Barbie or Oppenheimer
Hello, posting to know your personal opinions towards both or each of them.
@BastianLatte
I was amazed no one asked this here yet haha! Question of the month!
I'm watching neither yet, so don't know! Have heard a mix set of opinions for both of these movies though!
Have you watched either/ planning to? What are your thoughts on them?
@BastianLatte awful
I'm interested in seeing both. I think that Barbie will be a fun, light hearted movie as opposed to a very intense, serious Oppenheimer. I actually have theater tickets for Oppenheimer this Tuesday as a friend of mine wants to go with me. I know it will be a kind of harsh movie to see but I am interested in the history behind it. Maybe the following week I'll have to see The Barbie Movie for a happier break...
@souljourney1
depedsn on what you believe
@BastianLatte
100% Oppenheimer.
Edited Aug 29, 2023
Yayy! I watched Barbie and then Oppenheimer. They were both awesome movies that deal with some deep aspects of human nature. I have my opinions on both but I don't know if you've watched them :)
So, In case anyone doesn't see something they shouldn't... I put a
Spoiler Alert:
Barbie: The aesthetics were nice, and the symbolism, references, and metaphors were cool (even an awesome fourth wall break!) It's a subtle movie to me that you need to understand deeply to get the message, but sadly people on both sides only react to the superficial appearances. It's unfortunate but well, these times are silly.
Okay, so, in a nutshell Barbie is about existential crisis and how facing it means to break through the stereotypes that you've grown up with in society. The primal fears of death, ageing, sickness are shown to make us feel weird in the eyes of society (when they hear Barbie talk about death, they all get silent and want to sweep it under the rug). Barbie(the ideal stereotype/representation of the collective female conscious) begins to feel bad and out of place, and wants to remain in the stereotype badly (initially, she chooses the heel over the croc/sandal when she meets the 'Weird Barbie'. That was a smart Matrix reference, where Neo could want to just take the blue pill and return to his usual world. But yes, Weird Barbie says that this choice is an illusion, and she will have to decide the less appealing path anyway). She comes to the real world to find the problem with the girl who had these dark thoughts, and yes... the real world has a flipped reality, with the patriarchy dominant. Ken loves it, and takes this ideology back to Barbieland, and succeeds quite much. He had just been treated as an object in Barbieland for so long, and the real world made him think that there was more to being a man. The issue is, the solution to Barbies' dominance isn't the Kens' dominance, with the Barbies subjugated. Barbies use the males' petty new egos against them and causes war that divides/distracts them to get back Barbieland to their control. But again going to the same woman dominant society cannot work any more, and she knows that. She is lost regarding what to do, who she is, and wants answers. And the answers can only be found by looking into her feelings, as the inventor of Barbie suggests. The movie is a simple call for us to listen to our "bad" feelings, accept them instead of running away to chase something external, be it a relationship(she refuses Ken's advances as it would just keep the systemic illusion together), or objects(clothes, cars, bikes, bed, houses). I don't understand why nobody pays attention to this dialogue by the inventor herself: "Being human is uncomfortable, that's why we make up things like the patriarchy and Barbie." It so clearly says there that we run away from sadness and build societies with ideologies that favour one gender over the other, and we've made it easy to just solidify the stereotypes (because we value external objects for our self-image... for eg, pink being for girls, blue for boys... it's completely made up stuff, and people conform because they don't wanna stand out or look weird). So, in the end... Barbie has the courage to admit she doesn't know and must discover for herself what being a human is, what being a woman is... and recommends Ken to do the same... to discover himself (I am Kenough, his hoodie says). We all must discover ourselves, and we must have the gall to question our society. Btw, also loved the 2001: A Space Odyssey reference in the beginning, that was very cool for movie buffs. All in all, a cleverly disguised Matrix movie, a spiritual movie that I was pleasantly surprised by.
Oppenheimer: This was a great movie too. As someone who has been in academia, I thoroughly enjoyed and related to the plight of scientists and misuse of science by the people in power. Just like the petty egos in Barbie, we're facing a world that's distrusting, conflicted with each other. We see a lot of powerful and genius men fighting, one-upping each other for duty, ambition, and fame in the movie. RDJ's character is so deeply hurt by Oppenheimer's taunts in the court that he takes a slow revenge to destroy his credibility, from being hailed for his genius to being rendered a traitor for his past "communist" tie-ups. Oppenheimer is an ambitious man, and till they treat him in high regard he's fine with it. But that completely changes after the Trinity test. He realizes that he's been used and thrown. He raises his voice against the H-bomb, but oops... It's such an insecure way that the US has dealt with unionisation and communism for long that any form of domestic recreation of those principles is seen as a secret collaboration with the Soviets. They might have reasons for doing so, because it's pretty apparent what the horrors of Stalin's(and many others) dictatorship were. Still, the deliberate entrapment of Oppenheimer when he tries to oppose the H-bomb, to revoke his security and to render him feel small in the backdrop of WW2 was cool to see. Marvellous acting by everyone, and the soundtrack was awesome! I felt that it was an intense movie that would have been better enjoyed with some history lessons about various American things such as McCarthyism, the various structures in the govt, and the MI-Complex especially. But I like that Nolan wouldn't spoon-feed you, and you must know stuff, just like in Dunkirk. Hmm, now... it was a good movie for people in academia to watch because in their ambition(fueled by government funding), they might work for something that would be used for nefarious reasons. Oppenheimer feels that he's played a part in the destruction that's about to come when he is talking to Einstein about the calculations that suggested they would destroy the entire world in a chain reaction, saying..."I believe we did [start a chain reaction]" We all know that it's true because everyone started increasing their nuclear arsenal during the Cold War lol. My fav dialogues from the movie were, "Genius doesn't guarantee wisdom" and "Now it's your turn to live with the consequences of your achievements". Our wisdom is blinded because of our ambitions, and we use our intellect to go so "far" haha. No matter what our intellect produces, how will we know how to use that product for the well-being of all? I feel this is why no holy person like Jesus, or Buddha ever invented a thing that is appealing to wordly beings. The very way we use the solution (building an atomic bomb to deter Germans) is part of the problem because it leads to more problems (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear escalation, H-bomb, Cold-war, Korean war...to name a few). Hmm, anyway... the movie warns us of consequences of what we think.
When Christopher Nolan was asked how to deal with the complexities in his films... he said, "Don't try to understand it... feel it", the dialogue from Tenet. So says Barbie. But I guess we can't see what unites us when we're busy engaging with more of what we already like. That's all. #Barbenheimer lol.
@BastianLatte
I will say that I was much more captured by Oppenheimer but I think Barbie was more entertaining.
@BastianLatte
Haven’t seen either because I’m not about to risk getting COVID just to see a movie, but I am glad that a movie as weird as Barbie is making money hand over fist. I think Mattel is going to learn all the wrong lessons from it, but I’m glad it’s one more data point proving people will go see movies (in theaters!) written by, directed by, starring, and about women.
Hi @BastianLatte,
I skipped Oppenheimer; Barbie was my pick, but it was quite underwhelming.
It felt like the movie was pushing current world issues, instead of just being a fun Barbie flick. I enjoyed the animated Barbie movies from the early 2000s, and I really wish this one had focused more on being a classic Barbie story with a modern twist, rather than trying to hammer home a message.
It's a shame that we can't just let things be and feel the need to attach a message to everything. I don't necessarily disagree with the message, but it came across as very forced. I guess I was hoping for a more laid-back movie meant for pure enjoyment, rather than a display of power dynamics.
@XxAzuraCafexX
yes same
@BastianLatte barbie