One of the big yuks about this summer’s Barbenheimer hybrid event was that both Oppenheimer and Barbie were so completely different. One was colourful, the other was monochrome. One was joyous, the other incredibly serious. One had women who actually did stuff in it, the other was Oppenheimer. But with the benefit of hindsight, maybe the films had more in common than we thought. Oppenheimer, after all, was a film about decisions that had horrible consequences; about a huge and impressive feat that plunged the world into a state of overt and constant terror that has lasted for three quarters of a century. In other words: it was about Barbie.
Because, yes, look, Barbie was great. It was funny and smart and made more money than the human mind can imagine. But the consequences of Barbie are terrifying. On Wednesday, the entertainment wing of the toy company Hasbro put out a press release announcing it was “evolving into the company’s next chapter of content creation”. Which, in other words, means that thanks to Barbie we’re all going to get lumped around the head by millions of toy movies until we die.
