I’ve never been the kind of person that pays much attention to cultural trends, in the sense that, while I was no doubt aware of them, they just didn’t mean anything to me and I am someone who grew up among such trends as loom bands, Pokémon Go and even Gangnam Style. But now another trend has come up and how it came to be is nothing short of peculiar. Unlike the trends I just mentioned, this one is tied to both the film and cinema industries, both of which I am of course interested in and have been for many years. I’m talking about ‘Barbenheimer’.
I don’t claim to know much about how trends like this work especially in the modern world but on paper Barbenheimer should be nothing more than a silly idea someone, somewhere came up with and then dropped, but somehow the name caught the attention of the general public and they were all too willing to take it to their hearts.
I think with something like this the first thing to do is, for better or worse, to try to understand how it came to be. It only became a ‘thing’ less than two months ago when people either in studios or audiences caught on that two highly anticipated films were going to be sharing a release date in a majority of countries.
On the one side you had the very serious-minded three-hour drama Oppenheimer that, if I’m being completely honest, I think only got so much attention because it was the latest film by Christopher Nolan. On the other side you have the very family-friendly, colourful and light-hearted Barbie being brought to audiences by the acclaimed director Greta Gerwig. Naturally these two were expected to make cinemas a lot of money and they were being put together in this trend. The point was that you would go to both films in one day. The name of the trend may imply that Barbie would be the one to watch first, but personally I would see Oppenheimer first and then after a short break follow up with Barbie. Just to be clear, the idea of seeing them back-to-back doesn’t work for me, but social media seemed to influence a great deal of people to do just that.
Another question that I think should be asked is, why are these two films being connected like this? Lots of films come out on the same day and no ever seems to put the two of them together or combine their titles to make one word. There’s also the point that Oppenheimer and Barbie couldn’t be more different if they tried. Yes they are both about subjects that have a significant role in history, but there any sense of similarity comes to a grinding halt. One is about how a brilliant but complex man helped to make a bomb that could win wars but also bring about the destruction of humanity. The other is about a woman questioning her existence and leaving her seemingly perfect world. I don’t know how such an idea would go down in a normal film, but its being based on an iconic item like Barbie meant it was going to get a great deal of attention.
Early on, I saw a video of Tom Cruise being asked about it all. He sounded positive and talked about seeing both films in one day and how he liked to “see films on opening weekends.” Those may have been his genuine thoughts but there was a part of me that thought he was just being diplomatic, as both of them were coming out just after his seventh Mission Impossible film which, like many others, I saw as soon as I could.
I think Oppenheimer and Barbie had an advantage that some other films do not have and that is called name recognition. Names like Oppenheimer, Barbie, Chrstopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig are all established, well known and have big fanbases. They may still be very different but history has shown time and time again that when a popular name or brand is used for a film, people will go to it in greater numbers. There will be a sense of familiarity and people can put a degree of trust in the films to deliver what they expect to see.
Of course it didn’t take long for both films to make lots of money, but there is another financial aspect to consider that would suggest Barbie would emerge as the victor in box-office earnings. This is the question of accessibility – who can see it? Barbie is course rated PG while Oppenheimer is a more mature film which earned a 15. Regardless of how well Oppenheimer was made, and received, it was unlikely to make as much as Barbie.
Not that this represented any danger to Nolan’s reputation; he may have some detractors but I feel most people are still behind him, and whenever he brings out something new there is no doubt that people take notice.
It may be odd to fathom the idea of something like Barbie succeeding over Oppenheimer but the truth is that such occurrences are not as isolated as you might think.
Back in 1999 a similar thing happened between two films, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Wild, Wild West. These films do have one thing in common, both being based on TV shows but one was relatively new and the other was a show from the 1960s. In the UK South Park was rated 15 while Wild, Wild West got a 12 rating. This leads me to suspect that although South Park did well with a majority of critics and Wild, Wild West did not, it didn’t stop the latter from being the one that made more money – since it had a rating that allowed a greater number of people to see it.
I will admit that in recent years I have been a little picky about what I go and pay to see in the cinema, and for brief period I think I was actually put off Oppenheimer by the lengthy runtime, but in the end I relented and saw it. I may not have liked it as much as other people did, but that’s as far as I will go with ‘Barbenheimer’ as I have no intention whatsoever of seeing Barbie.
Something I’ve already started to ask myself is, how will ‘Barbenheimer’ be looked upon in the future? Again, I don’t know much about modern trends but I think it would boil down to those that liked it remembering it fondly; whereas those who didn’t and found the pairing of the two films odd like me, would remember it with a mixture of disdain and confusion.
But maybe once some time has passed it will become just another trend that had its moment and then slowly disappeared. That does seem to be the pattern with trends and I don’t think a nostalgia-induced resurgence decades later is going to play a part with this one. I think ‘Barbenheimer’ is best to remain a mystery as to how it got so big so quickly. But then again, trends always have been something of a mystery to me.