++National festivities this week danced on Indian secularism’s grave — and pointed to an existential threat to Indian democracy. +
++On Monday, tens of millions across India celebrated the opening of the Ram Mandir — a huge new temple to Ram, one of Hinduism’s holiest figures, built in the city of Ayodhya where many Hindus believe he was born. +
++The celebration in Ayodhya, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attracted some of India’s richest and most famous citizens. But in the pomp and circumstance, few dwelled explicitly on the grim origins of Ram Mandir: It was built on the site of an ancient mosque torn down by a Hindu mob in 1992. +
++Many of the rioters belonged to the RSS, a militant Hindu supremacist group to which Modi has belonged since he was 8 years old. Since ascending to power in 2014, Modi has worked tirelessly to replace India’s secular democracy with a Hindu sectarian state. +
++The construction of a temple in Ayodhya is the exclamation point on an agenda that has also included revoking the autonomy long provided to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, creating new citizenship and immigration rules biased against Muslims, and rewritten textbooks to whitewash Hindu violence against Muslims from Indian history. +
++Modi has also waged war on the basic institutions of Indian democracy. He and his allies have consolidated control over much of the media, suppressed critical speech on social media, imprisoned protesters, suborned independent government agencies, and even prosecuted Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi on dubious charges. +
++For many Hindus, the inauguration of the Ram Mandir was a meaningful religious event. But viewed from a political point of view, the event looks like a grim portrait of Modi’s India in miniature: a monument to an exclusive vision of Hinduism built on the ruins of one of the world’s most remarkable secular democracies. +
++Understanding the temple’s story is thus essential to understanding one of the most important issues of our time: how democracy has come under existential threat in its largest stronghold. +
++How the Ayodhya temple dispute gave rise to Modi’s India +
++The dispute over Ayodhya has become a flashpoint in modern Indian politics because it speaks to a fundamental ideological question: Who is India for? +
++The relevant history here starts in the early 16th century, when a Muslim descendant of Genghis Khan named Babur invaded the Indian subcontinent from his small base in central Asia. Babur’s conquests inaugurated the Mughal Empire, a dynasty that would reign in what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh for generations. At least a remnant of the Mughal state survived until the British seized India in the 19th century. +
++The mosque in Ayodhya was a product of the early Mughal Empire, with some evidence suggesting it was built almost immediately after Babur’s forces conquered Ayodhya in 1529. Called the Babri Masjid — literally “Babur’s Mosque” — it was a testament to the impact the Mughal dynasty and its Muslim rulers had on Indian history and culture. +
++During the British colonial period, different Indian factions diverged sharply on how to remember the Mughal empire. +
++For Mahatma Gandhi, who led the mainstream independence movement, the Moghul Empire was a testament to India’s history of religious diversity and pluralism. Gandhi praised the Moghul dynasty, especially its early leadership, for adopting religious toleration as a central state policy. “In those days, they [Hindus and Muslims] were not known to quarrel at all,” he said in 1931, blaming current sectarian tensions on British colonial policy. +
++But the leadership of the Hindu nationalist RSS organization saw things differently. Focusing in particular on the late Mughal emperor Aurangzeb — who imposed a special tax on non-Muslims and tore down Hindu temples — they argued that the Mughals were more like the British than Gandhi allowed. The Muslim dynasty was not, in their mind, an authentic Indian regime at all; it was just another colonial conquest of an essentially Hindu nation. Muslims could not, and should not, be seen as full and equal members of the polity. +
++The Babri Masjid swiftly became a major flashpoint for this historical and political dispute. Because Ayodhya was widely seen by Hindus as Ram’s birthplace, the presence of a prominent Mughal mosque there was seen as an affront by Hindu nationalists. In 1949, shortly after independence, a statue of Ram was discovered inside the mosque itself. Hindu nationalists claimed that this was a divine manifestation, proof that the mosque itself was the site where Ram was born. +
++But according to Hartosh Singh Bal, executive editor of the Indian news magazine The Caravan, the historical record tells a different story. +
++“Members of a Hindu right-wing organization clambered over the walls, took the idol, [and] placed it there,” Bal told Vox’s Today Explained. “This was the first supposed proof that this [site] was in any way connected to a Hindu monument.” +
++For years, this manufactured conflict over religion and the Mughal legacy didn’t play a major role in Indian politics. The Congress party, the political descendant of Gandhi’s secular liberal vision for India, dominated Indian politics — winning every single national election for the first 30 years of Indian independence. +
++But in the 1980s, as the public tired of the Congress party’s domination, Hindu nationalist efforts to stoke tension surrounding the mosque intensified — and caught political fire. The BJP, the political arm of the RSS, made the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri Masjid a central part of its political agenda. The party, which won just two seats in India’s parliament in 1984’s election, won 85 seats in the 1989 contest. +
