Getting passed over for best director while having made the best picture used to be a somewhat legitimate complaint. But now there are ten films nominated for best picture, and only five for best director. Half the directors are going to be snubbed. It’s just math.
Barbie did receive eight nominations total, so you can hardly say that it was ignored.
I prefer to focus on the fact that the very first Native American woman ever was nominated for best actress this year, and is the favorite to win. That’s something to celebrate.
By the way, I’m a also feminist and something of an activist too, and I couldn’t stand Barbie, and didn’t think much of Gerwig’s Little Women either, although Florence Pugh 100% deserved an Academy nod for that one.
The Academy Awards have a long history of passing over certain talented people, it’s just bad luck. Glenn Close is an obvious one, but there are many more.
Feminists can disagree. Of course! But we agree on Lily Gladstone. She’s transcendent in that movie.
I hadn’t realized that Glen Close never got an Oscar. I was thrilled to get to meet her (did you see my pic with her when I posted it?) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences induction ceremony. And still can’t absorb my being nominated alongside someone like her (although in a different category, of course.)
Susan, great post, and it checks all the boxes for me regarding why Greta Gerwig's snub for a best-director nomination is so sexist. Onion layers, indeed, which ironically is something "Barbie" does well with wit and style and glitter. I don't think it's a perfect movie – representing the executives of Mattel as a bunch of bumbling keystone cops (aka dumb and boring and no threat to anyone) is the only place where Gerwig/Baumbach lost their nerve – but I can't tell you how thrilled I was to watch "Barbie" in a sold-out theater that first weekend. I teared up at America Ferrera's amazing sermon (as you call it) about the impossible challenge of being a woman under patriarchy.
Regarding the value of girldom, of owning who you are rather than becoming an object for men, I recommend Taffy Brodesser-Akner's very long, write-around profile of Taylor Swift and her Eras tour:
Brodesser-Akner is a funny writer, and she makes many points about the nature of celebrity culture and fandom, but the biggest takeaway is her understanding that Swift's appeal is the same as the "Barbie" movie: girl power. I've long enjoyed her music and responded to it in that way (especially "Red," an album that perfectly captures the joys and sorrows and delights of being 22), but even if you don't, you often see Swift's popularity dissed by male critics, including my husband. Funny thing is, I read aloud the Brodesser-Akner article to him one evening, which he enjoyed (it's a good read-aloud), and he said it was the first time he got how deep Swift's appeal might go for women.
I also agree about "Oppenheimer" being overwrought – it was like a cast of a thousand interchangeable scientists and one amazing cinematic scene of a bomb going off. I ended up reading "American Prometheus" after seeing the movie, because I couldn't believe the movie was telling the whole story — and it most certainly wasn't when it comes to women like Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer's conflicted Jewishness, and his actual role as a scientific manager.
I'm not as critical as you are of" Everything, Everywhere All at Once," but the only thing that made that movie work for me was Michelle Yeoh in the lead tole. Otherwise, meh. The message, if there is one, is sophomoric, but for the men in my life, including my 22-year-old Asian son, it was one of the best movies they'd ever seen. So. Representation does matter, but representation is not the reason to get into a hashtag frenzy about whether "Barbie" was good enough to merit a nomination for Gerwig or Robbie. My son also loved "Barbie." :-)
Wow girl, we agree about just about everything! Do we share a brain? Like you, I think the Mattel executive thing was off-the-mark and unworthy of the sharp wit of the rest of the movie. And re. “Oppenheimer,” it really shouldn’t have even been called “Oppenheimer,” as there was so much about him it left out or distorted. (Sort of like “Maestro,” which people rightly complained suffered the most in its portrait of the man himself.) Funny (or not funny) that both films ignore the Jewishness of the main characters, which was so integral to their being. (I had actually mentioned that in an earlier draft of this, but decided it was taking the thing into a full-blown review of Oppenheimer, which I’m saving for my Oscar post.) But re. EEAAO: Even Michelle Yeoh couldn’t redeem that one for me. I disliked it in so many ways—and got a lot of younger FB friends angry with me over it, as they, like your son, loved it.
