campion, director of The power of the dogand the previous Chloé Zhao for Nomadlandan extraordinary film that also won best film and best actress (Frances McDormand).
And something even more pernicious happens: the discourse of the need to value the works made by women to correct a historical – or contemporary – injustice and not for the specific merits of their production, has very sad consequences. An example looking at my navel: some time ago, a person of great judgment and talent reviewed a book written by me in an important media outlet. The best of the year, she said. The best. When I wrote to thank him, enthusiastically, that person responded with: Nothing! We must support women writers! That was the biggest splash of cold water possible. What was she supposed to understand? That she had valued my writing because she was a young woman who published? That reviewing me was some kind of social work? The thing is that that person had really enjoyed the book, she had loved the prose and the content, but the argument that she chose to give me for her evaluation spoke of my condition as a woman and not of the quality of my novel. That novel received three awards, three!, and regarding all of them I thought, “well, they give them to me for being a young woman.” I didn't even enjoy them, they almost embarrassed me. Now I look back and I really regret having missed all that happiness, all that dream.
We know that there are fewer female film directors than directors because, in general, girls feel more distant and insecure regarding technical learning, because their ambition and independence, their leadership capacity, are less encouraged, because women suffer more problems of work-life balance and greater workload at home, because in short they have less time to dedicate to their career, and more so when it is a discipline that requires so much involvement.
We don't need to invent gender problems within the film discipline. There are a lot of them.
Let's dedicate our energy to talking about the real things.
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