Margot Robbie is too blessed to be stressed about Barbie Oscars snub
Margot Robbie is "beyond ecstatic" about the Oscar nominations Barbie got, though she would've liked one for Greta Gerwig
Aux News Barbie
Many fans were offended on Margot Robbie’s behalf that she wasn’t nominated for her acting in Barbie, but Margot Robbie is not. “There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed,” Robbie said during a panel at a SAG screening (via Deadline). “I just suspect it’s bigger than us. It’s bigger than this movie, it’s bigger than our industry.”
Robbie is “beyond ecstatic” about the film’s eight nominations, which includes a Best Picture nod (and by extension Robbie as a producer for the film). “Obviously I think Greta [Gerwig] should be nominated as a director because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is,” Robbie added. “But it’s been an incredible year for all the films.”
“We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact. And it’s already done that, and some, way more than we ever dreamed it would. And that is truly the biggest reward that could come out of all of this,” Robbie asserted. She shared a memory of hearing a group of men discussing the movie in a pub, reflecting, “People’s reactions to the movie have been the biggest reward of this entire experience, whether it’s having a moment like that, or whether it’s listening in the bathrooms, or whether it’s seeing what people are writing online, or even just seeing how much pink I can see in this room right now.”
Robbie remarked that she’d “never been a part of something like this” before. “I’ve done comic book stuff and that gets a big reaction, but this felt very different. It still feels very different,” she said. “And I can’t think of a time when a movie’s had this effect on culture. And it’s amazing to be in the eye of the storm.”
16 Comments
Any sane person would take a producer’s share of the box office on a move that made $1.4 billion over an Oscar nomination. The Oscars are also not the be-all-end-all of movie success – Barbie was the most successful movie of the year, widely critically acclaimed, spawned a million think pieces, has won other awards, and boosted the stars and creators’ careers in ways that will enable them to both make more money and have more creative freedom in their future endeavors. I don’t think that the single-minded obsession with Oscar nominations (and wins) as a measure of validation for films that some fans have is healthy, and I’m glad that it seems like most people who actually work in Hollywood do not share that obsession.
I agree getting an Oscar is neat, but it won’t make me like or dislike an actor or movie for that matter. Also I will say thing cause I do on any article about Robbie, she is a fucking ray of sunshine always a total delight.
This. Winning an Oscar isn’t the best thing. Sometimes it can be the worst thing. Driving Miss Daisy will go down through the years, as the film that won the year Do the Right Thing wasn’t even nominated. Same with How Green Was My Valley winning over Citizen Kane (though HGWMV is a beautiful film in its own right). Lots of great films, and great creators never won competitive Oscars. Name three filmmakers who have won director or Best Picture, who you’d consider better than these five who never were honored as directors: Welles. Altman. Kubrick. Hitchcock. Keaton. And of course, she made an obscene amount of money on the back end. What was it rumored to be? 40 million dollars? And she made a film that will be talked about long after most have forgotten who the winners were in 2024.
I wonder how American Beauty would be regarded if it hadn’t won Best Picture.
Ooh that’s a good question. Time has certainly not been kind to it. Of course a big problem is the presence of Kevin Spacey. That makes it hard to watch now. Let’s say for the sake of arguing that Spacey was still in good standing, and not a horrible SOB. I think had the film not won Best Picture, it might fare a little better, simply because there would be less of a push to reevaluate it. When you win BP, you’re definitely going to wear a target on your back from people wanting to be edgy by saying, “Oh so overrated, what were they thinking!” Same thing happened to the Deer Hunter, which practically from the day it won Best Picture, was being re-evaluated by critics. Even if it hadn’t won Best Picture, but had just been a critical darling, I think it still would be suffering quite a bit of negative re-evaluation because of its dated and problematic themes, and because 1999 was such a strong year for movies, with Fight Club, Magnolia, The Sixth Sense, Toy Story 2, Election, and The Matrix. I think you’d have a case similar to Garden State … critical darling when it came out, but now regarded as an indie relic at best, pretentious twee claptrap at worst.
