Barbie vs. Oppie

I did not love the Barbie movie when I saw it. My expectations were too high. I loved the idea of the movie. I loved the hype around the movie. I had been watching the TikTok’s of Ryan Gosling defining Ken, and I read the NY Times Magazine article on Greta Gerwig (a wonderful romp by Willa Paskin).

So, by the time I put on my floral pink high heel sandals, made my husband where his nicest pink button-down shirt, and dragged him to the film, my hopes were really very high.

It was not a good movie. But it was a great film. In a way that is so hard to define and yet so simple. My husband laughed out loud four times. The monologue from America Ferrera pierced my heart. I grew a new respect for Ryan Gosling and especially for Margot Robbie. The last scene was both silly, and meaningful. Which could be said about the entire experience, only making sense to me days later.?

Believe it or not, I had to think about the movie to appreciate its greatness. I had to embrace the silliness to see the meaning. The movie managed to accomplish so many things at once, whilst still being simple and fun and musical and PINK. Nuances from various scenes were popping into my head days later… haunting me, in a groovy, pink way.

Alas, the same cannot be said of Oppenheimer. That movie left absolutely nothing to our imagination. It hit us all over the head with loud bangs, great rumblings, confusing imagery, and tons (or megatons) of special effects. Clearly Nolan longed to transform a biopic of a weird, horny scientist into an action-packed thriller. But the film was neither action nor thriller, it was a biography of a smart man who faced a lot of politics in wartime. He was a good leader in addition to being a great scientist, but there is no subtlety around making a bomb. The movie is good, the acting is great, the story is interesting, but I did come away thinking that Nolan tried too hard. It would have been better had it been shorter, had fewer special effects, and added a bit more science. Where was the science? I expected a great film, and I got a good movie.

Barbie and Oppie. The two protagonists of our summer cinema spectacle are both suffering from severe existential questions. Barbie was living a perfect world that was 100% fake. A symbol of feminism that would not ever exist in real life. She would not be able to hold her head up as her neck is too narrow. She would not be able to stand as her boobs are too heavy. In fact, she would not even survive long in real life as she is too anorexic. She embodies the impossibility of being a woman. Oppenheimer longed for big scientific breakthroughs that would lead us to more knowledge, but he also knew that this involved huge human sacrifice. He wanted to save the world from itself, but he believed that he would have to kill hundreds of thousands in the process. He was in a race to be the first, because only showing how bad it could be would make the consequences visible. (Would it though? We will never know.)

They are complex stories of complex identities, but there are some stark differences.

Oppie is striving to be the first to create the biggest and most destructive bomb on the planet in order to save humanity.

Barbie simply wants to exist in a world that asks far too much from her.?

Oppie is rare. A super-smart physicist on the level of Einstein, Fermi and Marie Curie (where is her movie by the way?).

Barbie is all women. All of us, every age, everywhere.

This is why Oppenheimer is a good movie, but Barbie is a great film.

P.S. Oppenheimer obviously does not pass the Bechdel test. But we did not expect it to.

https://bechdeltest.com

1.?It has to have at least two [named] women in it

2.?Who talk to each other

3.?About something besides a man