On the morning of July 21st 2023, I left my Dublin apartment dressed head-to-toe in an outfit of hot pink. As I headed towards my tram stop, I was stopped on the street by a group of three girls also dressed in varying shades of pink. “Are you going to see Barbie!?” one girl exclaimed. I told her that I was, as well as Oppenheimer. “Then where’s your black coffee and cigarette?” another girl asked in response. 
    During the weekend of July 21st, moviegoers all around the world went out in droves to see the new Barbie movie, and many moviegoers also went to see the newest Christopher Nolan drama Oppenheimer. Curiously, thousands went to see both, one after another, on the same day. This group of young women did not find it unusual that I was watching a cerebral World War II biopic the same day I was watching a pink-tinted adaptation of a beloved IP. They simply wished to share in the joy of a cultural moment in progress. Such is how Barbenheimer was for thousands of moviegoers in the summer of 2023.  
     The creation of the Barbenheimer phenomenon and its resulting successes and gains for the film industry are typically credited to the films’ divergent subject matters and aesthetics, as well as the ubiquity of meme culture. Memes about the bright pink fun of Barbie alongside the decidedly bleak themes of Oppenheimer have certainly helped the two films to blow up into the year-defining moviegoing phenomenon that they are, but I would argue that the memes play only part of Barbenheimer’s success. It is certainly humorous to juxtapose the two films, but, as many disgruntled Twitter and Letterboxd users have pointed out in recent weeks, different movies come out on the same day every single weekend without fanfare. Counterprogramming is a time-honored tactic in the realm of film releases as studios work to ensure that a movie for every demographic imaginable is playing in a theater at any time. To me, the counterprogramming of Barbie and Oppenheimer is not the secret to their respective successes, and other subsequent memes and phenomena based on the counterprogramming of two different films are unlikely to happen again anytime soon (Sorry, Saw Patrol advocates.)  
    According to my own observations, the success of Barbenheimer has had a lot to do with the fact that there has been a lot of pent-up excitement for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, excitement that was years in the making. I remember when I first saw the announcement that Cillian Murphy would be the lead in Christopher Nolan’s latest drama, and the eagerness and anticipation that I felt in that moment. As a fan of both Christopher Nolan’s films and Cillian Murphy’s work (I was in the middle of watching Peaky Blinders at the time), I already had high expectations for Oppenheimer that only grew in the subsequent months as I heard details about the film’s production, including its being shot on 70mm film for IMAX and its recreation of the first atomic bomb using only practical effects. Although I acknowledge the average member of the general public might not care too much about the intricate details of Oppenheimer’s production, Christopher Nolan does remain one of the most popular directors of our generation, with everything from his Batman films to Inception to Interstellar being widely watched and highly regarded. 
    It goes almost without saying that this same excitement, if not much more, was building concurrently with Barbie. The Barbie film had been in the works for many years, and the final announcements of Greta Gerwig’s direction and Margot Robbie’s titular casting seemed to make the film poised for greatness in the eyes of film Twitter and the general public alike. Gerwig may not have been as an established director as Nolan, only having Lady Bird and Little Women under her belt, but these films were widely acclaimed, and Robbie was even more acclaimed at this point, having gained worldwide recognition for roles as diverse as Harley Quinn and Tonya Harding. I still remember seeing the first teaser poster for Barbie featuring Margot Robbie as Barbie sitting in her hot pink convertible, and thinking to myself, “Wow. She is Barbie.” Everyone seemed to agree. 
   Fast forward to last month, where I experienced what I can safely say is my favorite moviegoing experience in many years. It reminded me in some ways of the excitement and energy that accompanied screenings of films in the MCU leading up to and including Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Fans flocked out to screenings of those films with a similar fervor as they did on Barbenheimer weekend, but it was different. 
   For one, at MCU films, there wasn’t as clear a dress code as there was at Barbie and Oppenheimer on opening day. Sure, people would show up at the latest Avengers movie with a Captain America T-shirt or something similar, but these had nothing on the absolute fits that people rolled into their Barbenheimer screenings with. I, along with many others, opted for an outfit of all pink for both films. I had originally wanted to have an outfit change in the middle of the day, but time and budget left me with just the pink. This was no problem, of course. I went with a hot pink suit jacket, hoping to emphasize a silhouette slightly reminiscent of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s iconic outfit while also exuding Barbie realness. I was sure both Barbie and Oppie would approve. Other people did go for the midday outfit change. I saw many people – and yes, I did recognize many people who went to both screenings of Barbie and Oppenheimer that I was at that day – who had changed from black to pink during the day. I even saw some people who incorporated elements of both films into their outfits. There was one group of people wearing matching T-shirts featuring art of Barbie in one of her classic dresses looking at a hot pink mushroom cloud. There was even one person who recreated Oppenheimer’s classic outfit, hat and all, in hot pink. There was an all-in energy at these screenings that rivalled some of the biggest movie events of our generation – think the MCU or Twilight, but even bigger. 
There was also a general tone of excitement that predicated these screenings that felt new. To continue the comparison, I’ve certainly experienced excitement in the room during a screening of a MCU film, but this excitement has gone stale over the years. People know what to expect at a Marvel movie – you laugh at the one-liners and clap during the third act plot twists and cheer at the cameos (Many Marvel actors have even admitted in interviews that they will be directed to pause before or after line deliveries to allow for cheering and applause in theaters, like the sitcom actors before live studio audiences in decades past). During the Barbenheimer theatrical experience, however, I noticed a frenzied energy in each respective theater, as it was clear that nobody knew quite what to expect. Yes, Barbie is also a film based on an established IP, but the overall plot of the movie had been largely kept under wraps leading up to the film’s release, and there were still people who wondered if the film would have darker themes than we were all led to believe. Oppenheimer, too, had people guessing, even though the events of the film are literally right there in the historical record. How would it feel to see the bomb on the big screen? And what about the other three hours of runtime!? Everyone went into Barbenheimer brimming with questions, and I would argue that we left with even more. 
    At the time of my writing, there are plenty of people who are already over Barbenheimer. Some people are just sick of hearing about Barbenheimer altogether, and who probably scrolled right by this post when they saw the title. There are plenty more bemoaning the billion dollars that Barbie has made at the box office, especially with Mattel’s announcement of many more films in development based on beloved IP. Many flinch when they imagine studios trying on purpose to push a Barbenheimer-esque movement to boost the box office numbers of future releases. And then there’s whatever awards season will bring as this year draws to a close. As one of my friends put it recently, “It’s all fun and games until the cringey Barbenheimer jokes at the Oscars.” 
   Barbenheimer does bring me a tinge of sadness now as we look at delays and uncertainty for many upcoming films as studios choose to postpone titles such as Dune Part 2 amidst the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. This unique day of moviegoing may have been the last fun weekend at the movies for a while. 
Whatever the future may bring, I will always remember the combined four and a half hours that I spent in a movie theater in Dublin on July 21st 2023, and the breaths held by the room as the flash of a bomb went off, or when the sun rose on Barbieland for the first time.