How Barbie and Oppenheimer Sparked a Widespread Political Conversation

Nora Geoghegan

Staff Writer

In 2023, two of the biggest cinematic events of all time occurred. Barbie directed by Greta Gerwig and Oppenheimer (2023) directed by Christopher Nolan released on July 21, 2023. Both movies dealt with very political themes and sparked discussions amongst people who participated in the “Barbenheimer” event.

Barbie shows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) going to the “real world” where they discover the trials and tribulations as well as the joys of being human. The movie deals with themes of female empowerment with America Ferreira’s character delivering an inspiring monologue to Barbie about the unfair and bizarre standards women are held to. Part of the monologue states, “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.”

The movie also critiques the patriarchy by contrasting the female -led Barbie world which is joyful and inclusive with the male -dominated Barbie world that objectifies women and forces men to commit to “macho-man” interests and attitudes, which aims to show how the patriarchy limits both men and women.

Oppenheimer follows the journey of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and the creation of the atomic bomb and its implication of the dangers of nuclear weapons, knowledge and political manipulation (McCarthyism). An overarching quote of the film which Oppenheimer states is, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”, which originates from the Hindu text, the Bhagavatd Gita. The film also follows Oppenheimer’s hubris and guilt following the creation of the bomb, and when the United States dropped the bomb on Japan, subsequently ending World War II.

Both films comment on the dangers of unchecked and powerful systems, which for Barbie is the patriarchy, and Oppenheimer is the military-industrial complex. Both films also comment on male dominated power as well. In an interview with Associated Press, Robert Downey Jr. Who played former U.S Atomic Energy Commission chair, Lewis Strauss said, “Men start wars and the entire planet should be a matriarchy.” Barbie similarly comments on the dangers of a male dominated political system with the takeover of “The Kens”.

Both movies created a buzz online about both films, with viewers resonating with the female empowerment of Barbie and the dangers of knowledge and unchecked power in Oppenheimer. Of course, this discussion led to politics. Writer and critic Emily St. James put it best in her article, “What we discourse about when we discourse about Barbenheimer”:

  At some point in the past decade, we became aware that all art is political – because it exists within the political realities of the society and artists who created it – but that led to what feels like an increased insistence that art’s primary reason for existing is as a political object. This belief does a disservice to art and to politics. The predominant goal of politics is persuasion, and while it must make room for nuance, it usually does so in the name of sanding that nuance off of a more strident position. To me, art is at its best when it begins from a position of nuance and keeps going. There is plenty of art that has as its first goal political persuasion, but this art is rarely the kind that lasts beyond its specific moment. Art that speaks to us across time usually has a broader aim, a goal to explore the nuances of human behavior in ways that go beyond the didactic.