It amazes me that so many people are so unaware that five men were also killed in the Salem Witch Trials, the moniker of “witch” notwithstanding. They may have been referred to as “warlocks.” Nonetheless, they were killed along with the women for the same reasons. The Salem Witch Trials was not about misogyny. It was about the corruption of character through absolute power -- and it was a warning of what can happen when supposed justice is pursued “by any means necessary.” They couldn’t find solid evidence. So, they admitted “spectral evidence” to achieve convictions, much like is being done today in the “court of Twitter.”
Good points. Arguably, a lot of witch-hunting was directed at women not because they were women but because they were midwives and thus “competitors” for the power over life and death. At least, that’s what I remember reading! It’s been a while!
I'm 100% in agreement, Susan. There's no question that women were the primary target, especially in Europe and the UK where the witch purges were far more brutal and widespread. But for some reason, Americans like to focus in on the Salem Witch Trials as evidence of misogyny. Did misogyny exist? Yes, absolutely. There's even a theory that the reason the girls (the primary accusers) did what they did is because they because seduced by experience of wielding power (girls in Puritan society were completely powerless). Nonetheless, it was the girls who made the accusations and a faction of Salem Village, supported by pastors and local politicians, who approved of killing the other half of the village. It's also interesting to note that while many of the women were considered "outside of the fold," Rebecca Nurse most definitely was not. She was a religious "pillar of the community" who nonetheless was hung. And George Burroughs, also accused and hung, was the former pastor of the very same church that prosecuted the victims. No identity was safe. If your were accused by the girls, you were as good as dead.
Only by proxy. I’m an avid reader of history. I became interested in Salem after the 1993 memorial was opened. The fonts of great information were books authored by historians as follows: “In the Devil’s Snare,” by Mary Beth Horton, “Delusion of Satan,” by Francis Hill, “A Storm of Witchcraft,” by Emerson W Baker, and Salem Possessed,” by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem is a fascinating town to visit once you get past the commercialization of witch mania. There are some poignant monuments, memorials, and cenotaphs there. It’s the ultimate irony that Salem, a town that originally sought to eradicate anything “witch” is now financially dependent on “witch” tourism.
I’m glad I will never know what I would have thought of the Barbie movie if I hadn’t been reading your posts. My anti-corporate anti-big-movie anti-CGI impulses are more deeply ingrained than my pro-feminism ones. (I think prejudices are often rooted in a way that our better angels are not.)
But the aesthetic things I didn’t love about the Barbie movie did not keep me from thinking it was great. I did enjoy seeing this kind of movie aesthetic used for a feminism story rather than just the smashing of buildings.
And I can’t recall any movie where a polemic was better integrated into a good story with wit AND kindness. It’s biting satire but also surprisingly generous toward the men it satirizes. Not easy to maintain a balance like that; I can’t think of a comparable example. I see the script as the largest achievement here, and I agree that the “based on a previous etc.” is a horseshit characterization.
My lack of enthusiasm for splashy CGI movies notwithstanding, the directing of this film was obviously a monumental achievement. I don’t see how anyone misses that, unless they aren’t able to detect anything of value in the story and ideas. If ALL big splashy CGI movies were snubbed by the Oscars, I could live with that. But I don’t think that’s the case; if we’re going to call it good directing when you direct a movie of that sort, then the Barbie direction ought to be recognized.
A little more about movie snobbery that isn’t specifically sexist-- I’m sure you know that comedies have always been undervalued by the Oscars. I don’t argue that this demonstrates that sexism wasn’t the main issue here, but I suspect the snobbish prejudice against comedy didn’t help. And of course the anti-comedy thing is inapt here, anyway, because it’s a deeply serious film.
It’s a comedy, too—and that’s part of what makes it so brilliantly disarming. Along with the wit and—as you point out, and I think it’s extremely important—kindness. A critique of patriarchy done with kindness—pretty fucking unusual!! And yeah, the snob thing certainly does extend to comedy.