Funny thing about The Deer Hunter is that Cimino’s next film, Heaven’s Gate, was such a notorious flop that it pretty much bound for a re-evaluation in the other direction, kinda like how Jennifer’s Body’s been getting a re-evaluation after the Juno backlash(is Juno still considered pretentious twee claptrap?).I notice that out of the 1999 films you mentioned, The Sixth Sense was the only one to even get a Best Picture nomination, so I guess the Oscar voters were just having a particularly bad year as far as guessing which movies would endure. Also, looking at Box Office Mojo I notice The Matrix didn’t do as well at the box office as I assumed. Domestically it finished 5th, less than a quarter percent higher than the 6th place finished, which was Tarzan. As you might expect, Phantom Menace finished 1st by a wide margin, with the next three being The Sixth Sense, Toy Story 2, and the second Austin Powers.As far American Beauty goes, my main problem with it is how melodramatic it is, but I think the themes aren’t as problematic as some people make them out to be. It seems to me that for how often people say money can’t buy happiness they often act like they don’t really believe it, and I think the backlash to this movie is an example. Also, I notice people keep mentioning that the protagonist is white(as in “oh, poor victimized white man”), which strikes me as odd since race isn’t really a factor in the story; it’s not like he’s pissed because a black guy beat him out for a promotion or something. I think it’d make more sense to mention that he’s a straight man, since homosexuality actually does come up in the movie.
Yeah I need to read up more on how Juno is regarded today. The main lingering criticism of it that comes to mind is that it has a pro-life agenda. I think the thing with American Beauty is it landed at a time of great prosperity in America, but also a growing cynicism toward the emptiness of the kinds of lives we were told we needed to live. As a kid growing up in the suburbs, it had a certain resonance, a sense of validation. Now that has completely flipped and we’re coming off how many decades of economic instability, and two generations are coming of age in a time where things like owning a home seem downright unimaginable, and that film takes on a different timbre, seeming itself hollow and pretentious.
“Any sane person would take a producer’s share of the box office on a move that made $1.4 billion over an Oscar nomination. I’m not sure anyone was setting it up as an either/or proposition. But that said, Robbie is fine. She has said she’s fine and we have no reason to believe she’s not fine. It’s the right attitude to have. All of us would like certain recognitions but you don’t always get it and, you know, it’s fine because you have everything else you need.
Margot Robbie has a really good chance of winning an Academy Award for acting in the future (and a non-zero percent chance of winning for producing Barbie this year). She’s been nominated twice already and has a pretty good eye for picking projects. I doubt she even went into Barbie thinking she’d be nominated for her performance, so not really surprised.
Barbie was fun. The Oscars don’t like fun movies.
Even when they do, people complain about that, tooPeople whined when Forrest Gump won and when The Artist won.Besides that, though, Barbie wasn’t the best movie of the year. In the same way a Big Mac isn’t the best burger just because the most people liked it.
In a sane world we would be talking less about an imagined snub (a word that implies the actual nominees were less deserving) and more about who did get nominated.
“[O]r whether it’s listening in the bathrooms”.Take this as your regular reminder that no matter where you are in the world, if you’re in a bathroom, Margot Robbie is listening.
We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact. And it’s already done that, and some, way more than we ever dreamed it would. Other than being the most watched movie in cinemas in 2023, what other ways did Barbie affect culture, let alone shift culture? (and I don’t just mean Ferrera’s monologue being used as an audition piece now)
Genuinely wondering. Last I checked the glass ceiling was still a thing.
She. Didn’t. Get. Snubbed.Who did she outperform among the nominees? Bearing in mind Greta Lee was a much bigger snub than her, which TWO nominees are you removing to get Robbie on the list?
Auteur theory has warped people’s minds about filmmaking. Gerwig was nominated for writing the film. That is awesome.