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Robert Nickelsberg/Liaison
++The RSS and BJP kept pressing on the issue, helping organize a series of yatras (pilgrimages) to Ayodhya calling for the mosque’s demolition. These grew huge, unruly, and even violent. In 1992, an out-of-control Hindu nationalist mob armed with hammers and pickaxes stormed the Babri Masjid. They tore it down by hand, horrifying many Indians and setting off religious riots across India that killed thousands. +
++Andrea Malji, a scholar of Indian religious nationalism at Hawaii Pacific University, describes the Babri Masjid movement as creating a kind of “feedback loop.” By bringing widespread attention to a source of Hindu-Muslim conflict, the movement actually made Hindus and Muslims more afraid of each other — leading to more conflict between the groups and, thus, increasing support among Hindus for Hindu nationalism. This was very good for the BJP’s political fortunes. +
++“Mobilizing around identity — especially when you’re 80 percent of the country [as Hindus are] is an effective political strategy,” she tells me. +
++The Ayodhya dispute was not the only reason that, in the coming years, the BJP would displace Congress as the dominant party in Indian politics. Modi’s first national victory, in the 2014 election, owed more to economic issues and Congress’ many corruption scandals than anything else. +
++But Ayodhya was the crucible in which the BJP’s modern political approach was formed. Modi’s political innovation has been refining this approach, developing a brand of Hindu identity politics with greater appeal to the lower castes than the historically upper caste BJP had previously managed. As time has gone on, he has only gotten more aggressive in pushing his ideological agenda. +
++Through it all, the Ayodhya issue remained a major priority for both Modi and the BJP. In 2019, just months after Modi’s reelection, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the construction of Ram Mandir on the former site of the Babri Masjid could begin. Its inauguration this week is a declaration of victory for Modi and the BJP on one of their signature issues — one of the most visible in a long line of successes. +
++Hindu nationalism versus democracy +
++The Ayodhya dispute helps us understand a deeper connection between the rise of Modi-style populism and the erosion of Indian democracy — that anti-democratic politics is not some kind of bug in BJP rule, but an essential feature. +
++India’s constitution and founding documents unambiguously declare the country a secular nation of all of its citizens. This universalistic vision permeates Indian law and government; it lies at the heart of the Indian state. India’s founders believed this was essential to making the Indian state a viable democracy: There is no world in which the citizens of such a large and staggeringly diverse country could cooperate together if they weren’t guaranteed certain basic equal rights. +
++“We must have it clearly in our minds and in the mind of the country that the alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is a most dangerous alliance,” Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, said in a 1948 speech. “The only right way for us to act is to do away with communalism in its political aspect in every shape and form.” +
++Modi’s Hindu nationalism, by contrast, posits that legitimacy flows not from consent of all the citizens but consent of true people of India. That means Hindus in general, and Hindu nationalists in particular. Because they believe they represent the true nation, Modi and the BJP have no problem steamrolling on the rights of those who disagree with them — including not just Muslims, but also Hindu critics in the press and checks and balances in the Indian state. +
++“It’s very difficult for me to find compatibility between Hindu nationalism and democracy,” says Aditi Malik, a political scientist at the College of the Holy Cross who studies Indian politics. +
++There is nothing in theory undemocratic about the construction of a Hindu temple on a recognized holy site, especially when the construction is duly authorized by the legal authorities. But when it’s built on the ruins of a mosque torn down by a Hindu nationalist mob aligned with the ruling government, it sends a signal not just of Hindu joy but of Muslim subordination by any means necessary. Notably, Modi did not, at any point during the ceremony, apologize to India’s Muslims for the violent way in which the road to Ram Mandir was paved. +
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Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images
++Milan Vaishnav, an India expert at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace, sees this as exemplary of the BJP’s general approach to wielding power. In his view, the party has presided over a gradual breakdown of norms of restraint governing Indian politics — adopting an “ends justify the means” approach to imposing the Hindu nationalist agenda because they believe they speak for the true majority. +
++“There is this feeling that, because this government is democratically elected, whatever they do has a democratic imprimatur,” he says. +
++Modi’s war on the free press — which has included friendly oligarchs buying up independent media outlets, siccing auditors on critical media outlets, and even imprisoning reporters on terrorism charges — is a case in point. +
++Seeking to force the media to tow a friendly line is undemocratic under any definition, even if the policies are authorized by a legislative majority. But the BJP believes that it, and it alone, speaks on behalf of the Hindu nation — and that critics in the press have no more right to challenge them than Muslims do. +
++There is every reason to believe that India will continue following this anti-democratic path in the years to come. +