Spot on. Pauline Kael would have relished Barbie. People don’t watch movies or TV shows to be awed by Importance with a capital I. They want to be amused, amazed, moved, drawn into lives and worlds. They want to FEEL. No work of art is going to stop climate change or bring peace to the Middle East. The power of art is the portal it opens to feeling. Barbie opened the portal. Oppenheimer, not so much. Awareness of emotional connection to other humans is not trivial. In the age of AI, it matters more than ever. I didn’t mean to go on and on about this but you kindled a feeling with this post.
NO, go on and on. It’s the absolute truth! Makes me think we should collaborate on a post about the power of feeling in art. Love “The power of art is the portal it opens to feeling.”
Yes, Pauline would have relished Barbie. She is always the voice whispering in my ear. Has been since I started writing.
Thanks for such a great post. When I completely revamped the entire philosophy curriculum a few years before I left academia, I did so by including as many voices as I could that had previously been erased, silenced, or otherwise marginalized for not "really being philosophers" or "being philosophical enough." I was transparent about this to my students (and colleagues). _Barbie_ was released during my last semester of teaching, and my philosophy students were SO ready for the film. Several of them commented "and you JUST KNOW that it's not going to get the awards it deserves, and that they'll nominate Gosling and not Robbie." GenZ knows their shit.
Regarding auteurist theory, historically it has very particularly valorized singularity of vision and style (as depth of vision through technique and form), even when the material was *popular* in appeal or considerd a "woman's film." Very much regardless of those qualities. The veneration of Douglas Sirk offers a prime example. In almost any case but especially when the director is a writer of the screenplay (and, in synthesis, with such totality of vision) a best film nomination, let alone best film and screenplay, without best director as well is completely unsupportable.
You’re right. But the film-guys that I grew up with wouldn’t be caught dead watching one of Sirk’s movies, and were more into Goddard, Hitchcock and other auteurs less woman-friendly. And Todd Haines’ movies (as you know, very much influenced by Sirk) haven’t been as well-received as I think they deserve. I loved “May December” (Though not as much as “Far From Heaven”) but most critics didn’t get it.
That divide is there certainly, though I think Scorsese, and in the past Truffaut, would wax rhapsodic about Sirk. I made a project last year of re/visiting all the major Sirk. The formal control was a great pleasure but in the end for me the films don't rise above their melodrama, though Written on the Wind is deliriously bravura melodrama. I'm with you on Haines. Love both those films.
Haha. We really do write about the much the same thing. Here's the piece I wrote just after the film came out, which, as you can see, adds irony to the Oscar snub.
While I found the film flawed...although less so than Oppenheimer, which I also wrote about, Gerwig definitely did a better job than Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorsese, who has become so self-indulgent as to reduce himself to caricature. But, also as you will see, angry women are best defense against another term for Donald Trump. So, old white men, keep it coming...November is not that far off.
Looking forward to reading your piece! Especially interested in your criticisms of “Oppenheimer.” I really disliked that movie. Will write again after I read your piece….
I totally agree that Greta was snubbed and that the Academy has long been a bastion of snobbish, elite, mostly male, mostly old, clubsters. I did not love the movie, myself. I almost didn't watch it because my personal aversion to anything "Barbie" was deeply ingrained. I finally watched it with a gal friend, and while I appreciated it's wit and message, it felt too much like a cartoon version of an early '80's class in feminism I took when I went back to college. For all the sly social references I had to Google clever jabs, I still felt a bit like someone distrusted my intelligence and had to spoon feed me the right way to think.
I also don't agree with your review of Oppenheimer. I don't think I respected this film because I'm a brainwashed female catering to male points of view. Honestly, Oppenheimer touched me profoundly as a statement about our current situation on a worldwide stage. I see us inching toward a bomb and I see many of us agonized at the choices we are given. I wasn't as interested in the personal relations as the overall result. So, as much as I enjoy your posts, we differ.
