The Real Meaning of ‘Barbenheimer’

The films Barbie and Oppenheimer, despite diverging wildly in apparent subject matter, theme, and aesthetic, share a fundamental spiritual unity that reveals the true meaning of both films and, by extension, our contemporary political situation.

The similarities between the films extend beyond the shared release date. Both films, for instance, are named after the descendants of recent immigrants to America. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the son of a German businessman. Barbie was the pet name of Barbara Handler, the daughter of Ruth and Elliot Handler, the second-generation Russian migrants who created the Barbie doll.

The year 1945 is central to both films. The Handlers started Mattel, the company that manufactures the Barbie, in January of that year. The Trinity Test and the later atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred that summer. The significance of this timing is not mere coincidence. The end of WWII represented a decisive victory for the global Left against its enemies, fascist and conservative alike.