Kenough! Ryan’s the only Barbie star who deserved Oscars nod
Margot wasn’t Robbied. There may be no Ken without Barbie, but the uncomfortable truth is Ryan Gosling was the standout in history’s highest-grossing female-directed flick, says Kerry Parnell.
Opinion
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While it is indeed ironic the lead actress and director of a movie about female empowerment didn’t get an Oscar nomination, despite Barbie becoming the biggest-grossing film of 2023 and female-directed live-action flick of all time, the uncomfortable truth is … Ryan Gosling was the standout in it.
Ryan – who received a Best Supporting Actor nomination — wasn’t just Kenough, he was more than Kenough.
Greta Gerwig absolutely did deserve an Oscar nomination for Best Director, to go alongside the one she received for Best Movie and Best Adapted Screenplay, but, she created a movie which made Ken/Ryan way, way, more than a supporting act.
It was Ken’s story arc, as much as Barbie’s, we followed and by the time we got to his showstopping song, it tipped the balance in his favour.
So good is “I’m Just Ken” (also nominated for Best Song), it really needed a Margot/Barbie ballad to balance it, in my opinion.
Gerwig gave the possible reason there isn’t one in the smash-hit movie, on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “My favourite thing about her is … she can’t sing that well,” she said.
“I made her belt out in Barbie Indigo Girl’s Closer to Fine and she was like, ‘No, don’t make me do this’,” she said.
After the Oscar nominations were announced on Tuesday, social media melted down at the injustice of it all – even Hillary Clinton chimed in, posting, “Greta and Margot, while it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough,” on X.
And Hillary, of all people, knows what it feels like to have her eye on the prize.
Nevertheless, Barbie received eight nominations in total, including Best Film and Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrera. Which is more than you can say for Saltburn, which received a scorching zero.
Perhaps the cult Brit-flick, which has become a sensation on Prime Video, wasn’t the Academy’s cup of tea – or bathwater – but it scored two Golden Globes nods and five Bafta nominations, including Best Film, Best Actor for Barry Keoghan and Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Aussie Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike.
So, writer-director Emerald Fennell shouldn’t be too sick about it, even if we were, after watching some of the scenes.
Gerwig, Robbie and Fennell can take heart from the fact the Oscar snub-list is much more exclusive than its short-list. Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar; Citizen Kane – generally considered the greatest movie of all time – lost Best Picture to the now-forgotten flick How Green Was My Valley in 1942; Martin Scorsese lost over and over, including directing Goodfellas in favour of Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves. Cary Grant never got a gong, either.
Finally, the timeless classic It’s a Wonderful Life, lost out to Best Years of Our Lives in the 1947 Academy Awards.
Despite being nominated for five Oscars, the only award it took home, was a special technical one, for making fake snow.
Even Clarence would agree, that’s cold.
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