I agree: “Vive la difference!” I’ll write about what I dislike so much about Oppenheimer in more detail when I do my Oscar round-up. It’s NOT because it’s a male point of view.
I would say you have to be a certain type to get an Oscar. Be white, young, attractive, and non-feminist. Do not stray from these stereotypes and do not threaten men's world. If it was not the case, Sigourney Weaver and Glenn Close would already have an Oscar.
The only critic worse than Anthony Lane is Richard Brody.
Sharp thinking as always, Susan. Kudos and thanks for a great read. I liked this movie very much, but it took me a while to get to it because of all the pink and shiny stuff. I equate this palette with airheadedness, Kate Perry, and half a dozen other things from mass culture that turn me off. Luckily, my curiosity got the better of me. :) This movie will become a classic. That will be Greta's revenge.
Barbie was many things at once, perfectly encapsulated in Helen Mirren's voice-over line about mis-casting Margo Robbie to make a point about unrealistic standards of beauty. The line that befuddled New Yorker critic Anthony Lane.
I did see one legitimate criticism by people who were not exposed to the toy in either their child or adult life and thus needed a translator -- their spouse -- who paused the movie every ten minutes to explain the background.
I once owned a "growing-up Skipper". And I instantly recognized "Weird Barbie" from the buried trails of my nearly primordial brain, leaving now-me unable to identify which playmate introduced me to her. So I dared, and took uninterpretated pleasure in the viewing of Gerwig's & Baumbach's masterpiece.
We share a non-social-media brain, which is even better - no thumbs up, thumbs down, some disagreements, but we both enjoy talking through our points with evidence - I much appreciate a good, nuanced, feminist conversation 👏
Susan, you are the closest thing to a mom that i have ever had. You don't know how real those words are :'( What i mean is - moms (or their daughter(s) have boasted online about putting the infant son/brother in the girls old baby dresses and used kodaks/camcorder/cameraphones to still picture or film the baby boy crawling around in a girl's dress even though they know damn well a baby can't consent and the son will feel humiliated when he is old enough to express consent about what happened. At the very least the daughter(s) will very likely have made taunts at their oblivious infant brother as he crawled around in say a pink baby dress with pink ribbons in his hair. We have enough trouble convincing people that all we want is equality.
I was soured on organized feminism - even if i hadn't had a abusive asshole for a real life mom - after i realized that once you release an ideology you can no longer control it - well known feminist figures in a offline org (their leader regularly appears on citywide and statewide media) on a BBS online talked about how they (or they and their daughters) put their infant sons in baby dresses and took photos/video, knowing perfectly well their son/brother would feel emasculated and humiliated once he was old enough - and they did it anyway. These kinds of little things have been going on for decades so It's not surprising that Amy over at feminist dot com said, "I actually think that feminism's goal is to liberate boys as much as it is to liberate girls, but I think that we have had to work with girls first - or at least they've been an easier target". (https://www.feminist.com/askamy/
I don’t remember any feminists (that I know of, anyway) doing this here. Although there certainly was a time when “gender-neutral” clothes were a big thing. Who are you thinking of? There have always been plenty of reasons to be soured on organized political movements (including some offshoots of feminism) but I don’t remember this.
I'm sorry, Susan. You are the closest i have had to a genuine mom in my life- most of my life since i came of age has been... well scarily accurate for any survivor of childhood abuse
I look at a lot of the internet. Given the medical thing done to me in infancy and my own asshole of a mom in real life - i keep a close eye on fringe dwellers of the left and the right. Especially since the October pogrom i have felt so vulnerable.
Getting passed over for best director while having made the best picture used to be a somewhat legitimate complaint. But now there are ten films nominated for best picture, and only five for best director. Half the directors are going to be snubbed. It’s just math.
Barbie did receive eight nominations total, so you can hardly say that it was ignored.
I prefer to focus on the fact that the very first Native American woman ever was nominated for best actress this year, and is the favorite to win. That’s something to celebrate.
