#Barbenheimer and the Spectacle of war crimes

[Green Grape Tim]

I'm aware that the title is probably more than provocative, but I think this will prove to be a lot more of a level-headed discussion than on first glance.

The recent Barbenheimer trend has been financially remarkable for not only those movies (Barbie at $775M and Oppenheimer at $400M, worldwide, at the time of writing) but cinema as a whole. People have started to celebrate the release of movies as an event again, not just sat open-mouthed at the end of the conveyor of vaguely appealing paste as was the case for a good while with the Marvel schlock being pushed out at an industry-killing rate.

That said, there is a case to be made that the celebration of the event has morphed into a dangerous celebration of the events depicted in the movies. Not with Barbie specifically, but the convergence of the celebration of Barbie as a movie in tone has carried over into the celebration of Oppenheimer - a movie that, we shouldn't forget, presents us with a front row seat to the evils of 20th Century America at all levels of government and authority. I'm reminded not just of the city selection scene and Truman's outburst at Oppenheimer, but of Lewis Strauss' line "Amateurs seek the sun and get burned. Real power stays in the shadows." It's almost like his blind pursuit of power and revenge stops him from seeing how contextually inappropriate that phrasing is. It is a sobering reminder of our society's facilitation of the pursuit of knowledge in sinful ignorance, progress for the sake of progress, no matter who gets burned in the process.

And yet, the glorification of the cute aesthetic of Barbie has reduced this dark time in modern history into characterised quirkiness. People are not seeing this movie for the message in itself, but of how silly it is to watch Barbie as well. Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle, and by extension the 1960s Situationist movement in France, serves as a perfect motif for explaining how damaging this self-induced ignorance is to an appropriate perception of the Manhattan Project. An authentic reaction to the horrors of World War 2, in this instance, has been replaced with a representation of dolled-up theatregoing, the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people serving as a mere extension of cutesiness its viewers wish to be seen as. They do not see the movie as themselves, but as an embodiment of gallowic irony. They alienate themselves from the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thereby anybody that has been or still is impacted by the evils that (for the most part) their government(s) had a hand in. This self-induced blindness-by-spectacle means people will post images of pink atomic blasts, see a ruined world through pastel lenses, act shocked when people respond to their celebratory comments of fetishized atrocities with pictures of innocent people reduced to ash, and feel nothing when that same imagery is put right in front of them, because it is irrelevant to the reason that they're watching it in the first place.

There is nothing wrong with seeing both movies as an event when you're treating it as an acknowledgement of the extreme juxtaposition of the two subject matters, when you view and appreciate and dwell on what both movies are communicating individually. It becomes an issue when people choose to celebrate them both as a fun day out where you can wear pink and drink mimosas and talk about how much of a bummer Oppenheimer was compared to Barbie, blurring the lines between the two movies and near-irrevocably altering what would be a sensible understanding of the lengths humanity goes to in order to destroy ourselves.

 

[№56]

I think "Barbenheimer" is mainly the result of two different studios simultaneously going all-in on marketing for films they weren't confident in. Conventional wisdom would tell you that a Barbie movie would be too childish for mainstream audiences and that a movie about Oppenheimer would be too depressing, but Universal and Warner Bros. managed to make both movies a success by making them impossible to ignore. Part of the reaction to this marketing comes from people being legitimately convinced by it, and another part comes from people who recognize what's going on and find it ironic. Both groups end up buying tickets.
Barbie (the toy at least) also has its roots in the Cold War years, and the pastel housewife/flower girl aesthetic plays into the cartoonish image modern Americans seem to have of the period. People don't take the Cold War seriously anymore and think of the atomic bomb as something that's as outdated as Leave it to Beaver. Nuclear war is something that only could have happened 50 years ago, despite the fact that the bombs and missiles haven't gone anywhere. As much as I liked the Oppenheimer movie, I don't think its popularity is going to do anything to change this. People really don't want to think about this kind of stuff and if they're given a chance to dismiss the fears of their parents and grandparents because they used to wear strange clothes and talk funny, they'll take it.

 

[manpaint]

Note: I have not seen Openeimer nor Barbie.

If I read your post correctly, you seem to believe that people glorify atrocities of the past and that people are alienated from the victims. Let me ask you the following question: Why do you think people are doing this?

People being not concerned about the past (in this case the horror of the 20th century) is nothing new. People are not affected by what happened in the past unless it has a direct implication for their present in future. People generally don't mind the existence of the nuclear weapons unless they fear getting nuked.

This situation is analogous to the events of WW2, notably the Holocaust. The vast majority of people alive have nothing to do with it. No one is exactly "concerned" with it despite being on a similar level of atrocity. Although an analogous situation still exist, no one bat an eyes aside for a few virtue signaling r*dditors.

