By Norah Jewett ’25
It’s no secret that blockbuster hits Barbie and Oppenheimer took this year’s summer by complete storm. Almost everyone has seen at least one of these films since their release on July 21st, and many have seen these movies back to back in the theaters. Due to their identical release date, people started referring to these completely polar opposite films conjointly as “Barbenheimer.”
Immediately, people started latching onto this name and it brought in a meme culture surrounding the two movies. Combined movie posters, art, and memes cover the internet when you type in Barbenheimer. It also brought wind to the “Barbenheimer challenge,” an internet dare to go and see both Barbie and Oppenheimer back-to-back in the same trip to the cinema. People across social media have been posting videos and pictures of them dressed for the two movies, even going as far as changing in the bathroom from Barbie pink to the less-saturated color palette of Oppenheimer. It can be argued that without these two films being released on the same day together, not as many people would have watched them without the internet craze surrounding them that made it nearly impossible not to go without seeing both movies.
However, lots of other movies have been released on the same day, including Blade Runner and The Thing, Ghostbusters and Gremlins and of course, Batman and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. But the question that has circulated the internet is why these two films in particular? The answer seems to be that Barbenheimer has people freaking out about it because of just how polar opposite the palettes of the movie are. The bubblegum pink movie about self-discovery and the much darker one about the father of the atomic bomb could not be more different on screen.
Barbenheimer also seems to be the reason that’s bringing movie theaters out of the pandemic haze and back into the public’s eyes. People kept believing that different movies that have hit the theater, such as Spiderman: No Way Home would bring people back. But who would’ve guessed that the combined allure of both Barbie and Oppenheimer would have been the answer.
Will this trend continue to circulate the internet for as long as these movies stay in the spotlight? Or will it die out and be forgotten as soon as they leave the theaters? The only thing we know for certain right now is that this successful internet phenomenon has created a hype we’ve never seen before for these two movies.
Image Credit: NBC News
