“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 pictures and movies of their competing “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” outfits for months.

The movies positively dwell as much as this visible dissonance. “Oppenheimer” is all desert browns and medical 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 all the things we predict we all know. Each stand on their very own, however on the finish of the day, I feel they’re finest seen collectively, as they each can illuminate one another’s core messages in shocking 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 impression, each are notorious cultural touchstones, which is unquestionably a part of the movies’ theatrical attract.

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

Each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” truly do handle to critique the merchandise and methods they revolve round. Along with that includes a line straight calling Barbie a fascist inside the first quarter of the film, “Barbie” does a wonderful job of exploring simply how difficult it may be to be a lady on the planet. It is also an examination of the hazards 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 concerning the course of of creating the atomic bomb, nevertheless 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 really, efficiently challenges these methods. 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 solely potential to return away from the film seeing it as a carefree celebration of historically discounted femininity, which can be very legitimate and obligatory.)

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 dying machine that fails to actually deal with the bomb’s casualties, and a viewer might simply come away seeing it as a easy struggle film or perhaps a tribute to the bomb’s creator.

In the end, each motion pictures are Rorschach checks of kinds. Neither certainly one of them tries to inform audiences how they need to really feel. As an alternative, 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 not any justification for Warner Bros. sharing pictures of a laughing Barbie in entrance of a mushroom cloud, these memes may be metaphor for the hyper-saturation and desensitization that defines the digital panorama right this moment, and for the best way capitalism and the eye financial system attempt to distract us from actual points. In any case, on daily basis, I personally scroll previous headlines about horrifying violence and usually do nothing however proceed scrolling on to the following attention-grabbing submit, simply with slightly 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, upsetting backlash from conservatives in addition to inevitable critiques from the left.

Concurrently, local weather change is presenting an existential menace that is changing into more and more exhausting to disregard — see: unprecedented heatwaves and smog-filled New York Metropolis skies — and it guarantees a form 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 international destruction suits the overall 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 isn’t the identical world because it was earlier than. The pandemic altered everybody’s lives in vastly other ways and confirmed how fragile methods many people took without any consideration are. Each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” appear to mirror that instability: in “Barbie,” Robbie’s Barbie realizes that the right world she knew is in no way fastened. “Oppenheimer,” too, can be about the best way that an invention can solely alter the material of actuality. Along with its precise destruction, the atomic bomb’s impression on human consciousness cannot be understated. It marked some extent of no return, and its menace nonetheless looms, reminding us {that a} press of a button can destroy all the things 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’s 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 simply’re not alone in being scared — and no one actually is aware of easy methods to be a lady, or easy methods to dwell. But luckily, tales have at all times helped folks join and push by means of, and Barbenheimer is, definitely, the summer time’s biggest.