By the way, I’m a also feminist and something of an activist too, and I couldn’t stand Barbie, and didn’t think much of Gerwig’s Little Women either, although Florence Pugh 100% deserved an Academy nod for that one.
The Academy Awards have a long history of passing over certain talented people, it’s just bad luck. Glenn Close is an obvious one, but there are many more.
Feminists can disagree. Of course! But we agree on Lily Gladstone. She’s transcendent in that movie.
I hadn’t realized that Glen Close never got an Oscar. I was thrilled to get to meet her (did you see my pic with her when I posted it?) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences induction ceremony. And still can’t absorb my being nominated alongside someone like her (although in a different category, of course.)
Susan, great post, and it checks all the boxes for me regarding why Greta Gerwig's snub for a best-director nomination is so sexist. Onion layers, indeed, which ironically is something "Barbie" does well with wit and style and glitter. I don't think it's a perfect movie – representing the executives of Mattel as a bunch of bumbling keystone cops (aka dumb and boring and no threat to anyone) is the only place where Gerwig/Baumbach lost their nerve – but I can't tell you how thrilled I was to watch "Barbie" in a sold-out theater that first weekend. I teared up at America Ferrera's amazing sermon (as you call it) about the impossible challenge of being a woman under patriarchy.
Regarding the value of girldom, of owning who you are rather than becoming an object for men, I recommend Taffy Brodesser-Akner's very long, write-around profile of Taylor Swift and her Eras tour:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/magazine/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html
Brodesser-Akner is a funny writer, and she makes many points about the nature of celebrity culture and fandom, but the biggest takeaway is her understanding that Swift's appeal is the same as the "Barbie" movie: girl power. I've long enjoyed her music and responded to it in that way (especially "Red," an album that perfectly captures the joys and sorrows and delights of being 22), but even if you don't, you often see Swift's popularity dissed by male critics, including my husband. Funny thing is, I read aloud the Brodesser-Akner article to him one evening, which he enjoyed (it's a good read-aloud), and he said it was the first time he got how deep Swift's appeal might go for women.
I also agree about "Oppenheimer" being overwrought – it was like a cast of a thousand interchangeable scientists and one amazing cinematic scene of a bomb going off. I ended up reading "American Prometheus" after seeing the movie, because I couldn't believe the movie was telling the whole story — and it most certainly wasn't when it comes to women like Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer's conflicted Jewishness, and his actual role as a scientific manager.
I'm not as critical as you are of" Everything, Everywhere All at Once," but the only thing that made that movie work for me was Michelle Yeoh in the lead tole. Otherwise, meh. The message, if there is one, is sophomoric, but for the men in my life, including my 22-year-old Asian son, it was one of the best movies they'd ever seen. So. Representation does matter, but representation is not the reason to get into a hashtag frenzy about whether "Barbie" was good enough to merit a nomination for Gerwig or Robbie. My son also loved "Barbie." :-)
Wow girl, we agree about just about everything! Do we share a brain? Like you, I think the Mattel executive thing was off-the-mark and unworthy of the sharp wit of the rest of the movie. And re. “Oppenheimer,” it really shouldn’t have even been called “Oppenheimer,” as there was so much about him it left out or distorted. (Sort of like “Maestro,” which people rightly complained suffered the most in its portrait of the man himself.) Funny (or not funny) that both films ignore the Jewishness of the main characters, which was so integral to their being. (I had actually mentioned that in an earlier draft of this, but decided it was taking the thing into a full-blown review of Oppenheimer, which I’m saving for my Oscar post.) But re. EEAAO: Even Michelle Yeoh couldn’t redeem that one for me. I disliked it in so many ways—and got a lot of younger FB friends angry with me over it, as they, like your son, loved it.
It amazes me that so many people are so unaware that five men were also killed in the Salem Witch Trials, the moniker of “witch” notwithstanding. They may have been referred to as “warlocks.” Nonetheless, they were killed along with the women for the same reasons. The Salem Witch Trials was not about misogyny. It was about the corruption of character through absolute power -- and it was a warning of what can happen when supposed justice is pursued “by any means necessary.” They couldn’t find solid evidence. So, they admitted “spectral evidence” to achieve convictions, much like is being done today in the “court of Twitter.”
