The Barbenheimer Event
A few days ago, my husband and I decided to partake in the pop culture event of Barbenheimer. We put on our black and pink and spent the day in the movie theater, first watching Oppenheimer, then taking a break to eat, followed by Barbie. Even on a Wednesday afternoon, the theaters were packed, which of itself is a phenomenon.
I’ve been thinking a lot about each because both movies hit me hard and probably not for the reasons one would think. I’m not going to give a review, per se, and while I think one of these is a much better movie than the other, I loved both equally, and that in itself might be quite unusual.
There are debates online about how Barbie hates on men or Oppenheimer is a man-o-sphere movie that leaves out the Japanese, but to get embroiled in such moral posturing is to miss out on the messages both have to offer, not merely about our world, but about the way in which we see ourselves as individuals. As Kitty Oppenheimer says to her husband in one scene, “The world is changing. Reforming. This is your moment.”
She might as well have been saying this to each one of us.
My Own Barbie World
I want to share with you my playroom growing up. Imagine the fourth bedroom in the house, one wall covered in shelves filled with toys of all types, the opposite wall piled with IEEE magazines around a big, wooden desk on which sits various machines and ham radio equipment—some with dials, switches, and VU meters, their little needles pulsing up and down. On this side of the room, the dominant color is gray, and the shape is square. On the toy side of the room, the dominant color is pink, and the shape is the city of Barbie spread out in all directions.
My sister and I had many Barbies, even growing up Skipper, as well as accessories—Barbie condo, Barbie Corvette, and Barbie RV. My sister also loved Tonka toys and the big yellow dump truck often dominated our play. You could fit a bunch of Barbies in the back, so it was quite handy. Eventually, we acquired GI Joe’s Jeep, but not him. We had two Kens, one sporty and brunet and one Malibu Ken, blond and sunny like the California heartthrob he was. Similar to the movie Barbie, our dolls played all day, took part in lots of dances, singing, and musicals, and rarely included Ken. He was often on the shelf, or in a corner, or spent the entire day in the bed. My grandmother made our Barbie clothes, so our dolls were the best dressed on the block, however she never made any for Ken. He wore the same thing every day—a swimsuit or gym shorts. We did like to take the dolls outside to play Little House on the Prairie, so when that happened, Ken was needed. Can’t live in the prairie without Pa or Alonzo, right? (Yes, we had horses as well and yes, our Kens were often riding them)
Unlike the movie, my dolls were also a part of Oppenheimer’s world. The machines on my father’s desk were a backdrop to their drama. The dolls climbed these machines, danced on the machines, and even worked the machines. My Barbie would watch those VU meters pulse and take notes. She would help stop a nuclear bomb from being launched, catch a spy, and even send secrets using the morse code my father taught us. One day, I went into the playroom and found my dad soldering some components to a small, green board. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he was building a binary clock. I asked what it meant to count in binary, and he taught me. I watched him put the kit together and later, when he was off at work, my Barbie was counting in binary and working on her own clock. Eventually, my dad would give me a TI computer and a book on BASIC and I’d learn to code, programming the machine to do my math homework for me. Barbie is an action figure, after all, and whatever I could do, she could do, and vice-a-versa.
So it would come to pass that I became a woman who LOVES to dress up, collects high heels and purses, lives in my dream house as well as the Barbie RV (I mean, the tiny homes on wheels are a little like the RV, aren’t they?) and married a man who looks like Ken but, and here’s the catch, my husband has the mind of Oppenheimer and I know how to program in five computer languages, read Carlo Rovelli for fun, studied the physics of consciousness for decades, and raised two scientists. I may wear high heels, but Oppy will always be sexier to me than Ken. I wear beautiful clothes and jewelry, not for the male gaze but because I love to celebrate the art of the body, and I love to read scientific papers on AI and biotech because I also love to celebrate the science of life. I have always been surrounded by pink and machines and have often wondered why feminists think being beautiful is something to be avoided and why people always thought I was part of the marketing department when I’d attend engineering reviews.
Alas, as I read the philosophical discussions about Oppenheimer and Barbie online, I’ve come to realize that this combination of pink and computers isn’t common and often confuses people. I recall the strange looks in college when I said I was a computer science major while tossing my bright blonde hair over my shoulder (note, I wasn’t blonde because my Barbies were blonde, I was blonde because when I turned 13 my mother took me to get my hair dyed, stating God made a mistake making me a brunette). I loved to hang out with the smart, “geeky” boys in high school, but they never really trusted me because I was also a pompom girl. Then again, I’m not sure the football players found me very sexy given the fact I scored higher than them on every algebra test.