++Across India, Ram Mandir’s inauguration was widely seen as the beginning of Modi’s reelection campaign. With elections scheduled to begin sometime in the mid-to-late spring, Modi is previewing a campaign focused on his appeal as an almost godlike champion for Hindus. +
++“[The temple inauguration] bolsters an image of Mr. Modi as the champion of Indians abroad and Hindus at home; as someone who keeps his promises,” Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow studying South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells me. “Expect much much more of this as election season gets underway.” +
++The consensus among India watchers is that Modi will win comfortably. The BJP is coming off three victories in December local elections, and the prime minister himself has an approval rating somewhere in the 70s. Whatever one’s opinion of Modi’s Hindu nationalism, there’s no doubt that it’s genuinely popular with hundreds of millions of Indians. +
++In evaluating India, we have to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. First, Modi and his agenda is genuinely popular with the Hindu majority. Second, this popularity has given him room to pursue an ideological agenda that imperils the long-term viability of Indian democracy. +
++When Modi said in his speech at Ayodhya that the day marks “the beginning of a new era,” this might very well be true. India could be at the beginning of a long illiberal night — one its democracy may not be able to survive. +
++Even without a ceasefire, the top UN court’s orders are a warning to Israel. +
++The International Court of Justice ruled Friday that Israel must increase its efforts to protect Palestinians and provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, though it did not call for an immediate ceasefire. +
++The ruling comes as part of a case South Africa brought against the Middle Eastern country, accusing it of committing genocide against the Palestinian people in its war in Gaza, which Israel launched in response to an October 7 attack by Hamas, the militant and political group that governs Gaza. The question of whether Israel is committing genocide remains open — proceedings in the case could continue for years — but South Africa had requested the court put a stop to the fighting as it weighs that possibility. +
++It doesn’t provide that injunction. But importantly, the court affirmed in Friday’s ruling that the court would still be hearing the genocide case, rather than dismissing it as Israel requested. And the Friday decision indicates the court believes Israel isn’t doing enough to prevent genocide against Palestinian people, nor is it sufficiently punishing incitement to genocide. +
++Still, the court’s decision indicates that the body finds it possible genocide is occurring or could in the future. +
++The six measures the ICJ issued are legally binding, meaning that under its treaty obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention, Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians and prevent genocide. There would be few, if any, consequences if it ignores the ruling — as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir suggested Israel do — because the enforcement mechanism for the court’s orders is the notoriously political UN Security Council, in which the US, Israel’s strongest ally, has a permanent veto. +
++In short, the Friday ruling isn’t a clear victory for either side — but does suggest that South Africa’s claims are plausible. While little will likely change on the ground in the near term, the court’s decision has reinvigorated debate over the place of international law in conflict and imposed some boundaries on Israel’s prosecution of this war. +
++Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the interim ruling in a video message, the English version of which reiterates that Israel has a right to defend itself and calls South Africa’s request for a ceasefire “vile” and “blatant discrimination against the Jewish state” while insisting that “Israel’s commitment to international law is unwavering” and that it will continue to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza. However, as Times of Israel journalist Amy Spiro noted on X, his Hebrew message made no such promise. +
++South Africa suggested that the best way for Israel to comply with the court would be to stop its Gaza operations. “I believe that in exercising the order, there would have to be a ceasefire,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said during a news conference following the announcement. +
++South Africa’s complaint against Israel, explained +
++South Africa first filed the accusations against Israel on December 29, requesting an urgent hearing for a preliminary ruling. That means that Friday’s decision isn’t a case decided on the merits — that could be a years-long process, and it will decide if Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, or if the state is guilty of violating other tenets of the Genocide Convention in prosecuting this war. +
++The ICJ has decided that any state — South Africa, in this case, a country with unique historical ties to the Palestinian cause — can make a complaint against another that it suspects of violating the Genocide Convention, even if the accusing state isn’t party to the conflict precipitating the alleged or potential genocide. +
++Israel has argued that its actions over the past three months — killing more than 25,000 Palestinians, imposing siege conditions in Gaza, forcibly displacing a million people, bombing UN facilities and hospitals, and destroying much of northern Gaza — do not indicate genocidal intent. Rather, these horrors, which ICJ President Joan Donoghue listed in detail while reading the ruling, are unfortunate but necessary collateral damage as it pursues Hamas militants. +
