Let’s take our eyes off Margot’s hot pink bod and admit Barbie’s really not Oscar material
Margot Robbie is a formidable star, not a formidable actor. And before you accuse me of sexism, I think the same about Bradley Cooper.
Times like this are always incredibly difficult for me. I very much have to “hold”, as the stars say, “space” for myself. As I read the papers, take in the reviews, suck up the tears, the confusion, the recrimination – even listen to Hillary Clinton, of all people, weebling on about it – it literally takes all the strength I have in my soul to centre myself, exhale and resist screaming, “WELL, I TOLD YOU SO ABOUT BARBIE!”
Last week I could really feel my stigmata pulsing.
If you missed it: there has been howling, helium anger that the frothing pink juggernaut has not been given more Oscar “noms”. Ryan Gosling, in particular, nominated for his role as Ken, said he was “disappointed” neither Greta Gerwig, the film’s director, nor Margot Robbie, its star, had been given a nod. Even Clinton, a terminally bescarfed harbinger of absolute wrongness, messaged the pair publicly to say it can “sting to win the box office but not take home the gold”.
What?
I looked at all the wailing statements from these spoilt, painted clowns – collective wealth: probably five times that of the female workforce of Venezuela – and just thought, who are these women? It is amazing how one moment we can be told how fearless and strong they are – Gerwig, for example: an “icon”; Clinton: a “feminist legend” – only to see them crater into bawling, hissy, tantruming messes the moment they slightly don’t get what they want. Just imagine being given only eight nominations for your $US1.5bn ($2.3bn)-grossing film – the horror! As for “winning box office”, Hillary, you lost – get over it.
Reading back over my two-star review of this “feminist” four-flush floater of a film, in which Gosling, a man, was the best thing, I can’t help but think: but what makes him, an intelligent person, actually think Gerwig deserves an Oscar – if, genuinely, he does, and he isn’t just saying it to promote himself and win his gong?
Look at the directors in that category: Jonathan Glazer, Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos, Martin Scorsese. These men – even if you don’t like their films – are exceptional directors. Glazer, in particular, created two outstanding films in one last year – one you see, and one you hear – with his devastating and brilliant Holocaust film, The Zone of Interest.
Not a single death happens on camera, even though it is set in the camp commandant’s house, next to Auschwitz. But every second of the extraordinary soundtrack invades with thuds, muted screams, cracks of shotguns, rumbling on and on, like an interminable – well, not funfair, more horrorfair. Glazer had every inch of Auschwitz mapped out to create a soundscape; he made a film entirely in German, even though he doesn’t speak a word.
What did Gerwig do? Telephone Dua Lipa?
As for Robbie, I don’t think we even need to indulge the vanity that she should have been nominated. She’s a formidable star – but not a formidable actor. Is she even capable of an Oscar-winning performance? No – not even if she eventually wins one. And before you accuse me of sexism, I think the same about Bradley Cooper.
In my original review I wondered if Gerwig was in fact embarrassed by the film: an arthouse director taking the Barbie dollar (Mattel funded it). As a film, it is incredible in its dishonesty: none of the women appearing in it truly believes Barbie, who looks like a sex toy, is/can be radical or progressive, so why are they pretending she is? Because Mattel paid them? I mean: positions don’t get more kickass feminist than that.
Why are they now, again, pretending they think the film deserves a best director nomination? Because, again, they buy into themselves so much they think whatever they feel is just great? And because Mattel told them to? It’s true the toy company is delighted – the film has been put back into cinemas.
It’s funny how noise around a cultural event can have the opposite effect of what it says it’s trying to achieve. Black Panther, for example: you were racist if you didn’t endorse it. But was it a good film? Was it good for black actors? No. It was part of a fleeting, cynical Hollywood flirtation with African-American culture that ended when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.
As for Barbie: you’re sexist if you don’t think it is fantastic, or point out it was badly plotted and messy. But wasn’t it? And isn’t anyone who seeks to hide this obfuscating what really matters, which is quality and ability? By perverting this argument, by pushing an insidious nonsense narrative to achieve what it otherwise wouldn’t, Barbie in fact makes things far worse for women in Hollywood. While we are getting dragged into Harley Quinn’s self-pity party, for example, look what’s flying under the radar.
Annette Bening, a frontrunner in the best actress category, plays a champion swimmer trying to come to terms with the fact she is old and shrivelled. I call this the Julianne Moore Dying Woman memorial role: Moore, veteran of incredible performances in The Big Lebowski and Far from Heaven, actually won for Still Alice, a forgettable film in which she played a dementia patient who wet herself.
Carey Mulligan, another popular contender, plays the ultimate Hollywood female in Maestro: the wife of Leonard Bernstein, who suffers through his humiliating infidelities – and is lionised for doing so! – before doing the decent thing and dying of cancer, thereby providing this distinctly slight film with an actual Hollywood ending.
Women are still being rewarded for playing maids, victims, long-suffering wives who are born to die. They are still not being given space to spend 10 years on a film, or build a 600-hour sound library. I mean, who is a leading feminist director today? Sofia Coppola? Oh dear. Will Barbie change any of this? No.
The Sunday Times