Good points. Arguably, a lot of witch-hunting was directed at women not because they were women but because they were midwives and thus “competitors” for the power over life and death. At least, that’s what I remember reading! It’s been a while!
I'm 100% in agreement, Susan. There's no question that women were the primary target, especially in Europe and the UK where the witch purges were far more brutal and widespread. But for some reason, Americans like to focus in on the Salem Witch Trials as evidence of misogyny. Did misogyny exist? Yes, absolutely. There's even a theory that the reason the girls (the primary accusers) did what they did is because they because seduced by experience of wielding power (girls in Puritan society were completely powerless). Nonetheless, it was the girls who made the accusations and a faction of Salem Village, supported by pastors and local politicians, who approved of killing the other half of the village. It's also interesting to note that while many of the women were considered "outside of the fold," Rebecca Nurse most definitely was not. She was a religious "pillar of the community" who nonetheless was hung. And George Burroughs, also accused and hung, was the former pastor of the very same church that prosecuted the victims. No identity was safe. If your were accused by the girls, you were as good as dead.
You are a font of great info on this! Is it an area of yours?
Only by proxy. I’m an avid reader of history. I became interested in Salem after the 1993 memorial was opened. The fonts of great information were books authored by historians as follows: “In the Devil’s Snare,” by Mary Beth Horton, “Delusion of Satan,” by Francis Hill, “A Storm of Witchcraft,” by Emerson W Baker, and Salem Possessed,” by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem is a fascinating town to visit once you get past the commercialization of witch mania. There are some poignant monuments, memorials, and cenotaphs there. It’s the ultimate irony that Salem, a town that originally sought to eradicate anything “witch” is now financially dependent on “witch” tourism.
I’m glad I will never know what I would have thought of the Barbie movie if I hadn’t been reading your posts. My anti-corporate anti-big-movie anti-CGI impulses are more deeply ingrained than my pro-feminism ones. (I think prejudices are often rooted in a way that our better angels are not.)
But the aesthetic things I didn’t love about the Barbie movie did not keep me from thinking it was great. I did enjoy seeing this kind of movie aesthetic used for a feminism story rather than just the smashing of buildings.
And I can’t recall any movie where a polemic was better integrated into a good story with wit AND kindness. It’s biting satire but also surprisingly generous toward the men it satirizes. Not easy to maintain a balance like that; I can’t think of a comparable example. I see the script as the largest achievement here, and I agree that the “based on a previous etc.” is a horseshit characterization.
My lack of enthusiasm for splashy CGI movies notwithstanding, the directing of this film was obviously a monumental achievement. I don’t see how anyone misses that, unless they aren’t able to detect anything of value in the story and ideas. If ALL big splashy CGI movies were snubbed by the Oscars, I could live with that. But I don’t think that’s the case; if we’re going to call it good directing when you direct a movie of that sort, then the Barbie direction ought to be recognized.
A little more about movie snobbery that isn’t specifically sexist-- I’m sure you know that comedies have always been undervalued by the Oscars. I don’t argue that this demonstrates that sexism wasn’t the main issue here, but I suspect the snobbish prejudice against comedy didn’t help. And of course the anti-comedy thing is inapt here, anyway, because it’s a deeply serious film.
It’s a comedy, too—and that’s part of what makes it so brilliantly disarming. Along with the wit and—as you point out, and I think it’s extremely important—kindness. A critique of patriarchy done with kindness—pretty fucking unusual!! And yeah, the snob thing certainly does extend to comedy.
Spot on. Pauline Kael would have relished Barbie. People don’t watch movies or TV shows to be awed by Importance with a capital I. They want to be amused, amazed, moved, drawn into lives and worlds. They want to FEEL. No work of art is going to stop climate change or bring peace to the Middle East. The power of art is the portal it opens to feeling. Barbie opened the portal. Oppenheimer, not so much. Awareness of emotional connection to other humans is not trivial. In the age of AI, it matters more than ever. I didn’t mean to go on and on about this but you kindled a feeling with this post.
