At The 2024 Oscars, Women Are Blank Slates Or Murder Suspects

"The Anatomy Of A Poor Barbie"

With the 2024 Oscars in the rearview and the Best Picture award safely delivered to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer team from an out-of-body Al Pacino, the other nominees have fossilized in the amber sap of 2023.

Each year’s nominees stand as a time capsule, and this year’s nominees boasted a proud range of genres. A Christmas feel-good. An indie darling. A lush biopic. Laugh-out-loud comedies. Summer blockbusters. French- and German-speaking films about global and personal tragedies. And, of course, the hefty three-plus-hour sagas on American tragedies by Academy favorites.

This sprawl of varied subjects, genres, and geographies is a green sprig of hope to breaking the standard “Oscar favorite” mold, even if the win to Oppenheimer—well deserved, in my opinion—fits the traditional look and feel of a Best Picture winner.

Though each movie deserves its own thoughtful response, the Academy’s nominations of Barbie, Poor Things, and Anatomy of a Fall have crossed wires in my brain. All of …