++Genocide is extremely difficult to prove, since there must be intent to destroy an ethnic group in whole or in part for an atrocity to be considered genocide. But at this stage, it was not necessary to prove intent — just that it’s possible genocide is occurring and that Israel isn’t doing enough to prevent it or to punish incitement to genocide. +
++As Adil Haque, a professor of international law at Rutgers University, said in a panel put on by the University of Wollongong in Australia, “the heart of South Africa’s case is first the complete siege on Gaza, followed by severe restrictions on humanitarian assistance,” not necessarily Israel’s relentless bombing campaign. Per South Africa’s argument, that Israel “has systematically destroyed the health and food systems of Gaza,” it “has created the humanitarian crisis that now creates the risk of group destruction.” +
++Though the ICJ put limits on how Israel can continue its war, it didn’t explain its reason for not calling for a ceasefire. It could be because the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over Hamas, a non-state actor, and can’t require the group to abide by the ceasefire. But the decision “is kind of indirectly indicating that Israel did have the right to defend itself militarily against what Hamas had done,” Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, who directs the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic and the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR), told Vox. Even so, “that doesn’t mean that [Israel] can proportionately respond with war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.” +
++A final decision is a long way away — but here’s what could happen in the meantime +
++The court’s decisions are legally binding but difficult to enforce. Countries do ignore the ICJ’s orders — Russia, for example, ignored the court’s 2022 preliminary ceasefire order after its invasion of Ukraine, with no externally imposed consequences. +
++South Africa and Israel are obligated to follow the court’s orders in this case because they’re party to the 1948 Genocide Convention. If they don’t, they are violating that treaty. The ICJ is the court of the United Nations, and its enforcement mechanism is the UN Security Council, which can pass resolutions requiring Israel to do more to punish those who incite genocide, for instance, or who prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. +
++The US — one of the five permanent members of the Security Council — has historically vetoed any measure it sees as antagonistic toward Israel. Even if that weren’t the case, the Security Council is highly politicized and fractious, limiting its ability to enforce any resolution. +
++On Thursday before the ruling, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed that the US is standing by Israel, including by rejecting claims that Israel is committing genocide, and there’s no evidence the two countries’ longstanding alliance is in any danger. “I doubt this will directly affect either US arms transfers or US actions at the UN regarding a ceasefire,” Brian Finucane, senior adviser for International Crisis Group’s US Program, told Vox. +
++Though it won’t stop the war, Friday’s decision “will definitely create a more pressured environment for Israel to operate in,” Juliette McIntyre, a lecturer in law at the University of South Australia, told Vox. It’s illegal for Israel’s allies, including the US, to “aid or assist in the commission of other wrongful acts (i.e., genocide),” she said, which could cause some partners to “withdraw military or other support for Israel in order to avoid this. States also have a duty to prevent genocide — which they may take more seriously once the Court has established that it’s a plausible risk.” +
++The court is also requiring Israel to submit a report within one month detailing its adherence to the interim orders. As Haque told Vox in an interview, that “might turn out to be significant, because Israel would have to convince the court that it’s abided by these orders. The court’s obviously going to make its own judgment and based on the tone of today’s reading, I think the court is going to scrutinize Israel’s representations about its degree of compliance.” +
++Even without a strong enforcement mechanism, the court is at the very least a venue for accountability: The ongoing genocide case can be used by other international bodies, like the International Criminal Court, in their investigations into war crimes and atrocities. +
++What we’re really fighting about when we fight about Barbie. +
++Like the Barbies in the movie Barbie, the film Barbie seemed capable of anything. From critical praise, to pop culture reverence, to box office domination, to culture war lightning rod, to doll sales, Barbie has checked every box. +
++But it’s the few things Barbie won’t achieve that have caused a massive uproar: namely, Best Actress and Best Directing Academy Award nominations for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig, respectively. +
++Their snubs have snowballed into an avalanche of proclamations that these exclusions show that the world we live in is brimming with misogyny and sexism. No matter that Gerwig and Robbie were recognized for screenwriting and producing, with the film nominated for a total of eight Oscars, including Best Picture. To some, it was even worse that Robbie’s co-star Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for playing Barbie’s patriarchy-loving non-boyfriend, Ken. +
++Columns upon columns were written, each one more enflamed than its predecessor. Gosling released a statement expressing disappointment about the snubs. Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chimed in, offering consolation and condolences to Gerwig and Robbie. “While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you,” she wrote, ending her message with a “#HillaryBarbie” hashtag. +
