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How Ryan Gosling won the Oscars without actually winning an Oscar

We've got answers to all of your questions about Gosling and his epic "I'm Just Ken" performance.

ABC/YouTube

From start to finish, Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" performance was one to remember.


At the 2024 Academy Awards show, Ryan Gosling managed a pretty incredible feat—winning the entire Oscars without taking home a single award with his performance of "I'm Just Ken."

Throughout the show, the songs that were nominated for Best Original Song were performed, with two songs from "Barbie" bookending the night. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas performed first, making everyone cry with the hauntingly gorgeous "What Was I Made For." But it was Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" spectacle that had everyone laughing, singing along and wondering how on Earth we got to this iconic cultural moment.

Let's face it—the entire idea of Ryan Gosling playing a classic Ken doll in a movie about Barbie sounded pretty goofy from the start. And yet the combined genius of the movie's creators and Gosling's abject refusal to phone in anything not only made it work, but earned the actor widespread praise and a nomination from the Academy for Best Supporting Actor. Throw in some cheesy-on-purpose songwriting and an over-the-top embrace of its own absurdity, and we get one of the greatest Oscar moments ever.

First of all, if you missed it (or just want to witness it again), here's Gosling's performance in all its sparkling pink glory:

Naturally, the standing ovation performance got people asking questions about "the man behind the tan," and we've got answers:

Q: Who was the woman Ryan Gosling was sitting with, the one he put the cowboy hat on?

Gosling is married to actor Eva Mendes, but that woman sitting next to him definitely wasn't her. It was actually Gosling's sister, Mandi Gosling. Gosling and Mendes keep their relationship much more private than most celebrities and rarely make appearances together, even at major events like the Academy Awards. Gosling often brings his sister, with whom he has a close relationship, to accompany him on the red carpet.

(Mendes was there to support Gosling, however. She posted an Instagram standing outside his dressing room with the caption, "Always by my man." But she wasn't dressed in a designer gown and didn't sit on the main floor with the other Hollywood stars. For some, their arrangement might seem strange, but it seems to work for them.)

Q: What's the necklace that Gosling kissed during a camera close-up?

A: All signs point to the necklace he kissed being an "E" for his wife, Eva. (See? all good.) He wore a necklace that looked like the Barbie "B" but with an "E" instead at the "Barbie" movie premiere. A sweet little shout-out to his wife of 13 years and their two kids during the performance.

Q: Why did the staging of "I'm Just Ken" look familiar?

A: The pink sparkly suit, pink gloves and tuxedoed backup dancers wasn't just a "Barbie" thing. The whole performance was an homage to Marilyn Monroe's performance of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." We could talk about the metaness of this staging choice for days, but suffice it to say it worked.

Q: Was Ryan Gosling really singing or did he lip sync?

A: Oh, that was all him. You can tell by the minor imperfections here and there, which simply made it real and didn't take away from the impressiveness of it all. Gosling's easy charm, charisma and comfort on stage are really something to witness, and frankly he put on a better performance than a lot of actual singers do when they perform live.

Q: Has Ryan Gosling always been this engaging as a stage performer?

A: Well, yeah, pretty much. The Canadian actor got his start young, being recruited by Disney as a Mouseketeer all the way back in 1993. Enjoy this little historical tidbit of adorable little Ryan Gosling from the CBC:

Some people are born with the gift to entertain, and that certainly seems to be the case with Ryan Gosling. Not to take anything away from his hard work, of course, but it's the dedication to craft combined with that all-elusive X factor that makes a genuine superstar, and Gosling just keep on proving that he's got it all.

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Academy apologizes to Sacheen Littlefeather for 'abuse' after she refused Marlon Brando's Oscar

"For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged."

via Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons

Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather.

Nearly 50 years after Sacheen Littlefeather endured boos and abusive jokes at the Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is issuing a formal apology. In 1973, Littlefeather refused Marlon Brando's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf for his iconic role in “The Godfather” at the ceremony to protest the film industry’s treatment of Native Americans.

She explained that Brando "very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award, the reasons for this being … the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee."

Littlefeather is a Native American civil rights activist who was born to a Native American (Apache and Yaqui) father and a European American mother.