In my opinion, this how thing should be. Being concerned about the past is futile because it has already happened. Now assuming that Openheimer has the message of "nuclear weapons are horrific, they should never be used again", how is this message useful for the averge Joe? Taking aside from the fact this signal has been repeated a billion time already, what would Joe do with this information? The answer is simple: nothing, for he has no geopolitical power.

You appears to be under the assumption that people are required to care, but as you saw, they don't. It is the same reason why there is so many WW2 shooters; people only see historical events as a framework for content. As it should be.

 

[remember_summer_days]

People have started to celebrate the release of movies as an event again, not just sat open-mouthed at the end of the conveyor of vaguely appealing paste as was the case for a good while with the Marvel schlock being pushed out at an industry-killing rate.

I'm conflicted about this, on one hand I hate consumer culture and mass consumption, on the other hand, the movies are a communal event that also happen to require an effort of congregation that's not just slouching on your couch and push a few buttons on your remote controller. It pushes people to go outside with their friends and family. Despite everything, I think this is more or less an improvement from the stream-service culture that was cultivated by the pandemic.

And yet, the glorification of the cute aesthetic of Barbie has reduced this dark time in modern history into characterised quirkiness. People are not seeing this movie for the message in itself, but of how silly it is to watch Barbie as well

People were making Oppenheimer memes before the Barbiehimmer fiasco. A major example of this is Thanos vs Oppenheimer by ERB. It's just part of zoomer/internet culture to treat extremely serious topics and coat them in ironic meme humor.

An authentic reaction to the horrors of World War 2, in this instance, has been replaced with a representation of dolled-up theatregoing, the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people serving as a mere extension of cutesiness its viewers wish to be seen as

Authentic? According to who? Why isn't reacting with irony, detachment and humor towards the Hiroshima/Nagasaki murder of innocents authentic? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you here, but you seem to be suggesting the reaction to this events, for which most people completely detached btw, is somehow inauthentic. A simpler explanation that some mechanism of 'dolled-up theatregoing' is that people just don't care. They only care about Oppenheimer and Barbie by the fact that they are cool movies to go and see, but these movies wouldn't be changing their perceptions of the events of WW2 and the Japan nukes.

They alienate themselves from the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thereby anybody that has been or still is impacted by the evils that (for the most part) their government(s) had a hand in.

Again, this is such a sweeping statement. As in people aren't naturally alienated from these victims, it is in fact the opposite, you need to be taught about these evils, and more than taught, have a sympathetic inclination yourself to care about these victims, to care in the first place. The alienation you're talking about here is trivial, most people just don't care. Are we alienated from the victims of the Rape of Naking? Trivially yes, but we don't need a theory more complex than just saying humans don't usually care about events remote from their immediate context. If anything, the idea that your average joe should have a say on global events (see the Ukraine War) is a manufactured and thus alienating product of our times.

 

[nakadashi]

I think an important point we are missing on is that caring does not equal to acting. One could care all they want and still have no impact in the world, not to mention that caring too much about too many thing will immobilize you and let you unable to act.
I think the real question, instead of "should people care?", should be "well, I care. What can I do?".

 

[Pangolin]

I wonder if this release is meant to desensitize the viewers with respect to nuclear Armageddon and to make a nuclear engagement more palatable and acceptable in the public mind. Kind of like a foretelling or a peek into nuclear-having mindset.

Especially nowadays with Russia having blunted the Ukrainian offensive and claiming so much western loot. Would not be surprised if NATO or others have already game planned WW3 from within their bunkers.

 

[remember_summer_days]

I wonder if this release is meant to desensitize the viewers with respect to nuclear Armageddon and to make a nuclear engagement more palatable and acceptable in the public mind. Kind of like a foretelling or a peek into nuclear-having mindset.

No lmao. The ending to this movie is ghoulish. If anything, it's going to make people scared of nukes again. Though I doubt we will go back to Cold War era widespread fear of nukes.

 

[Brapuccino]

Billions went into the marketing for these movies. Astroturfing on the level of Morbius meme bullshit. The movies themselves and the buzz surrounding them do not feel sincere at all, and I wouldn't rush to say movies are back to being a part of the cultural zeitgeist just yet. I will not be watching either.

 

[AllNightNippon]

I see that Barbenheimer is funny BECAUSE of how disturbing and dour Oppenheimer is. That Oppenheimer's subject matter was deemed suitable for a big Summer blockbuster release is already odd, and the fact that a movie that's pure pink blasted into your eyeballs Summer fun released on the same day is really funny. Throw in that both involve big memes in the online film community (Ryan Gosling for Barbie and Nolan for Oppenheimer) and you have more fuel for the fire. If people didn't care or didn't take the bombings seriously it wouldn't have the same punch, because that massive gap in the films wouldn't be there. It's why Saw Patrol (New Saw movie and Paw Patrol movie together) doesn't work, that bite that Oppenheimer brings along with the pre-existing cultural memes around the Gos and BRAVO NOLAN just isn't there.