Since its launch in July 2023, Barbie has revamped $2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of final yr. Followers flocked to cinemas wearing glittery pink outfits, Sydney’s Icebergs pool was decked out with a Barbie decal and Barbiecore took over most main style runways. Abruptly, it actually was a Barbie world.
For that reason, American commerce publications together with Selection predicted the potential continuation of Barbenheimer fever, reporting each movies may declare greatest image of their respective genres, and that Barbie may snatch awards for its screenplay and Ryan Gosling’s “Ken-ergy”. Our personal masthead additionally predicted a golden evening for the Warner Bros. movie.
Greta Gerwig missed out on greatest comedy/musical, greatest screenplay and greatest director on the 81st Golden Globes.Credit score: AP
However alas, it solely walked away (flat-footed) with prizes for greatest authentic music and the field workplace achievement award – a vaguely conceived new class that left many viewers puzzled over its intention. The “flashier” awards, comparable to greatest director, greatest screenplay, greatest actor/actress and greatest image eluded it.
On the floor, it seems to be a serious snub. Nonetheless, award exhibits have by no means presupposed to honour the most well-liked movies of the yr.
The winners are, in fact, reflections of the judges and their values, and within the case of the Golden Globes that’s critics and journalists. And it’s protected to say critics didn’t heat to Barbie fairly as a lot as the common viewer.
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This masthead’s evaluation learn: “The movie is buoyed by jokes, but heavy with speeches, vibrant with fantastical dazzle, however dulled by its real-world sequences, which, as compared with Barbieland, feel and appear perfunctory.”
Others expressed comparable gripes, such because the Vulture critic, who described it as “defensive” and “emotionally inert”. Although most critiques praised Robbie and Gosling’s performances, in addition to the cartoonish set design and Gerwig’s self-aware script (written alongside her husband, Noah Baumbach), most reached the identical conclusion: it was in the end a movie produced to serve a model: Mattel.
Contemplating journalists and critics vote on the awards, Barbie’s underperformance won’t be that stunning. And although the Globes have lengthy been thought-about the marginally much less critical sister of the Oscars, one take a look at the nominations and winners this yr (a lot of that are arthouse options, comparable to Poor Issues or Anatomy of a Fall) signifies it needs to undertake a extra essential and fewer mainstream method.
Produce other movies suffered an identical destiny?
Among the most profitable movies in historical past have confronted comparable losses at main award exhibits, which means Barbie is, not less than, in good firm.
Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985) was nominated for 5 Globes, however solely took residence one for Whoopi Goldberg’s efficiency as Celie Johnson. It misplaced to Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa, which has largely been consigned to historical past.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis in 2002’s Gangs of New York.
The Godfather Half III (1990) confronted disappointment on the Globes in 1991, claiming zero prizes from seven nods. A number of years later, one other crime hit, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002), ended the evening with only one win – greatest director – out of 5 nominations, together with greatest image which controversially went to Roman Polanski’s The Pianist.
Different movies have struggled to rake in awards later within the season, comparable to crime-thriller The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which gained no Oscars regardless of being nominated for seven. Extra just lately, Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Avenue (2013) fully missed out on its 5 nominations.
What may this imply for Barbie on the Oscars?
In need of discovering an oracle, it’s virtually unattainable to find out how a selected movie will carry out at an awards present. At occasions, the Globes have offered a comparatively useful snapshot of movies that can snatch Academy Awards, however at different occasions, it has gone in a completely completely different course.
American Hustle gained three Globes, however no Oscars.
For instance, Scorsese’s crime thriller The Departed (2006) solely gained one Globe (greatest director) out of six nominations, however gained 4 of its 5 nominated awards on the Oscars. Equally, Mel Gibson’s battle epic Braveheart (1995) gained solely greatest director on the Globes in 1996, however scooped 5 Oscars a couple of months later.
Some Oscar contenders weren’t even featured on the Globes. The western True Grit (2010) was nominated 10 occasions on the Oscars, however didn’t get a single Golden Globe nomination. In the long run, it didn’t win any Oscars both.
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It could, in fact, additionally go within the different course. The Color Purple gained a Globe, however was fully snubbed on the Oscars regardless of its 11 nods. David O. Russell’s American Hustle (2013) gained three Globes, together with greatest comedy or musical, however its 10 Academy Award nominations got here to nothing.
That is all to say that the Oscars may both be Barbie’s redemption or simply additional disappointment. Might Robbie nonetheless change into “Oscar-winner Barbie”? And will Gosling show that Ken actually is able to greater than “simply seaside”?
They may most likely face comparable competitors because the Globes, notably Stone in Poor Issues, Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon (who additionally gained a Globe), Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer and Robert DeNiro in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Beating them might be no simple feat, as all parts of Barbie proceed to grapple with that which in the end introduced it down on the Globes: how do you persuade critics of the authenticity of your efficiency if you’re portraying plastic?
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