The EGOT winner pushes back against the notion that the actress and the director were snubbed by the Academy for failing to score nominations for 'Barbie', stressing, 'Not everybody gets a prize.'
- Jan 26, 2024
AceShowbiz - Whoopi Goldberg was seemingly not surprised that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig did not land Oscar nominations for "Barbie". While many voiced their outrage that the actress and the director did not make the cut in their respective categories, the EGOT winner insisted that they were not snubbed by the Academy Awards.
The 68-year-old actress weighed in on the matter in the Wednesday, January 24 episode of "The View". "Here's the deal. Everybody doesn't win," she began. "They're not snubs, and that's what I want to sort of point out. And it's not the elites. It's the entire family of the Academy Awards who vote for best picture nominations."
Stressing that "you don't get everything that you want to get," the talk show's moderator continued, "That's what you have to keep in mind. Not everybody gets a prize, and it is subjective. Movies are subjective. The movies you love may not be loved by the people who are voting."
Similar to Goldberg, Michelle Yeoh seemed to allude that not everybody gets to win in a race when asked for her response to the lack of Oscar nominations for Robbie and Gerwig. "You know, joy and disappointment, it seems to go hand in hand. It's just, for us, it's like, it's not enough nominations to go around," she said on the "Today" show on Wednesday.
"The only take is like, it's so competitive out there and there is no guarantee because you're not the only voter, you know? It's widespread," she went on reasoning. "Thank God the movie got nominated for Best Picture. But you do think, 'How do you get nominated for Best Picture but not Best Director and not Best Actress?' "
The actress, who became the first Asian actress to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards last year for her role in "Everything Everywhere All at Once", added, "It happens and I'm sorry it happened to them because it's obviously one of the most successful and beloved movies. Look at the box office."
"I hope they don't have to wait that long," Yeoh said, when host Hoda Kotb pointed out that Yeoh's own Oscar win came more than three decades into her acting career.
"Barbie" landed a total of eight nominations at the 2024 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling and Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrera. However, Robbie failed to receive a nomination for Best Actress and Gerwig did not make the cut in the Best Director category, though she still landed a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay, which she shares with her husband Noah Baumbach.
Gosling and Ferrera have defended Robbie and Gerwig following the snubs. "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," the Ken depicter said.
Ferrera told EW, "Their work in both of those categories was phenomenal and in my book [they] deserve to be acknowledged for the history they made, for the ground they broke, for the beautiful artistry. They're my girls, and I want to see them celebrated for their amazingness, so that part of it is definitely bittersweet."
