In news that will surprise few viewers, the big winners of last night’s 96th Academy Awards were men. Continuing its award season reign, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer won seven awards out of the 13 categories it was nominated in, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things took home four. Ryan Gosling performed ‘I’m Just Ken’ alongside 65 ‘Kens’, while John Cena made headlines around the world by presenting the gong for Best Costume in the buff, a move that was considered to be a cheap gag, by some, and one that would’ve been universally ridiculed had a naked woman done the same. Fewer things could be more certain than the fact that Hollywood’s golden era is no more, and in a man’s world, who could be surprised by the Academy's embrace of males? White males, most notably. But among the masculine ‘Kenergy’ that peacocked around the evening’s events like a bad smell, the real winners – in the hearts and minds of many – were the women, despite the fact that they were largely robbed of taking those glittering gold statuettes home.
Much has been made of the fact that last year’s highest-grossing film, Barbie, took home just one Oscar for Best Original Song, Billie Eilish’s ‘What Was I Made For?’, despite becoming the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman upon its release last year. Margot Robbie failed to be nominated in the Best Actress category, while the film’s director, Greta Gerwig failed to receive a nomination for Best Director, as was widely expected would be the case, but was named alongside her husband, Noah Baumbach, for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Few films have captured the public consciousness quite like Barbie with its saccharine storyline and female-focussed agenda. In an industry that has historically ignored women, this was a film made by women, for women, and the struggle of our everyday realities in a world that wasn't engineered for our ready-made success. Regardless of various perceived flaws the film had, namely its debatable interpretation of feminism, if there were an Oscar for Best Success Story, it would belong to Barbie.
When organising the evening’s entertainment, it’s not surprising that the Academy called upon the film's titular Ken, played by Gosling, to perform, as well as Eilish, who performed her now-Oscar winning track from the film. The film might not have won the Oscars that it deserved to, but Barbie unequivocally sashayed its way into the public’s hearts, and in today’s age of digital metrics, the fact that a film was made that tripped off the tongues of everybody, the world over, makes it as worthy of an Oscar as anything else. If only there was an Oscar for the women battling against the antiquated expectations of an industry that still largely dwarfs their presence.
Naturally, the snubs didn’t stop there. Despite their acclaimed turn as real-life figure Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who was targeted along with other members of her family and the broader Native population of Osage County in the 1920s, Lily Gladstone failed to win in the Best Actress category, much to everyone's surprise. Had they been awarded the prize, they’d have been the first Native American to win the award, 96 years after the Oscars’ inception. Instead, the award went to Emma Stone for Poor Things, who acknowledged Gladstone in her speech, saying: ‘Lily, I share this with you. I’m in awe of you.’
Of course, there was the tokenistic touch of, for the first time ever, three of the 10 Best Picture nominees being directed by women, but Celine Song’s Past Lives was snubbed, as was Greta Lee’s critically acclaimed role in the film. While women’s wins were scattered across the evening – Justine Triet won the Best Original Screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall, while Da'Vine Joy Randolph took home the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her performance in The Holdovers, visibly moving both Jodie Foster and America Ferreira to tears with her acceptance speech – the reality is that women’s work continues to be disregarded by those who hold the power in Hollywood.
This isn’t just hearsay, either. Despite the undeniable commercial success of films with female leads in 2023, a recent study found that of last year’s top 100 films only 30 featured a female lead or co-lead, marking the worst result since 2014. ‘This is a catastrophic step back for girls and women in film,’ research head Dr. Stacy L Smith said in a statement that accompanied the study. ‘In the last 14 years, we have charted progress in the industry, so to see this reversal is both startling and in direct contrast to all of the talk of 2023 as the “year of the woman”.’
In her emotive acceptance speech, Randolph perfectly summarised the general sentiment of the evening that has left women wanting more. 'I've always wanted to be different and now I realise I just need to be myself,’ she stated, before concluding her speech by saying: 'I pray to God that I get to do this more than once. I thank you for seeing me.' Let's hope that at the 97th Academy Awards next year, women worrying about being 'seen' won't be something we even need to think twice about.
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Naomi May is a freelance writer and editor with an emphasis on popular culture, lifestyle and politics. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard as its Fashion and Beauty Writer, working across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Acting News Editor at ELLE UK and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others.