The unexpected surprise was greeted with a mixture of applause and boos from the audience and would be the butt of jokes told by presenters, including Clint Eastwood. Littlefeather later said that John Wayne attempted to assault her backstage.

"A lot of people were making money off of that racism of the Hollywood Indian," Littlefeather told KQED. "Of course, they’re going to boo. They don't want their evening interrupted."

The Academy is apologizing for what she endured with “an evening of conversation, reflection, healing, and celebration with Littlefeather” on September 17, 2022, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, it announced on its blog.

"The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified," former Academy president David Rubin wrote in a letter to Littlefeather, CNN reports. "The emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable. For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged. For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration."

Littlefeather said in a statement that the event is "a dream come true" and joked that “we Indians are very patient people—it's only been 50 years! We need to keep our sense of humor about this at all times. It's our method of survival."

It’s sure to be a cathartic evening for Littlefeather.

"People don't realize what my experience was. They had absolutely no idea—none—of what my experience was, what I went through," Littlefeather told the Academy. "And now, I'm here to tell my story the way that it was from my point of view, from my experience."

“It feels like the sacred circle is completing itself before I go in this life,” Littlefeather, 75, added. “It feels like a big cleanse, if you will, of mind, body, and spirit, and of heart. It feels that the truth will be known. And it feels like the creator is being good to me.”

Brando passed away in 2014 but would probably be excited for Littlefeather’s long overdue apology. Three months after she refused the award on his behalf, he explained his rationale for rejecting the Oscar on “The Dick Cavett Show.” The interview was historic because Brando was known for avoiding the media, it was also far ahead of its time given the climate in Hollywood surrounding people of color in 1973.

"I felt that there was an opportunity," Brando calmly told Cavett about the awards ceremony. "Since the American Indian hasn't been able to have his voice heard anywhere in the history of the United States, I felt that it was a marvelous opportunity for an Indian to be able to voice his opinion to 85 million people, I guess that was the number. I felt that he had a right to, in view of what Hollywood has done to him."

“The Godfather” star then expanded his thoughts on representation to include all people of color.

“I don't think people realize what the motion picture industry has done to the American Indian, and as a matter of fact, all ethnic groups. All minorities. All non-whites,” he said. “So when someone makes a protest of some kind and says, 'No, please don't present the Chinese this way.' ... On this network, you can see silly renditions of human behavior. The leering Filipino houseboy, the wily Japanese or the kook or the gook. The idiot Black man, the stupid Indian. It goes on and on and on, and people actually don't realize how deeply these people are injured by seeing themselves represented—not the adults, who are already inured to that kind of pain and pressure, but the children. Indian children, seeing Indians represented as savage, as ugly, as nasty, vicious, treacherous, drunken—they grow up only with a negative image of themselves, and it lasts a lifetime.”

Hollywood is still far from ideal when it comes to being truly representative of America at large. But it is miles ahead of where it was in 1973 when the film industry, including some of its biggest stars, was outwardly hostile toward the idea of representation.

The Academy’s public apology should give some closure to Littlefeather and provide hope to countless others. Because when an industry honestly confronts its past mistakes, it makes a promise that it’ll be less likely to commit them in the future.


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Lady Gaga's moment with Liza Minnelli was a beautiful example of caring with dignity

Naomi O'Leary/ABC/Twitter

Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli shared a touching moment onstage at the Oscars.

Welp, despite dwindling ratings over the past several years, the 2022 Academy Awards turned out to be a highly talked-about event. Unfortunately, the public's attention has been sucked into feverish furor over the Chris Rock-Will Smith fiasco, which has overshadowed some truly lovely moments.

One of those moments came near the end of the show, during the announcement of the winner of the coveted "Best Picture" award. Legendary actress Liza Minnelli joined Lady Gaga to announce the nominees and the winning film. Minnelli, 76, sat in a wheelchair while Gaga stood beside her and introduced her, with Minnelli relishing the welcoming cheers from the crowd.

As she was introducing the category and nominees, Minnelli appeared to get a little lost, and Gaga helped her out. At one point, the mic picked up Gaga leaning over and quietly telling Minnelli, "I got you," with Minnelli responding, "I know."