++A lot of people saw Barbie. A lot of people were moved by Barbie. A lot of people are now mad that Academy voters who saw Barbie were perhaps not moved in the same way they were. +
++Through the lens of Robbie’s snub, Gosling’s nod can feel a little salty. Coupled with Gerwig’s absence in the directing category, it makes the movie’s message — that the hard work of women goes unnoticed and unappreciated — seem like prophecy. +
++But the acute ferociousness, not to mention single-mindedness, of the Oscar nominations backlash seems to conflate the ideas of “Barbie” and “woman” in weird ways. Specifically, that rewarding or not rewarding Barbie with an Oscar is some kind of feminist barometer. Even more complicated is this entire conversation in the face of the Academy of Motion Pictures Sciences’ history of bias and startling lack of diversity. If, as fans point out, the Academy is a sexist organization, then why does Barbie need its awards? Would it somehow stop being sexist if Robbie and Gerwig got their nominations? +
++That these omissions have sparked such a vocal and strong reaction speaks to what Barbie stands for, its cultural impact, and how it has changed how we understand women’s stories. The things we talk about when we talk about Barbie are bigger than the movie itself. +
++Barbie has become bigger than Barbie, the movie +
++The inescapable Barbie discourse is a testament to how the movie made its feminist message accessible. It begins as a riff on creationism: The Barbies live in Barbie Land, a place where female Barbies are capable of anything and everything — from President Barbie (Issa Rae) to Nobel Prize Barbie (Emma Mackey) to Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef) to Stereotypical Barbie (Robbie). The Kens, who are all named Ken, are just another Barbie accessory. +
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Warner Bros.
++Barbie’s savvy marketing department leaned into this concept of Barbie-feminist identification even before the movie was released, encouraging people on social media to post what kind of Barbie they would be with a selfie generator. Last month I visited my 3-year-old niece, and she had at least three new dolls — Doctor Barbie, President Barbie, and Pink Power Jumpsuit/Dismantle the Patriarchy Barbie. She wants to be just like the Barbies. +
++In the film, when Barbie and Ken venture to the real world, Ken finds out that men like him are in positions of power (doctor, president, cowboy) and are boosted by the patriarchy, a system he barely understands — and, crucially, doesn’t need to understand. Ken brings back symbols (horses and beer) and ideologies (subservient women) of the patriarchy to Barbie Land and brainwashes the trusting Barbies and eager Kens. He’s finally stopped by regular human woman Gloria (Academy Award nominee America Ferrera) who explains via monologue the hardships women are held to in the real world. Gloria restores order in Barbie Land, allowing Barbies to reclaim their power. Still, Stereotypical Barbie makes the choice to move to the real world, even with all its imperfections. +
++Using allegory and a hard-hitting speech, Barbie gives the audience a framework and language to point out the double standards that women endure, often without complaint. Barbie is cat-called on the street, and the Mattel overlords want to shove her into a box. Gloria is ignored in her job at Mattel, even though she has amazing ideas, and navigates the rejections of her teenage daughter seemingly alone, while her anodyne husband plays Duolingo. It raises the question of why society allows women to hurt like this, big and small. Why can’t things be better? +
++Inadvertently making the movie’s point — and reflexively making the movie an even bigger phenomenon — right-wing pundits and personalities dragged the film. Some hated its message about how men are treated in the real world, labeled the movie woke, and predicted, because of its said wokeness, Barbie’s box office demise. They called Barbie man-hating feminist propaganda. A few even tried to burn their Barbie dolls and boycott the movie. With all this commotion, Barbie and its box office success became politicized. Mattel and Warner Bros. likely didn’t envision the movie becoming the bane of some conservative firebrands’ existence, but largely due to the backlash, Barbie became even more of a touchstone and shorthand for feminism and equality. +
++The movie’s feminist message, combined with its huge marketing push, the corresponding Mattel merch, billion-dollar box office, and status as a culture war flashpoint made Barbie a pop culture phenomenon. Even before the Oscar nominations, Barbie was a national conversation. +
++Is Barbie winning Oscars really a feminist benchmark? +
++On Tuesday, January 23, Oscar nominations rolled in. Gosling and Ferrera snagged theirs early, as supporting actors and actresses are the first categories in the announcement. But soon it became clear that Robbie didn’t make the cut for Best Actress or Gerwig for Best Directing. Barbie did get a nomination for Best Picture, the biggest prize of the show, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and two Best Original Song nominations for Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” +
++Usually, Oscar awards snubs and surprises are a fairly insular concern, something only people who are extremely enthusiastic about movies care about. Without Googling, it might be difficult for the average person to name more than one big omission from last year’s group of contenders. But it was different for Robbie and Gerwig’s exclusions, as their Oscar slights went mainstream. +
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Warner Bros.
