When it was announced that two of this year’s biggest films were set to open on the same day in July, the internet first went into a meltdown. Then, it did what it does best: made some very good memes.
Barbie and Oppenheimer’s juxtaposing colours and themes made for excellent content, and the two films’ names were turned into the light and catchy portmanteau Barbenheimer – or Boppenheimer.
“Barbie is ying, Oppenheimer is yang. Barbie is you on payday, Oppenheimer is you one week later,” said The Standard. “Barbie is how you feel in the morning before work, Oppenheimer is how you feel after a day at work. And so on.”
But others were much more damning about the joint release, which came to be seen as a sort of double bill: “But they’re not the same, are they, the pink and black options? Call me a prig – don’t care – but it is not merely in bad taste to conflate popcorn feminism and a war crime to end all war crimes, but an error of principle,” argued Melanie Mcdonagh.
Wherever you sit on this ethical spectrum, it’s easy to see why Barbenheimer set the internet alight. It was, after all, the impossibly ridiculous contrast between the two films that made the fact they were competing so funny. The joke just wouldn’t have been half as good if the contrast was less extreme.
Even so, by the end of the weeks-long marketing campaigns, people were quite relieved to see the end of Boppenheimer. There’s only so many times you can watch an edited version of a bomb blast where the mushroom cloud has been changed to the colour pink.
Which is why Saw Patrol, a new portmanteau that has been floated this week, is just not going to land. We’re tired.
Sure, Saw X and Paw Patrol, the two films which are opening on the same day in the US, are contrasting. Saw is the horror game franchise where people get locked into deathly contraptions and have to do gruesome things like cut their legs off to get free, while Paw Patrol is the film adaptation of the children’s animated cartoon series. Simply, one is scary, the other sweet.
Neither film conjures up the existential dread of Barbie or Oppenheimer, which was part of Boppenheimer’s power: at the end of the day, the films were both tackling thorny issues. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was pink and frivolous and often absolutely silly, but a university seminar could be held on nearly every one of its scenes, which deal with feminism, capitalism and the patriarchy. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was obviously darker and more frightening, asking terrifying questions about human ambition, cruelty and creativity as it told the story of one of the most important moments in history.
A half-pink, half-grey t-shirt that with Boppenheimer written across it indicates a playful self-reflection on the high-low, up-down, balance inside all of us. It says, I’m serious, thoughtful, cerebral. And fun. Saw Patrol cannot do the same.
In the past many contrasting films opened on the same day: Tim Burton’s Batman and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids went head to head in the Eighties, The Matrix and 10 Things I Hate About You were both released on the same day in the Nineties and The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! opened simultaneously in the Noughties. Saw X and Paw Patrol are just two more films in this list. For better or for worse, Barbenheimer was a one-off – and this Barbie has had its fill of portmanteaus.
