Barbenheimer's polar opposites
Quite interesting, the recommendation (half-serious, surely) to tackle Barbenheimer head on and see 2023’s two blockbusters one after the other. This is because Christopher Nolan’s opus can be seen as the polar opposite of Barbie’s patriarchy-smashing, and not just because all the significant characters in Oppenheimer, all those suited scientists busily working to destroy personkind, were male. The two female characters in Oppenheimer, played by Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt, are cyphers, seemingly just there for either a bit of cheesecake, or a moaning harpie continually warning Robert that it will All End Badly. It is a common observation that Christopher Nolan “doesn’t do women” and this long, long film bears that out. Pugh is a magnetic screen presence but her character was superfluous, even if this was not the case in Oppenheimer’s life. Had she, a Communist, been the proven cause of his downfall then her presence would have been justified, but there was little if any ...