Ryan Gosling Has Something to Say About Barbie Snubs

Ryan Gosling is responding to two of of this year's biggest Oscar snubs. Gosling was nominated for best supporting actor for his role as Ken in Barbie, but the film's seven other nominations included a couple of notable omissions: Greta Gerwig as director (she was nominated in the adapted screenplay category, however) and Margot Robbie as lead actress. While he's honored to have been nominated, Gosling said in a statement, "there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film." More:

• Gosling, continued: "No recognition would be possible for anyone on the film without their talent, grit and genius," continues Gosling's statement, which CNN refers to as a voicing of "what everyone's thinking" about the snubs. "To say that I'm disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement. Against all odds with nothing but a couple of soulless, scantily clad, and thankfully crotchless dolls, they made us laugh, they broke our hearts, they pushed the culture and they made history. Their work should be recognized along with the other very deserving nominees."
• Another co-star speaks out: Gosling also congratulated America Ferrera, who was nominated in the supporting actress category. In her own statement to Variety, Ferrera also acknowledged her gratitude to be nominated, but added that she was "incredibly disappointed" Gerwig and Robbie weren't nominated in the director and lead actress categories. "Greta has done just about everything that a director could do to deserve it," she says. "Creating this world, and taking something that didn't have inherent value to most people and making it a global phenomenon." And what Robbie "achieved as an actress is truly unbelievable," she adds. "It was one of the honors of my career to get to witness her pull off the amazing performance she did."

• Reaction in the media, part one: At the New York Times, Kyle Buchanan points out that unlike the best picture category (for which Barbie was nominated), not all members of the Academy vote on the best director category. Just the 587 voters in the directors branch do, and, Buchanan writes, "This highbrow group is by far the most likely to reject mainstream studio fare." He lists others who've been snubbed for that reason: Denis Villeneuve (Dune), Ben Affleck (Argo), and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty). The "increasingly international bent" of the Oscars has also likely "squeezed out" nominees, he adds.
• Reaction in the media, part two: Rolling Stone is a bit more blunt, calling Gerwig's snub "classic Academy BS." Writes Esther Zuckerman, noting that one female director was nominated this year, "It seems like the directors branch rarely has it in their heart to have more than one woman in the same year grace the category. There has been only one time in Oscar history when two women were nominated at the same time." And just three women have ever won in the category.

(More Barbie stories.)