‘Barbenheimer’ mixes the serious and the seriously fun

Two movies opening around the world on July 21, Barbie, and Oppenheimer, couldn’t be more different. But both have been generating a great deal of hype – some call it mania – and many are planning to see them back to back, in a plan that has been dubbed “Barbenheimer” by the entertainment press. 

According to The Wrap, the AMC movie theater chain has actually staggered showtimes for the two films so that moviegoers can easily attend both, one after the other. Per many press reports, advance tickets for both movies are selling briskly, manna from heaven for multiplexes around the world which have struggled in the wake of COVID. 

You might think that these movies would attract very different audiences, but the excitement over both – one a light comedy, the other a serious, historical drama – should teach Hollywood a profound lesson. And this lesson is that there are many potential audiences dying to see movies that do not feature superheroes flying around and fighting each other. They want to see movies that irreverently celebrate girl power and/or examine fascinating, fact-based events. If you doubt how much Barbenheimer is a thing, you should know that there are dozens of T-shirts advertising the phenomenon. Some feature the slogan, “I survived Barbenheimer 2023,” which may speak to a hunger for entertainment amid headlines about heat waves and flash floods. An image of Barbie facing a mushroom cloud adorns many of the shirts. 

What are the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies about?

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is the first live-action Barbie film, although there have been many Barbie animated features, and the persona created as a Mattel toy has also been a character in several of the Toy Story movies. But as part of the trend of cartoons, videogames, and toys becoming live-action movies recently, this film features Margot Robbie as the title character, with Ryan Gosling (in a casting choice that has been criticized on the grounds that Gosling is a bit long in the tooth for the role) as Ken. There are also some other Barbies and Kens on hand, a reference to various diverse versions of Barbie and Ken, who are played by such actors as Dua Lipa and Simu Liu. Helen Mirren brings dry wit to the film’s narration. While the movie, with a script by indie director/actress Gerwig and her personal and professional partner, director/writer Noah Baumbach, has been kept under wraps ahead of the opening, the clips from the movie that have been released show that it follows a pretty standard comedy trope where the dolls are let loose in the real world, causing havoc. 

The movie’s tagline, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken,” has gone viral as a meme about women who have a male partner who doesn’t measure up to them. Everyone from Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles to Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly have been portrayed in these memes. And just for an added chunk of improbable publicity, this tagline, when translated into French, has R-rated connotations. 

The drums of the approaching Barbie release have been beating especially loudly and on many fronts in the last few weeks. Runways and events have become a pink parade, as Lizzo, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, the Princess of Wales, Princess Marie of Denmark, and many others have been snapped in Barbie-inspired finery. 

There is Barbie-themed makeup, music, fast-food toys, and much more. The Barbie craze has even branched out to the tourism industry, with hotels from Denver to Kuala Lumpur to Bogota offering Barbie-themed suites, meals, and activities.

Oppenheimer, on the other hand, is a weighty, Oscar-bait biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atom bomb. Directed by Christopher Nolan, who acquired a cult following with his Dark Knight series, Oppenheimer is the rare summer release that focuses on important historical events. It stars Cillian Murphy in the lead, with a supporting cast that features Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, and Kenneth Branagh. 

Whether this rare convergence, of the serious and the seriously fun, is the start of a new trend remains to be seen, but one thing is sure: If you want in on Barbenheimer, you’d better order tickets ASAP. Both movies are now screening throughout Israel.