INKLINGS: One Year On… from Barbenheimer

By Brian McLoughlin

Long ago, when men were men and women did what they were told, nations went to war. Indeed, nations went to war for aeons, but this time the nation that built the biggest weapons of mass destruction was supreme.

The weapons of mass destruction became bombs, later "the bomb," and the nation dropped the bomb, causing hundreds of thousands of citizens to die. The head of the most destructive singular bomb project declared, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," and years later, they made a film about the bomb. The film came out the same day as the film about the doll, and one year ago, the cinematic and cultural phenomenon "Barbenheimer" exploded into human consciousness.

Two very different films: "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie." One is deadly serious, the other satirical. One is about a real historic event, the other about a toy. One is without dancing, the other features "I’m Just Ken." Yet, the success of both collectively suggests they’re part of a culturally transformative movement.

I’d call that cultural movement: the restoration of connection.

At a core level, both films are about disconnection. "Oppenheimer" glorifies disconnection, while "Barbie" satirises it. Thus, "Barbie" is the more evolved film, for what else is evolution but a journey towards greater connection? Oscar Wilde suggested that as long as war is regarded as heroic, it will have fascination; but when it’s seen as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. At its core, war begins from disconnection, and the essence of disconnection is a disconnection from life, from the giver of life. The restoration of connection is not the supremacy of matriarchy over patriarchy, for that too, as deliciously satirised in "Barbie," is silly.

"Oppenheimer," the film, devotes little time to women. Women are sex symbols and later wives; their function is to support their men, not question them. Los Alamos was the desert town built to create the bomb, and I wonder if the women there had painted Los Alamos pink, would the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been dropped? Or more prosaically, did the women there ever think of the women and children in those Japanese cities who’d be burnt, decapitated, and obliterated?

Disconnection became all-pervasive. The fruits of extreme disconnection are echoed by Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar": "Blood and destruction shall be so in use and dreadful objects so familiar that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered at the hands of war."

The survival of the planet depends on the restoration of connection. Science and spirituality both suggest that connection is innate; oneness is our natural state, not divisiveness.

Oscar Wilde’s quote still holds. Just look at the popularity of superhero war films. Is that what Donald Trump is tapping into with the picture of him with a bloodied cheek, right arm raised in defiance, uttering the words: fight, fight, fight, with the American flag suitably and strategically displayed above him? A photo which bears a striking resemblance to the iconic 1945 photograph of Marines raising the US flag atop Mount Suribachi in the final stages of the Pacific War. "Make America Great: Elect the Hero Trump, not the sleepy, stuttering Biden."

It’s about connection. One year on from Barbenheimer, it still is. But perhaps change is afoot; superhero movies are losing popularity. And don’t forget that more people went to see the film about the doll than the film about the bomb.

Inklings Writing Group, meeting Tuesdays at 11am in Annebrook House Hotel.