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content/posts/barbenheimer.md

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+---
+title = "Barbenheimer"
+date = 2023-08-03T10:03:12+09:30
+lastmod =
+draft: true
+---
+
+Over the last two weeks my partner and I have seen both Oppenheimer and Barbie 
+at the movies. I have to admit that initially I was only intending to see 
+Oppenheimer at the movies and then watch Barbie at home, as by my estimation, 
+Christopher Nolan movies are almost always better seen at the cinema. Both movies 
+were fantastic in my opinion however they have framed an interesting set of 
+thoughts for me that I would like to delve into a bit here.
+
+## Oppenheimer
+
+The first of the two that we went to see was Oppenheimer. I have been familiar 
+with Oppenheimer (the man) and the Manhattan Project for some time, but only 
+in a very surface level manner. That is to say, I had a good idea of what the 
+broad strokes of the story would probably be, and I wasn't far off. Obviously, 
+with the director, cast, and subject involved, it was going to be a 
+fantastic movie. It is, in my approximation, a fantastic display of the art of 
+cinema and movie making. The projection, acting, story, etc, are world-class,
+and it was a wonderful movie to watch. 
+
+On a personal note the only real complaint I had with the whole thing was the 
+depiction of the Trinity test which I felt, through the focus on a practical 
+reproduction of the explosion, fell short of really managing to communicate the 
+incredible destructive force of a nuclear bomb. Secondarily to that was, again
+this is very much my personal opinion here, the trivialisation of the line 
+Oppenheimer is famous for from the Bhagavad Gita. Perhaps it was wrong for me to 
+do so but I expected this line to be somewhat more important in the movie than 
+it was.
+
+The primary public criticism that I have seen of the movie is either that it 
+turns Oppenheimer into a hero, and honestly I couldn't disagree more, it far 
+from mythologises him in my eyes, or that it whitewashes, or at least ignores, 
+the ways in which the Manhattan Project, particularly Los Alamos and the Trinity 
+test impacted local peoples at the time. This second point I think is the most 
+valid criticism, however I think it falls short in justification as the movie 
+is about the man, not about the bomb, or the Manhattan Project, or even the war. 
+That being said, have some indication of the impacts, such as the fact that 
+the site for the Trinity test, or even Los Alamos, were not simple deserted 
+desert but rather inhabited and appropriated by the government for their use, 
+would not have hurt the story being told.
+
+Although the movie was fantastic, and I left the theatre happy that I had gone to 
+see it, I found myself somewhat forgetting it and thinking on it very little in 
+the week that followed.
+
+## Barbie
+
+As I said earlier, I was initially not intending to see Barbie at the cinema. 
+My partner and I don't often go to the movies and Barbie seemed like a movie that 
+could just as easily be enjoyed at home. However, in the two weeks after their 
+release, there was a great deal of discourse about the two movies, and particularly 
+Barbie. One thing I noticed about this discourse that was of interest to me was 
+how divisive it was, and generally how gendered it was. I had friends commenting
+on the movie saying things along the lines of, "It's more a movie for girls" or, 
+"I didn't really get it", and that's not even mentioning the amount of content 
+online that pointed to very similar talking points. And I decided that I had to 
+see the movie so that I could develop my own understanding of it rather than 
+relying on second hand information and opinion.
+
+> A side note: I think on of the mistakes being made by people commenting on 
+> these movies is that they are trying to compare them in some way. Although, 
+> both being movies they are comparable, their content, style, messaging, etc,
+> is, I would argue, incomparable. Any discussion trying to determine which 
+> movie was better is going to go nowhere. As such, I will avoid doing so.
+
+I loved Barbie. I found it an enlightening movie. After the
+movie was over I described it to my partner as viscerally enjoyable. I found
+it, funny, educational, moving, and profound. I will certainly see it again in
+the future. To me, it felt broadly unlike anything I had seen before, and this
+resulted in it feeling very refreshing. It articulated a great deal of things
+that resonated with me in a very consumable, entertaining way. Having said all
+that, I think it is obvious why so many people, primarily men, leave the
+theatre saying thing such as I mentioned before. 
+
+I don't want to dwell in this issue, or divide, because I honestly feel that it 
+is not my - a very comfortable in his gender male - place to do so but I do 
+want to say something.