Ever since their July 21 release, Barbie and Oppenheimer have taken the world — and Uni High — by storm.
Between Barbie and Oppenheimer collecting 1.34 billion and 865.5 million dollars respectively at the global box office, #Barbenheimer garnering over a billion views on TikTok to date, and Uni High’s Cross Country team dedicating their first dress-up day to Barbie, it’s clear Barbenheimer — a portmanteau of Barbie and Oppenheimer — has solidified its reputation as a cultural phenomenon.
The hype hasn’t spared Uni: from August 25 to September 1, ninety students, teachers, and parents filled out a survey contributing their views on Barbenheimer.
Globally, Rotten Tomatoes audiences liked Oppenheimer better than Barbie, with a 93% approval rate for Oppenheimer and 88% for Barbie.
At Uni, 74% of the Uni community watched just Barbie; 38% watched just Oppenheimer; and 29% watched both Barbie and Oppenheimer. Of the people who watched both, 65% liked Barbie better and 35% liked Oppenheimer better.
According to freshman Linden Peters, who watched both, Barbie and Oppenheimer were both “really good movies,” but Barbie was better for its “comedy and modern interpretation.”
However, junior Tristen Ting, who also watched both, thinks Oppenheimer was better.
“I fell asleep at the end of Oppenheimer, I’m not even gonna lie,” he says, “but I think that [Oppenheimer] was more compelling at the beginning … [Barbie] was just kind of boring at the end. It was really weird. And the editing was really bad.”
“I will say that [with] Oppenheimer, they really presented the information really nice. They didn’t usually give usual Hollywood inaccuracies,” says Peters. “They did a really good job of explaining the events.”
Some students think Barbie may have been overpromoted. According to Entrepreneur.com, Barbie spent over 150 million dollars on marketing; on Instagram, the Barbie movie account has nearly two million followers.
“I liked the message of [Barbie]. It was just fun to watch for me … [but] the anticipation [for Barbie] kind of set my expectations super-high,” says junior Khuyen Nguyen, who watched both movies as well. “I think I was expecting more than was actually there.”
“[Barbie] made me cry. Many times,” says sophomore Violet Moses, who only watched Barbie. “I loved the casting.”
Some students argue that Barbie and Oppenheimer can’t really be likened.
“If you’re looking for different things, both of them have their good traits,” adds Nguyen. “Oppenheimer is not [the] type of movie that I’d … watch, because I normally watch very family-oriented movies, not … action movies. But [I watched it] since my family wanted to … [and] I was pleasantly surprised.”
“They both appeal to different audiences,” says Ting. “Barbie just didn’t appeal to my audience.”
Barbie ruled the summer box office, passing six hundred million dollars domestically on September 1. Oppenheimer is expected to be showing in theaters until late October and is director Christopher Nolan’s third highest-ranking film domestically, behind The Dark Knight and The Dark Night Rises.
What with audience members like Moses, who states she would watch Barbie a “million times,” it’s clear Barbenheimer is here to stay in this mojo dojo casa house.