NO, go on and on. It’s the absolute truth! Makes me think we should collaborate on a post about the power of feeling in art. Love “The power of art is the portal it opens to feeling.”
Yes, Pauline would have relished Barbie. She is always the voice whispering in my ear. Has been since I started writing.
Love to. Can we DM via Substack or do we have to use Messenger?
I’ve never DM’d with substack, so Messenger would be a better bet.
Thanks for such a great post. When I completely revamped the entire philosophy curriculum a few years before I left academia, I did so by including as many voices as I could that had previously been erased, silenced, or otherwise marginalized for not "really being philosophers" or "being philosophical enough." I was transparent about this to my students (and colleagues). _Barbie_ was released during my last semester of teaching, and my philosophy students were SO ready for the film. Several of them commented "and you JUST KNOW that it's not going to get the awards it deserves, and that they'll nominate Gosling and not Robbie." GenZ knows their shit.
Regarding auteurist theory, historically it has very particularly valorized singularity of vision and style (as depth of vision through technique and form), even when the material was *popular* in appeal or considerd a "woman's film." Very much regardless of those qualities. The veneration of Douglas Sirk offers a prime example. In almost any case but especially when the director is a writer of the screenplay (and, in synthesis, with such totality of vision) a best film nomination, let alone best film and screenplay, without best director as well is completely unsupportable.
You’re right. But the film-guys that I grew up with wouldn’t be caught dead watching one of Sirk’s movies, and were more into Goddard, Hitchcock and other auteurs less woman-friendly. And Todd Haines’ movies (as you know, very much influenced by Sirk) haven’t been as well-received as I think they deserve. I loved “May December” (Though not as much as “Far From Heaven”) but most critics didn’t get it.
That divide is there certainly, though I think Scorsese, and in the past Truffaut, would wax rhapsodic about Sirk. I made a project last year of re/visiting all the major Sirk. The formal control was a great pleasure but in the end for me the films don't rise above their melodrama, though Written on the Wind is deliriously bravura melodrama. I'm with you on Haines. Love both those films.
Yes, those Sirk movies don’t stand up very well except, as you put it, if you’re in the mood for “bravura melodrama.” Imitation of Life—OY!!!
Haha. We really do write about the much the same thing. Here's the piece I wrote just after the film came out, which, as you can see, adds irony to the Oscar snub.
https://lawrencegoldstone.substack.com/p/barbie-the-political-firebrand
While I found the film flawed...although less so than Oppenheimer, which I also wrote about, Gerwig definitely did a better job than Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorsese, who has become so self-indulgent as to reduce himself to caricature. But, also as you will see, angry women are best defense against another term for Donald Trump. So, old white men, keep it coming...November is not that far off.
Looking forward to reading your piece! Especially interested in your criticisms of “Oppenheimer.” I really disliked that movie. Will write again after I read your piece….
Cool. Here's the Oppenheimer
https://lawrencegoldstone.substack.com/p/oppenheimer-dark-knight-in-real-life
I totally agree that Greta was snubbed and that the Academy has long been a bastion of snobbish, elite, mostly male, mostly old, clubsters. I did not love the movie, myself. I almost didn't watch it because my personal aversion to anything "Barbie" was deeply ingrained. I finally watched it with a gal friend, and while I appreciated it's wit and message, it felt too much like a cartoon version of an early '80's class in feminism I took when I went back to college. For all the sly social references I had to Google clever jabs, I still felt a bit like someone distrusted my intelligence and had to spoon feed me the right way to think.
I also don't agree with your review of Oppenheimer. I don't think I respected this film because I'm a brainwashed female catering to male points of view. Honestly, Oppenheimer touched me profoundly as a statement about our current situation on a worldwide stage. I see us inching toward a bomb and I see many of us agonized at the choices we are given. I wasn't as interested in the personal relations as the overall result. So, as much as I enjoy your posts, we differ.
vive la différence!