Lady Gaga's genuine love for the elders in the showbiz community shows in the care she shows them. Far from being patronizing or infantilizing, Gaga beautifully balances being helpful with respecting and honoring their dignity.

Watch:

People loved the exchange and the way the love and admiration flowed between the two women.

It also prompted someone to share a video of when the pair first met one another in 2010. They were both fans of each other and seeing their first interaction is just delightful.

Lady Gaga's easy rapport with show business legends, from her famously adoring relationship with Tony Bennett to her Oscars presentation with Liza Minnelli, has become a bit of a legacy for her.

And it's not just Hollywood greats that she's managed to connect with. Check out this meeting between her and British soap opera star June Brown in 2013 when Brown was in her late 80s. (She is still alive at 95, by the way.) Their instant connection was delightful and hilarious.

Lady Gaga's moment with Liza Minnelli was only a small part of her Oscars evening. Gaga helped co-host the 30th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party in Elton John's absence while he's on tour. The event raised a whopping $8.6 million to help end the AIDS epidemic.

“I’m so grateful to my friends Lady Gaga, Billy Porter and Eric McCormack for joining David in hosting such an incredible evening, and of course Brandi Carlile for bringing down the house with an electrifying performance,” Sir Elton John said in a statement. “Most of all, I’m thankful to all who attended and participated to ensure that we can continue our lifesaving work to end AIDS. I could feel the love and support all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska!”

Gaga also showed that she's as comfortable around the youngsters as she is around the elders, as she posed for photos with Elton John and David Furnish's sons, Zachary and Elijah. She is the boys' godmother (or "Gagamother," as they call her).

Elton John AIDS Foundation

Every time we turn around, we're reminded that it's Gaga's world, and we're just living in it.

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Issa Rae's response to the Oscar nominations lack of diversity says it all

There were a couple of history making moments in this year's Oscar nominations. For the first time ever, a streaming service had more nominations than a traditional studio. Boon Jong-Ho's Parasite made history as the first-ever best picture nomination for a Korean film. But when it comes to nominating female directors and people of color, it's business as usual.

Issa Rae said what a lot of us are feeling when she announced the nominees alongside John Cho. After reading the all-male nominees for best picture, Rae deadpanned, "Congratulations to those men." Bong Joon-Ho was the only director of color nominated.

It's surprising that women were shut out of the Best Director category, considering we've the highest number of female directors in over a decade. A study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that, 10.6% of the top movies were directed by women in 2019.

There were so many women who were discussed as possible contenders for the Oscar. Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Kasi Lemmons (Harriet),Alma Har'el(Honey Boy), Jennifer Lee (Frozen II), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), and Olivia Wilde (Booksmart)are just some of the women who could have been nominated for the award. But at the end of the day, the nominations contained a lot of familiar (and male) names.

Some people think that female directors didn't get a fair shot. "It's a completely unconscious bias. I don't think it's anything like a malicious rejection," Amy Pascal, who produced Little Women, told Vanity Fair. "I don't think that [men] came to the screenings in droves, let me put it that way," Pascal said. "And I'm not sure when they got their [screener] DVDs that they watched them."

The Oscars have a pretty bad track record when it comes to female directors. In the 92-year history of the Academy Awards, only five women have been nominated for Best Director. Kathryn Bigelow made history in 2009 when she became the only woman to win an Oscar for directing The Hurt Locker.

The lack of inclusion in this year's Oscars was highlighted in the acting nominees, making it another year of #Oscarssowhite. Cynthia Erivo was the only person of color nominated for an acting award for her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in Harriet.

And it's not because there wasn't anyone else worthy of being nominated. Jennifer Lopez had Oscar-buzz around her for her role in Hustlers. Lupita Nyong'o for her role in Us and Eddie Murphy for his portrayal of Rudy Ray Moore in My Name is Dolemite were other possible Oscar contenders. But they didn't even nominate Awkwafina, who won a Golden Globe for her performance in The Farewell.

People on Twitter weren't happy about the nominations (and the snubs).










It would be one thing if the Academy had no other options besides Martin Scorsese and Quinten Tarantino, but that's not the case. We don't live in a world where only one voice gets to speak. We're hearing many stories from many different voices. It's time award shows enter the 21st century and give other voices a shot.

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