Did 'Barbie' Direct Itself?

It's a good question!

Greta Gerwig directs Ryan “I’m Just Ken” Gosling in Barbie. (Source)

This morning, at the crack of dawn, the 2024 Oscar nominations were announced in California. I love award shows — the pomp, the pretension, the fashion, the shameless campaigning, and yes, the films! — and so I looked forward to watching Meg Ryan’s son, Jack Quaid, reveal the nominees’ names live from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. I hoped that my favorites would make the cut. I had a gut feeling that Greta Gerwig might get snubbed in the directors’ category.

I did not want to be right. But once again, for the second time in a row, Gerwig’s name was curiously absent from the Best Directing roster.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had overlooked her for Little Women in 2020 and now Barbie, a monumental artistic and commercial success that boosted the summer box office and got people back into movie theaters again. It also got people talking and debating and wearing hot pink en masse. Gerwig, the first woman to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales, transformed what could have been a conventional comedy — a forgettable piece of plastic intellectual property — into a dazzling, daring work of art. She took a very big swing and she hit one out of the park. She steered Barbie toward a whopping eight Oscar nods, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (for Ryan Gosling) and Best Supporting Actress (for America Ferrera). Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach earned a screenwriting nod.

Even so, her fellow filmmakers looked at her achievement and went, Nope.

Gerwig had worthy competition. The Academy nominated these fine directors: Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer), Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest), Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) and Justine Triet, who helmed Anatomy of a Fall — an excellent courtroom drama, though I blame it for getting “P.I.M.P.” stuck in my head for a week straight. All deserve the recognition. But where was the love for Gerwig, one of the most influential artists in the entertainment industry?

She first gained fame in front of the camera, acting in the dramedies Greenberg and Frances Ha, collaborations with Baumbach. In 2018, her directorial debut, Lady Bird, scored Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Directing. That film, a coming-of-age story about an irreverent teen girl, had a cool literary style and tone that suited highbrow tastes. It grossed $79 million worldwide. Gerwig’s follow-up, Little Women, nearly tripled that amount, collecting a global tally of $219 million. The Academy handed the much-loved adaptation a spot on the Best Picture list but rejected its director; the voting body, apparently writing off her work as feminine popcorn fluff rather than serious cinema, had closed ranks. This pattern continues with Barbie, which will compete for the big prize alongside Oppenheimer, which will surely win it and by a long shot. A prediction that, ironically, also echoes the thesis of Barbie. As Gerwig conveyed, a woman can be all the things — in her case, an actress, a writer, a director, an economic powerhouse, a Brand — and still only manage to best Christopher Nolan in the bracket of Too Much/Never Enough.

For actresses, the transition to film directing has long been a career pivot that keeps them working in Hollywood at a high level as they age out of ingénue roles. Thirty years and forever ago, Penny Marshall and Barbra Streisand knew how to run a set, coax great performances from their casts, entertain audiences and sell a lot of movie tickets. But while the Academy acknowledged the directors’ popular, heartfelt dramas, Awakenings and The Prince of Tides, respectively, for Best Picture, the institution blocked the women from winning awards for excelling at their main job.

Streisand, classy as ever, attended the Oscars’ 1992 ceremony, where her Prince of Tides lost to The Silence of the Lambs. In his opening monologue, host Billy Crystal crooned, “Seven nominations on the shelf — did this film direct itself?” Watch history repeat at the 7:15-minute mark: