Has the whole world been hit by a pink explosion - Barbie and Oppenheimer?

Let’s open with the fact that I've seen both movies and I'm totally Team Barbie. If I could somehow choose where I would be born, I would also be in the marketing Barbie team since they managed to make all my (marketing) dreams come true in their campaign. Let's start with the numbers. Greta Gerwig's movie managed to earn $1 billion in its third week of release!

The film became the inspiration for memes and a bunch of videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Everyone comments on it, reacts, and makes sketches. The marketing team did a great job, but despite all the collaborations with different brands and the quality of the fun content they published (which was made easier for them thanks to the fact that the film itself is full of quality and fun), the most important thing is that they started a conversation about the film. They left it to the social media audience to present the film, play with it and further make it even more interesting by pairing it with their own experiences, and that's how this story went viral. There is no paid marketing that can have that effect.

Marketing or propaganda

Let me start with why I liked Barbie and why I didn’t like Oppenheimer.

I think Barbie is a smart, emotional, and extremely funny movie that deals with a serious social issue. I believe that Greta Gerwig as a screenwriter and director is the strongest in humor, which she has also demonstrated before as an actress. I would recommend those who criticize the film as anti-men to look at this post and, in addition, to think once again about what parody means, because in this film our REAL gender roles have been reversed and brought to absurdity. Kens are treated as objects just like women are in the patriarchy, but also in the films of most male directors since the beginning of cinema.

However, this should not be lost sight of either – in the fictitious world of Barbieland that Gerwig builds in the film, she is still less cruel to the Kens than the patriarchy is to the women in reality. Kens are objectified but not sexualized. And they are marginalized, but not despised. However, this subordination is also questioned in the film, which treats Ken (and men in general) with great empathy. I think that the resistance here (I'm primarily talking about Serbia) comes from the fact that some people still deny the existence and toxicity of patriarchy – men because they think that system suits them (spoiler – it destroys them as well, which the film clearly points out), and women because they don't want to accept that they are victims.

And yet, the film can be criticized from an anti-capitalist perspective, since the whole thing is really an advertisement for the Barbie doll. Mattel is parodied, but the amount of positive emotion attached to Barbie, Ken, and Barbie's creator, Ruth Handler, is so great that I can't imagine that sales of Barbies don't skyrocket after the movie. However, while I understand that this may be subject to valid criticism, I personally have no real problem with the sale of toys. Of course, they are not necessary, but they still bring joy and enjoyment. They brought it to me when I was little. Bottom line – if I had a problem with advertising a company of this kind, I wouldn't be working in marketing. To conclude –- I think that Barbie is good marketing for Mattel (they wouldn't have allowed it otherwise), but it's not propaganda, and Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie found a way to make a movie with a universal message, even if some parts of it are weaker, which is covered in more detail in this video on The Take channel.

On the other hand, I have a serious problem with the movie being an advertisement for the guy who invented the atomic bomb. And to those who tell me that this is not the case, Oppenheimer is directly compared to Prometheus, and the quote that opens the film is "Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this, he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” Let's just stop here for a moment. It is implied, very unambiguously, that Oppenheimer is the victim. Second, the film implies that he was unaware that Japan was on the verge of surrendering, or he was very easily convinced otherwise. Third, did you see the conversation where Oppenheimer is asking the president to return the space taken from the Indians to test the bomb? What are the chances that this man was thinking about Native Americans, and how likely is it that Nolan wanted to humanize him? Finally – Oppenheimer is played by Cillian Murphy. Of course, it's not strange for attractive actors to play problematic characters, but people tend to "forgive" people who are pretty for obviously problematic actions. It’s called pretty privilege, and it’s insane. Remember Jeffrey Dahmer's fans after he was played by Evan Peters? Or fans of the real Ted Bundy, women who followed and adored him because he was beautiful and charismatic? This willingness to accept "nuanced" characters who are extremely problematic may be further due to American propaganda and racism. Here is a good video on the subject, it is interesting for thinking and questioning ourselves.

Let's sort of ignore this propaganda part and pretend for a moment that these characters aren't based on real characters and that we're not looking at a reinterpretation of the events that took place and ultimately led to the deaths of 140,000 thousand people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki from the explosion itself, while thousands and thousands died as a result of radiation.

As for Oppenheimer, I found the film tragically boring. So, not hard to watch, but boring. Haneke is hard to watch for me, but not boring. I had the impression that Nolan wanted to create an "artsy" film and that his concept was basically –  the story falls apart like atoms, and Oppenheimer is in the center of this reaction. I think I could write a text and defend that view (maybe it's even confirmed), I haven't Googled it yet. This concept is not bad in itself, but the slowness here killed the concept for me. I had the impression that he wanted to build drama through conversations and relationships, and none of that was dramatic to me. As I have repeated several times, since this is Nolan's longest film and it lasts 3 hours (!), the most tense part of the film for me was my bladder.

In the marketing approach, allusion was made to mysticism and the disintegration of the psyche and the image of the world. For months, we've been looking at Cillian Murphy's confused face staring at the camera. I don't know if "confused" is the right word. He looks ahead as if he is looking into the abyss. Perhaps that is a more adequate description. The approach was far more discreet than with Barbie and signaled that it was a very serious film.

Barbenheimer

If you've opened social media anytime in the past two months, you've surely come across memes and videos on the subject of Barbenheimer, as various media called the combination of these two films, which appeared in theaters at the same time. The crew of each of the films hyped the other one to show that they totally support each other and to stimulate their audience to watch the other film as well. The approach is modern – conflict is avoided, and support and solidarity are insisted upon. It is clear that they were partly advertising together and boosting marketing for the other film, but, of course, it also worked to present themselves as good guys.

My impression is that Oppenheimer benefited more from this approach.

The audience for Barbie is predominantly women, while Nolan's films, if we recall them, are much closer to the male viewing experience, which we, as women, have become accustomed to over time. This cross-promotion was more likely to work with an audience that was more open to different content.

I think it became cool to watch both movies. I was cool myself, although I would prefer that I wasn’t. I wish I had waited to watch Oppenheimer at home and take breaks when I wanted to.

And I wish I had just watched Barbie twice, which I'm going to do since I plan to go with a friend who hasn't seen it yet. And we have to correct that. In addition, I will also correct my mistake from the first viewing – I will let myself cry every time I feel like it.

Author: Natalija Jovanović, Senior Content Manager