After the Academy didn’t nominate Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie of “Barbie” (2023) for best director and best lead actress, respectively, all hell broke loose. 

People wrote think pieces about how the snub upheld patriarchy,  “Today” asked Michelle Yeoh (the first Asian woman to win best lead actress) to weigh in — and even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chimed in, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Gerwig and Robbie are “Kenough.”

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Politicians reacting to the supposed Oscar snub feels surreal, but this massive public backlash is indicative of a consistent phenomenon: the power of white outrage. 

Time and time again, white women’s issues are disproportionately brought to the forefront of society, overshadowing underrepresented women. Variety asked America Ferrera, who secured her very first Oscar nomination in her 22-year career, to comment on her director and co-star’s snubs. The outrage also diverted media attention away from Lily Gladstone’s historic nomination as the first Native American person to be in the running for best lead actress.

While this particular instance of white outrage may be more harmless, it goes to show how injustices against white women garner disproportionate attention. It’s reminiscent of “missing white woman syndrome,” a term coined by journalist Gwen Ifill to describe the media’s obsession with cases involving missing or endangered white women and the simultaneous lack of coverage for people of color. 

Missing persons cases like that of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old white woman who disappeared in 2021 while she was on a trip with her fiance, are sensationalized and widely considered newsworthy by media outlets. Meanwhile, Indigenous communities fight for more media coverage on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Crisis, in which the rates of violence against Native American and Alaska Native women are far higher than national averages. 

The issue is not that there is outrage for cases like Petito’s; rather, it’s the fact that there isn’t enough for women of color and other underrepresented communities. White women are often seen as “the perfect victim,” worthy of sympathy and news coverage. But people shouldn’t pick and choose who they believe is deserving of justice.

Similar to how journalists have a responsibility to give equal coverage to underrepresented stories, lawmakers shouldn’t wait to take action on issues until it affects a prominent white person. 

In January, sexually explicit, artificial-intelligence-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral on X, garnering valid outrage on the unethical nature of nonconsensual, pornographic AI art of someone’s likeness. 

The White House responded to the circulation of AI-generated images of Swift’s likeness; White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News that they were “alarmed” by the situation. 

Lawmakers across the country have taken action, seeking to address this issue. A bipartisan group led by Rep. María Elvira Salazar introduced the No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications — or No AI FRAUD — Act, hoping to create a federal jurisdiction against AI abuse. In Tennessee, Rep. Justin Jones introduced a bill to expand the “unlawful exposure” offense to include explicit AI-generated images. 

These legislative efforts are certainly a step in the right direction, but I can’t help but wish that this sort of immediate action could have taken place earlier. AI “deepfake” pornography has been a threat to women for years, with the vast majority of deepfake videos being nonconsensual pornography. 

I find issue in how it took horrible, widely circulated fake images of Swift to gain widespread recognition from politicians and lawmakers with power. Again, I’m not criticizing the outrage for Swift, rather, the way that the public only seems to care about these issues when it affects a beloved white woman. 

This brings me back to “Barbie,” Gerwig, Robbie and the Oscars. Sure, Gerwig’s directing and Robbie’s acting were worthy of Academy recognition, but so was the work of many others, such as “Past Lives” (2023) director Celine Song and actress Greta Lee. The internet users, culture critics and former Secretary of State aren’t extending their outrage to the Oscar snubs of Song and Lee.

When collective outrage for injustices against white women has so much power, it’s been a long time coming that the same energy is given to women of color and other underrepresented groups.