Bit of a cliché this, but…

How they are related

Both films construct worlds – Barbieland and Los Alamos. So Oppenheimer is Ruth Handler; for Barbie is as much her story as anyone else’s.

Both are about the discovery of a new weapon – the atomic bomb and patriarchy. So Oppenheimer is also Ken.

And in both these weapons are used, with devastating consequences. The world then recoils in shock and works to prevent their re-use. Détente begins, and the women replace the temporary patriarchy with a looser form of gynaecocracy.

Gloria and Sasha are the people from the real world who travel to Barbieland and help sort things out. But what’s the role of ordinary people in Oppenheimer, other than the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

What’s really interesting when setting these two alongside each other – and this is surely the reason for the humorous combined memes – is that each typifies a particularly gendered style. Oppenheimer is a classic male – scientist, clever, determined, an outside, an individual – as against, er, Barbie. The gender battle on the beach at the end of Barbie must have been based on this Mail on Sunday commercial from 2007.

As for the name ‘Barbenheimer’, wouldn’t it have been great if Ken was called Frank: we could then call it ‘Frankenheimer’ – a lot more Gothic. But Barbenheimer itself retains the gendered distinction whereby women are referred to by first names, men by surnames. Might a useful reversal be Robohandler? Hasn’t got the same ring about it, but I guess that’s my point.