I agree: “Vive la difference!” I’ll write about what I dislike so much about Oppenheimer in more detail when I do my Oscar round-up. It’s NOT because it’s a male point of view.
I look forward to it!
I would say you have to be a certain type to get an Oscar. Be white, young, attractive, and non-feminist. Do not stray from these stereotypes and do not threaten men's world. If it was not the case, Sigourney Weaver and Glenn Close would already have an Oscar.
The only critic worse than Anthony Lane is Richard Brody.
Sharp thinking as always, Susan. Kudos and thanks for a great read. I liked this movie very much, but it took me a while to get to it because of all the pink and shiny stuff. I equate this palette with airheadedness, Kate Perry, and half a dozen other things from mass culture that turn me off. Luckily, my curiosity got the better of me. :) This movie will become a classic. That will be Greta's revenge.
Barbie was many things at once, perfectly encapsulated in Helen Mirren's voice-over line about mis-casting Margo Robbie to make a point about unrealistic standards of beauty. The line that befuddled New Yorker critic Anthony Lane.
I did see one legitimate criticism by people who were not exposed to the toy in either their child or adult life and thus needed a translator -- their spouse -- who paused the movie every ten minutes to explain the background.
I once owned a "growing-up Skipper". And I instantly recognized "Weird Barbie" from the buried trails of my nearly primordial brain, leaving now-me unable to identify which playmate introduced me to her. So I dared, and took uninterpretated pleasure in the viewing of Gerwig's & Baumbach's masterpiece.
We share a non-social-media brain, which is even better - no thumbs up, thumbs down, some disagreements, but we both enjoy talking through our points with evidence - I much appreciate a good, nuanced, feminist conversation 👏
I'm sorry. I get clingy to kind people. Had so little of it for so long.
Susan, you are the closest thing to a mom that i have ever had. You don't know how real those words are :'( What i mean is - moms (or their daughter(s) have boasted online about putting the infant son/brother in the girls old baby dresses and used kodaks/camcorder/cameraphones to still picture or film the baby boy crawling around in a girl's dress even though they know damn well a baby can't consent and the son will feel humiliated when he is old enough to express consent about what happened. At the very least the daughter(s) will very likely have made taunts at their oblivious infant brother as he crawled around in say a pink baby dress with pink ribbons in his hair. We have enough trouble convincing people that all we want is equality.
I was soured on organized feminism - even if i hadn't had a abusive asshole for a real life mom - after i realized that once you release an ideology you can no longer control it - well known feminist figures in a offline org (their leader regularly appears on citywide and statewide media) on a BBS online talked about how they (or they and their daughters) put their infant sons in baby dresses and took photos/video, knowing perfectly well their son/brother would feel emasculated and humiliated once he was old enough - and they did it anyway. These kinds of little things have been going on for decades so It's not surprising that Amy over at feminist dot com said, "I actually think that feminism's goal is to liberate boys as much as it is to liberate girls, but I think that we have had to work with girls first - or at least they've been an easier target". (https://www.feminist.com/askamy/
I don’t remember any feminists (that I know of, anyway) doing this here. Although there certainly was a time when “gender-neutral” clothes were a big thing. Who are you thinking of? There have always been plenty of reasons to be soured on organized political movements (including some offshoots of feminism) but I don’t remember this.
I'm sorry, Susan. You are the closest i have had to a genuine mom in my life- most of my life since i came of age has been... well scarily accurate for any survivor of childhood abuse
There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who is sorry. I’ll make it up to you if you DM me your address.
iambarbaraanne@yahoo.com
I mean your home address.
sorry i was confused. I apologize.
I look at a lot of the internet. Given the medical thing done to me in infancy and my own asshole of a mom in real life - i keep a close eye on fringe dwellers of the left and the right. Especially since the October pogrom i have felt so vulnerable.