“Some things have been happening that might be related.” — Quote from the Barbie film.
“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” — Quote from the opening of Oppenheimer
The quote from the Barbie movie says it all. Not only do worlds collide in both films of the Barbenheimer movie mashup, some things have been happening that might be related in the real world. This essay is part movie review, history lesson, reminiscence, and commentary on the culture and politics of the past — and more concerning — of current events. Oh, My! “It’s a Barbie World.”
First, some facts about me to help put in perspective my lived experience and how it informed my point of view in relation to the Barbenheimer phenomenon as I review the films and share my thoughts on its cultural and political significance.
The Backstory
- I was born in 1950, a baby boomer.
- I already stopped playing with dolls (I preferred blocks, art supplies, outdoor games, especially marbles). Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Fair, March 9, 1959. I was nine-years-old.
- The Cold War was at its height and fallout shelters to protect families from a nuclear attack were trending.
- We practiced, ‘duck and cover’ and Civil Defense (CD) drills in school.
- I grew up in a home, that when I was young featured coral pink living room furniture, and all my life, including today, a pink bathroom in my parents’ home. Pink was my mother’s favorite color. She was in fact Pretty in Pink.
- Our family wore pink in our mother’s honor at her funeral visitation and her white casket was covered in pink flowers.
- My sister, Tami, recently had her bathroom painted pink, an homage to our mother and a refresh of my sister’s home.
- In the early 1980s, I watched a BBC series, in which Sam Waterston starred as controversial atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer in this seven-part British miniseries broadcast in the United States as a feature of the PBS miniseries Masterpiece Theatre.
- As an adult, I owned my first Barbie, a gift from friends, a customized, one-off, Lesbian Chic Barbie. She wore clothes that were more butch than femme, a tuxedo with gender-bending accessories, and the box reflected her identity.
- I wrote and performed a comedy routine featuring Lesbian Chic Barbie in the early 1990’s at the Milwaukee Pride Event at the Summerfest Lakefront.
- Pink Triangles identified gays during the Nazi exterminations at Jews, gays, and political enemies of The Reich at Hitler’s concentration camps.
- Before I moved into one of my apartments in May, 2013, during a yard sale at my sister, Tami’s patio, I gave a little girl (with permission from her mother!) my Lesbian Chic Barbie. She wanted to add it to her collection. Oh, my!
- I formerly worked for Mattel for a brief period-of-time before I was laid-off. I didn’t fit into the Barbie culture. I was a retail sales rep for Pleasant Company Publications, a subsidiary of American Girl. I sold American Girl books to independent bookstores, educational and toy stores, and gift shops to 13 states on the East coast.
- As referenced in the Barbie movie there was in fact a woman CEO who ran the company in the 1990’s when Mattel purchased American Girl from its founder Pleasant Rowland.
- I marched with women and allies at the Women’s March, January, 2017 in Madison, Wisconsin. Marchers wore Pink Pussy Hats.
Barbenheimer Factoids & More
Before I review the films — I know you may be skimming past this part of this essay to get to the reviews — or sadly, you’re abandoning the essay all together. I want to share a brief story — it’s what I do, I’m a storyteller — a mention about the Bechdel test results for Barbie, and some factoids about the box office blockbuster opening weekend for these two films.
First, I decided to not see both films in the same day. I also wanted to see Oppenheimer first on a BIG screen at an early morning matinee on Saturday since it was a 3-hour film. The next day, on Sunday, I attended an early afternoon at Marcus Theater in Madison to see the film on their largest screen. While entering the main entrance of the theater, there was a parade of 12-15 men, all dressed in pink, with accessories like beach balls (it will make sense when you see the film). I waved and said, “It’s a Ken parade!”
One member responded in a manner to correct me. “We’re not Kens, we’re wearing pink.” I realized, I inadvertently misgendered the group, and quickly apologized. I then, to save face, mentioned that I work for an LGBTQ+ community center. We all laughed (or was it giggles?) and entered the theater en masse. After the film, I saw them leaving the theater in the parking lot and said, “It’s you guys again!” I realized, a gender-neutral word like folx would have been more appropriate. I share this story since one of the major themes of Barbie is how we look at gender and gender roles.
Next, the Bechdel Test. “The Bechdel Test, or Bechdel-Wallace Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. The test was popularized by Alison Bechdel‘s comic, Dykes to Watch Out For.
The results of the two films, yes, you’re correct, if you guessed that Barbie passed the test and Oppenheimer failed!
Barbenheimer Factoids
- “It’s a Barbie World.” Barbie is blockbuster, the biggest domestic box office opening weekend this year at $155 million. Internationally, $182 million.