++A common refrain: Ryan Gosling getting an Oscar nomination and Margot Robbie getting none proves the movie’s point. Similarly: If Gosling and Ferrera deserved accolades, so did Robbie and Gerwig. Also: Ryan Gosling got a nomination for Ken but Margot Robbie didn’t get one for playing Barbie in Barbie. And: The Academy is exactly what the movie was about. The Academy Awards ignoring Robbie and Gerwig was actually the sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy that’s explicitly addressed in the movie! +
++Outcry spiraled, growing and growing. Taylor Swift’s song about sexism, “The Man,” was invoked. A column appeared in the Los Angeles Times where Mary McNamara wrote: “If only Barbie had done a little time as a sex worker. Or barely survived becoming the next victim in a mass murder plot,” referring on the latter count to Lily Gladstone’s role as an Indigenous Osage woman witnessing the murders of her family and friends in Killers of the Flower Moon. Now, the backlash to the backlash has awoken some predictably cantankerous “Barbie is actually bad” takes. Truly no one has time for that. +
++To the movie’s most ardent and earnest fans, the misogyny and patriarchy Barbie depicted was, in real time, taking the form of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. +
++Criticisms about the movies the Academy has rewarded and the voting body’s biases aren’t necessarily wrong. Female directors and people of color across categories win so rarely that it becomes a milestone when they do (e.g., Halle Berry being the lone Black actress to win Best Actress, for 2001’s Monster’s Ball). In recent years, the organization itself has talked about its lack of diversity and tried to, via new members and new eligibility rules, address those issues. It’s a continual work in progress. +
++But the thing is, most of these arguments seem to imply that Robbie and Gerwig’s missed nominations — in acting and directing — are the only feminist wins that count. They were not the only women thought to be frontrunners who were ignored this year, and many found themselves asking where this energy was for Celine Song and Greta Lee, the director and star of Past Lives, or Ava Duvernay and Aunjanue Ellis, director and star of Origin. Unfortunately, centering particular white women and largely forgetting women of color or the intersectionality of feminism is a pattern that arises in these fights for recognition. +
++These arguments also serve to undermine the nominees who were recognized. Best Picture nominee Anatomy of a Fall, written and directed by Best Directing nominee Justine Triet, examined society’s ideas about gender and who we see as victims. Killers of the Flower Moon told the story of Mollie Burkhart and the atrocities committed against her people. Gladstone, who played Burkhart, is the first Native American to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. +
++It’s also worth noting that while Gosling’s acting nomination is being presented as a slight to Robbie, Robbie’s competition is the rest of the Best Actress field — not Gosling. Five other women, including Gladstone, were nominated instead of Robbie. That field also doesn’t include critically lauded performances from Lee, Ellis, and Natalie Portman, who Robbie would also had to have edged out to be recognized. It seems notable, too, that Ferrera’s nomination isn’t being lauded. +
++Framing praise for Gosling’s performance in the movie as some kind of negative is strange in that his character is an integral part of this feminist movie. It’s like saying Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight shouldn’t be recognized because that character represents the evil that Batman is fighting against. Gosling’s performance is a credit to the character and decisions that the director, screenwriters, and producers made. +
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Warner Bros.
++Robbie was nominated as a producer by way of Barbie’s Best Picture nomination. Luckychap, the production company Robbie co-founded in 2014, touts itself as helping create female-focused television and movies like I, Tonya, Promising Young Woman, and Barbie. Robbie winning for producing Barbie would be huge for a mission she seems to take pride in. +
++In the grand scheme of things, I’m not quite sure if a nomination for Robbie in acting or Gerwig in directing would be considered a capital-W win for feminism. As critics of the backlash have already pointed out, there are bigger issues facing women. Individual nominations would not single-handedly solve the problem of the Academy’s biases and failure to recognize talent. Barbie could win all the Oscars and those problems would still exist. +
++