Like many high performing girls, I was told growing up that I was too smart to be a mother and the Barbenheimer event hints that this is a deeply embedded belief within our society—from the opening scene of little girls smashing their baby dolls in Barbie to the fact that Kitty Oppenheimer, the brilliant biologist, has to give up her child to a friend for a bit because she’s suffering as a housewife—it’s clear that society still thinks motherhood is the opposite of brilliance. Yet there again, I defy the “norm” for while both my parents said all their dreams for me died the day I told them I was pregnant with my first child, I eventually left my job in high tech to raise my children. While it was very difficult at first, I came to love it and discovered that through making a home for them, I made a home for my creative soul that nourished the dreams of my heart—a loving family, a writing life, and an active role in the community. My life has been nothing short of a miracle as a mother.
Beauty Vs. Brilliance
In the end, I don’t think there’s a need for a competition between beauty and brains. The two are often united, though I have never been sexually attracted to the Ken of the Barbie movie, even if he can dance. I need an Oppenheimer mind to challenge me at the dinner table, to make me think on these things. When it comes to these two movies, I’m grateful they came out together for they represent two sides of the same coin. In Barbie’s case, one could focus on the critique of patriarchy that runs through the entire story, but people ought to see it for what it is; satire in the way of the novel, Egalia’s Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg. When we see men treated in ways that are more traditionally feminine, you begin to sense some of the absurdity in which we live. Barbie’s transformation from the created to the creator is the deeper message of this movie and the genius lies in the final scene for in the end, for the biggest difference between Barbie’s world and the real world is the fact that women need a gynecologist.
However, I’ve always been more of an Athena archetype than Aphrodite, and while Barbie’s story is one I resonate with, Oppenheimer is a character I better understand. I know what it is to see things and want to figure them out, to lay awake pondering the connections between what I know and what I do not. I also believe that Oppenheimer holds many warnings for us. First, it is a reminder that the cold war was and still is serious business and as the leaders of nuclear countries continue their war dance in Ukraine and soon Taiwan, we inch closer to the brink of disaster. Oppenheimer had hoped that the atom bomb would be the end to all war, and until Russia invaded Ukraine, the European continent had gone it’s longest run without war in recorded history. It is heartbreaking that we would even consider to dapple with death again in this way.
The other, more covert message is that of McCarthyism and the witch hunt against those who supported Communism in that age. Once again, here in the age of social media, we find ourselves repeating history, especially in the last three years. From comedians being cancelled for things they said when they were twenty to doctors being censored for questioning the efficacy of the Covid vaccine claims, we are on the brink of censorship not unlike what brought down Oppenheimer in the 60’s. If the father of the atom bomb could be silenced and put out of work in the cold war, you can be sure there are many voices being silenced now in the age of the Internet.
Moreover, Oppenheimer contains a warning to those on the cusp of the new world, for things are changing and reforming, just as they were in the 1930s. This is someone’s time and difficult choices are to be made. I’ve seen glimpses of a future where we ignore our climate crisis. I’ve also seen glimpses of what might happen if we use the singularity, AI, and biotech to solve this crisis. Both scenarios could lead to our ultimate destruction and both paths include difficult choices. Scientists and thinkers in these fields are on the cusp of great discoveries. Will they drop their solutions on an innocent public in a desperate effort to save the world? Being human is messy, and Oppenheimer is a telling tale for our times.
If you have the time, go see both movies. If you can do them in one day, all the better. For me, it was a bringing together of many of my favorite things—science and fashion, research and dance, machines and high heels. I better understand now why I misunderstand so many women—I don’t think most of you got to spend your childhood playing Barbie while learning how to count in binary, and I realize how grateful I am for my early years. Please don’t think it was some sort of progressive, brilliant move on my parents’ parts, trust me it was the fact that my toys and my father’s toys were too messy for the rest of the house, so we were thrown into a room together, a room now called the “junk” room, and for good reason.
I stood in that room the other day, and now not a trace of pink can be found. It’s all machines, magazines, piles of papers, old printers, and crates of photographs. Barbie lives in the attic, packed away in boxes. Before I moved to California in 2007, my mother asked me if I wanted my Barbie collection and her box of beautiful, handmade clothes. I turned her down.
Given I lost every possession in the wildfires of 2020, I’m glad I left Barbie safe in my mother’s attic. I think it’s time to take her out and see what she’s been up to all these years. I promise to play nicely.