After much anticipation, the nominations for the 2024 Academy Awards were announced Tuesday. Like with every award nomination, there were many wins and many snubs.
WINS: What the Academy Got Right
Let’s start with the good news.
1. Barbie was nominated for eight Oscars. Barbie was nominated for, among other things, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Production Design. Ryan Gosling and America Ferrara also got nominated for their respective roles in Barbie in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress Category. The film also nabbed two nominations in the Best Original Song category for “I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For?”
2. BIPOC-centered films also were recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture.
Rustin, a biopic about real-life gay Black civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, received one nomination in the Best Actor category for Colman Domingo’s portrayal of the titular activist.
Another film centered on the Black person’s perspective, American Fiction, received four nominations, for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown getting Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nods, respectively, for their work in the film.
3. Nimona got a Best Animated Feature nomination. Based off the graphic novel by trans cartoonist ND Stevenson, who was also the showrunner of Netflix’s She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, Nimona has strong feminist and LGBTQ+ themes.
4. Danielle Brooks got a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Color Purple. (This is the only nomination the film got from the Academy.)
SNUBS: What the Academy Got Wrong
1. Greta Gerwig was not nominated for Best Director for Barbie. Also, Margot Robbie was snubbed for a Best Actress Nomination for playing the titular character in the same film.
2. Speaking of Best Actress—Fantasia Barrino, Cailee Spaeny and Trace Lysette were snubbed for their roles in The Color Purple, Pricilla and Monica, respectively.
3. Female-focused stories like Priscilla and The Color Purple were not nominated in any of the general film categories. Likewise, many LGBTQ+-centered films like Monica, Rustin and Nimona were not nominated for Best Picture.
4. In the Best Director Category, out of the five nominees, only one woman—Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall—was nominated, leaving out other female directors that could’ve been considered, such as Emma Seligman and Sophia Coppola for Bottoms and Priscilla, respectively.
Reactions
Many were shocked by the Academy’s choices for this year’s nominees.
Even Ryan Gosling took to social media, standing with Gerwig and Robbie. According to Gosling, “There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie.”
While Hollywood has undoubtedly made substantial progress in terms of diversity and inclusion, for many, it is still not Ken-ough.
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