Barbie and Oppenheimer Are Extra Related Than They Appear

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” each formally hit theaters on July 21, and at first look, they appear like polar opposites. The distinction between them — one pink, female, and comedic; one militant, masculine, and hyper-serious — has sparked many a viral tweet, and the web has been saturated by followers posting photographs and movies of their competing “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” outfits for months.

The movies undoubtedly stay as much as this visible dissonance. “Oppenheimer” is all desert browns and scientific whites, whereas “Barbie” is a wonderland of shade and does, certainly, characteristic a ton of pink. However each motion pictures are unexpectedly thematically comparable. Each give attention to unsolvable questions on human nature, and each emphasize actuality’s fragility and the way shortly concepts can shake up every thing we expect we all know. Each stand on their very own, however on the finish of the day, I believe they’re greatest seen collectively, as they each can illuminate one another’s core messages in stunning methods.

The obvious similarity that “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” share is that they revolve round a product that modified the world: Barbie dolls and the atomic bomb. Whereas these merchandise clearly have very completely different ranges of affect, each are notorious cultural touchstones, which is unquestionably a part of the movies’ theatrical attract.

Each are extraordinarily American merchandise, too, embodying a type of larger-than-life capitalist finish purpose. Barbie’s seems and, later, her profession successes (she’s the president, she’s a physician, she’s every thing) may be seen as an embodiment of an idealized type of femininity; Barbie is the right clean slate of a lady, changing into something and every thing folks need her to be. In the meantime, the bomb was and is the last word expression of American exceptionalism, an expression of energy so full and totalizing that it’s close to godlike.

Each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” really do handle to critique the merchandise and techniques they revolve round. Along with that includes a line instantly calling Barbie a fascist throughout the first quarter of the film, “Barbie” does a superb job of exploring simply how difficult it may be to be a lady on the earth. It is also an examination of the risks of gendered society, proving that patriarchy harms the Kens simply as a lot because it hurts the Barbies, and it even makes a refined argument for liberation from fastened gender roles.

In the meantime, “Oppenheimer” is in regards to the course of of creating the atomic bomb, however it additionally exhibits how a lot carelessness and cruelty led as much as dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In one of many movie’s most affecting scenes, a authorities official argues in opposition to dropping a bomb on Kyoto as a result of he and his spouse honeymooned there. Watching “Barbie,” with its depiction of the Kens’ desperation and fragility, makes the patriarchal groupthink on the core of “Oppenheimer” appear all of the extra grotesque.

Nonetheless, it is exhausting to argue that both movie actually, efficiently challenges these techniques. Regardless of its nuance and self-awareness, “Barbie” continues to be technically an elaborate Mattel advert, and it is nonetheless centered on Margot Robbie’s stereotypical Barbie and her model of magnificence. (That is additionally a part of its pleasure, and it is fully attainable to come back away from the film seeing it as a carefree celebration of historically discounted femininity, which can also be very legitimate and vital.)

In the meantime, “Oppenheimer” luxuriates within the grandeur and terror of the bomb itself. It is also a sympathetic, humanizing portrait of a person who created and launched a demise machine that fails to actually tackle the bomb’s casualties, and a viewer may simply come away seeing it as a easy battle film or perhaps a tribute to the bomb’s creator.

In the end, each motion pictures are Rorschach exams of kinds. Neither considered one of them tries to inform audiences how they need to really feel. As a substitute, they drive us to interrogate our personal discomfort with the questions they increase.

Very pretty, on Aug. 1, Warner Bros. Japan publicly denounced the US Warner Bros.’ use of Barbenheimer memes, arguing that mushroom-cloud imagery juxtaposed in opposition to Barbie downplays the bomb’s unbelievably horrific penalties. Whereas there is no justification for Warner Bros. sharing photographs of a laughing Barbie in entrance of a mushroom cloud, these memes might also be metaphor for the hyper-saturation and desensitization that defines the digital panorama right now, and for the best way capitalism and the eye economic system attempt to distract us from actual points. In any case, day by day, I personally scroll previous headlines about horrifying violence and usually do nothing however proceed scrolling on to the subsequent attention-grabbing put up, simply with a bit of extra of a humorous feeling in my chest.

Fittingly, the movies arrive throughout a particularly anxious second in time. Shifting gender roles, threats to LGBTQ+ rights, and an more and more polarized political local weather are rupturing America, and “Barbie,” with its nuanced, contradictory, but strongly feminist and queer-coded messaging, finds itself squarely in the midst of that dialog, frightening backlash from conservatives in addition to inevitable critiques from the left.

Concurrently, local weather change is presenting an existential risk that is changing into more and more exhausting to disregard — see: unprecedented heatwaves and smog-filled New York Metropolis skies — and it guarantees a type of destruction that few objects apart from the atomic bomb have ever rivaled. Just like the atomic bomb, local weather change has additionally been enabled by unregulated greed, stemming from powers on the very high. Add the specter of AI to the combo, and it isn’t exhausting to see why a film about the opportunity of world destruction suits the final temper.

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” as a unit have additionally been hailed as official markers of audiences’ return to theaters in a post-pandemic world, however it’s not the identical world because it was earlier than. The pandemic altered everybody’s lives in vastly other ways and confirmed how fragile techniques many people took with no consideration are. Each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” appear to replicate that instability: in “Barbie,” Robbie’s Barbie realizes that the right world she knew is by no means fastened. “Oppenheimer,” too, can also be about the best way that an invention can fully alter the material of actuality. Along with its precise destruction, the atomic bomb’s affect on human consciousness cannot be understated. It marked a degree of no return, and its risk nonetheless looms, reminding us {that a} press of a button can destroy every thing we all know. And it is exhausting to disregard that Barbenheimer arrives because the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes shut down Hollywood — proving that yet one more well-oiled machine can simply be destroyed, this time by collective motion.

Briefly, sure, it is best to see each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” and ideally in theaters. By way of the order to see them in, there’s clearly just one proper reply. Begin with “Oppenheimer” to fill you with existential dread, then end the evening with “Barbie” to remind your self that you just’re not alone in being scared — and no one actually is aware of be a lady, or stay. But happily, tales have all the time helped folks join and push by means of, and Barbenheimer is, definitely, the summer time’s best.