- Greta Gerwig earned the distinction of the biggest box office opening weekend for a woman director!
- Biggest opening for a movie based on a toy.
- Biggest opening for a movie that isn’t a sequel, remake, or superhero movie.
- Ruth Handler invented Barbie, and named it after her daughter Barabara. Handler co-founded Mattel with her husband in 1945.
- Barbie debuted at the 1959 New York Toy Fair. The fashion doll became a hit and launched Mattel to success. “Fans clamored for Ken to have a boyfriend, so Ken (named for Handler’s son) was introduced in 1961.” Ruth Handler was a controversial person. To read more about Ruth Handler.
- Oppenheimer blows up in theaters (I couldn’t resist), opening $80 million domestically, and just shy of $94 million internationally.
- The Barbenhemier double feature was literally, ‘the golden ticket,’ and made it the 4th highest domestic box office opening weekend of all time. Many people saw both films the same day!
- This weekend, Barbenheimer is the first time two films premiered on the same weekend, each earning over $80 million dollars.
The Reviews
Following are reviews of the films in the order I saw them, beginning with Oppenheimer. First, a reminder, I’m a cinephile not a movie critic. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d sometimes see two or three matinees over my three-day weekends, often alone, however I enjoyed the experience of seeing a film on a big screen in a theater with an audience. Afterwards, I’d post a mini-review on social media under the title of Filmgoing, Content-Streaming Friends & Family.
This was the first time since early 2020, I saw two films in theaters the same weekend. I’m not alone. Barbenheimer is being credited with saving theaters and a boost to Hollywood while both the Writer’s Guild and SAG-AFTRA are on strike. Let me take this moment to say that I endorse both unions and these strikes.
Oppenheimer
In a review from the NYT, critic Manohla Dargis begins his review, “Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. A drama about genius, hubris and error, both individual and collective, it brilliantly charts the turbulent life of the American theoretical physicist who helped research and develop the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II — cataclysms that helped usher in our human-dominated age.”
I’ve not seen all Christopher Nolan’s films. I admit, sometimes I get lost in the timelines of his narratives which often defy storytelling conventions. His film trickery and special effects, though creatively original and mesmerizing, sometimes takes me out of the story, removing the aesthetic distance between the art and the audience as I wonder how he did it.
There’s some of that energy on display in Oppenheimer as well, fire balls and astronomical images of galaxies and stars. Though this film is heavy on dialogue, science, existential angst, ego, and pissing matches between men, much of the film happens internally to the characters, as they question their motives, power, relationships, abilities, and whether their past political associations or dalliances with Communists and unions will undermine their work or place in history, their legacy, and how they will be judged.
Before the atomic bomb — the bomb to end all wars — is detonated, there are explosions in the lives of the main characters, however it’s not till afterwards, that the costs of their work, its impact on the world and their personal lives, become clear. The film is a reminder that for every heroic figure, in the end they may fall, and we see them as flawed, and ironically, human, even haunted.
It’s not until the weapon is a success and used in Japan to end World War II, that the moral consequences rise from the surface like the mushroom cloud, and pose the question, “What have we done?”
Oppenheimer is three hours long. For this filmgoer I never got restless, or wondered why they didn’t edit 20 minutes from the run-time as I have with other films. The credit is Nolan’s and the editor’s, his direction and creative choices including the lead up to and how he filmed the detonation of the bomb, and later its destruction, both human and infrastructure. It was judicious and not sensationalized. He uses flashbacks and fast forwards in a more restrained manner than previous films.
Nolan uses b/w scenes to create a shift in time to bracket a story that explores the relationship and fracture between two men, Robert Oppenheimer “played with feverish intensity by Cillian Murphy” and Lewis Strauss, in a supporting role by Robert Downey, Jr., a refreshing and compelling departure from Iron Man and Marvel Superheroes.
The entire cast features some of the best actors, both leads and supporting, from the past to the present. The sound design and score by Ludwig Göransson augments, but never intrudes, on the story or action. Like all of Nolan’s films it was visually stunning.
This is one of the best films of all time that portrays historical events and people. I will most likely see it again.
Barbie
First, I can’t rave about the Barbie film enough. It surprised me, entertained me, visually and auditorily pleased me, and it resonated with the themes of my feminist history and LGBTQ+ position on gender roles and identity. The film is a candy-colored, plasticized, commercialized, storybook adventure for both adults and children. It celebrates the joy that play and imagination have for preparing us for adulthood and the real world.
Full Disclosure: I’m a huge fan of Greta Gerwig, actor, writer, and director and her partner, director and writer Noah Baumbach who cowrote the screenplay. Just a reminder for this review, I worked for Mattel for a brief time at the end of the nineties, and was pleasantly surprised that as one of the film’s producers, Mattel characterized themselves as a commercial villain. Refreshing. However, Mattel, in the end, will benefit financially from the success of the movie and it will reinvigorate the Barbie brand and reap unimaginable merchandising rewards.
From The Atlantic:
“Barbie is a smart meditation on the role of women in society wrapped up in a hot pink bow, according to the culture writer David Sims.”
“In the director Greta Gerwig’s new film, Barbie’s adventure begins when she leaves Barbie Land—with her ever-devoted beau Ken at her side, of course—and has to—reckon with a new perspective on life in the real world. “When faced with our world, Barbie must contend with twin horrors: the realization that life for women is not the manicured, you-can-do-anything dream advertised by Mattel’s products, and that many real-world women in fact resent her for representing an impossible standard,” Sims writes.
“But by placing Barbie on our glum planet and forcing her to reckon with her purpose, Gerwig does somehow dig up some real profundity. Remove Stereotypical Barbie from Barbie Land and plonk her into Los Angeles, and she’s just another woman struggling to find meaning in a world that’s inherently hostile to her very presence.”
“Combining the meta jokiness with a heap of motivational sincerity is no easy task, but Barbie is a very charming success, an odyssey of self-improvement for a plastic idol whose reason for being is to never change, to always be the same perfect ideal,” Sims continues. “As with Gerwig’s previous two movies—the wildly successful ‘Lady Bird’ and ‘Little Women’—it’s a clever meditation on the nightmarish puzzle of simply trying to exist as a woman in society, only with more Day-Glo outfits.”
In addition to both Great Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, I’ve been a fan of the two leads, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and have followed most of their work in films. It was refreshing to see them both portray comedic roles, however in the tradition of a dramedy, when the story required, they seamlessly and convincingly were believable when forced to confront the existential angst of their characters when encountering the real world.
What makes this film so successful and a joyful, inspired filmgoing experience, is that it tells an allegorical story that most of us, to some degree can relate to, and in a way, like candy or treats, is palatable and satisfying.
Barbie’s acting, storytelling, characters (classic good vs evil), choreography, music, costumes, and production design will earn this film recognition with audiences at the box office and the producers during award season.
Like Oppenheimer, I will most likely see Barbie again soon. “It’s a Barbie World.”
When Worlds Collide
Full Disclosure: I found this image on social media. I don’t know this individual, or who to credit for the photo, or have permission to use it.
These two films on face value couldn’t be more different. Yet like the quote at the beginning of this essay, “Some things have been happening that might be related.” This is certainly true for these two films and their serendipitous premieres the same weekend. The organic promotion of Barbenheimer and the memes and social media response by the public, occur at a time when actors and writers in Hollywood are on strike, and movie theaters, many of which closed their doors during the pandemic, have been selling out theaters again.
These two films, one historical the other fictional, debut at a time when their themes overlay with current events. Oppenheimer raises questions about war and weapons, about tranny and the cost in lives. It questions our politics and fearmongering, the paranoia of people in power and the lengths they’ll take to win. Think of the war in Ukraine, and the weapons, cluster bombs that endanger civilians the U.S. is furnishing an ally in hopes to end a war. Putin and Russia are using their weapons to not only kill and maim the people of Ukraine, but destroy their homes, churches, and cultural centers.
Barbie on the surface is accessible for its tempting colors and the sweetness and innocence of its characters. We soon learn that it’s simply a mirage, there’s a rip that separates Barbie World and the Real World. A portal allows the characters to cross over. Consequences follow.
Like current events, once someone faces their denial that the world is changing, they may have to question their choices and learn to be more tolerant and accepting of the change, whether its redefining gender roles or gender identity. We are no longer living in the Barbie world of the 1960s when one simply chose a fashion outfit to wear like a doll to fit in and be accepted. Changes are happening inside individuals who choose to live authentic lives where their outsides match their insides.
The culture wars and partisan political divide are harming, not helping, our country move forward. Worlds are colliding and an existential question arises, “Will we survive the rip between the evangelical right-wing conservatives and their culture wars?” Reproductive freedom and healthcare for women is at risk, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people are endangered, censorship is increasing, voting is no longer accessible for all people, and the list goes on. At the same time autocratic leaders around the world stock arsenals of weapons that can destroy humanity and our world at the push of a button.
“Some things have been happening that might be related.”
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Marching, Mourning, & the Meaning of It All
Additional Content on Barbenheimer
Oppenheimer
Variety Oppenheimer Test Sequence
Barbie
Barbenheimer