Barbie isn’t anti-men – but Oppenheimer is anti-women

It may be the most nominated film at the 2024 Oscars, but the Christopher Nolan biopic is exactly like most other films, writes Amelia Loulli – and that’s the problem

I expected to enter and exit the cinema despising Barbie and in awe of Oppenheimer (AP)

Before I saw the Barbie movie, I was resolutely against ever seeing the Barbie movie. Despite the fact that as a child I loved Barbie, who I interviewed regularly for important radio segments in her coral peach ball gown, I decided that the last thing I needed was 90 neon-coloured-Margot-Robbie-filled minutes of a film which would obviously have nothing new to offer me; a grown-up feminist woman who stopped idealising the problematic Barbie aesthetic decades ago.

But then the reviews from angry men started rolling in. You only had to be vaguely near the internet after Barbie’s release to hear the resounding roars of the mostly middle-aged; outraged that such an abomination against “all men” could even be allowed to exist. The reviews began to read like dreamy promotional soundbites: “An alienating, dangerous and perverse film”, “They won’t be happy until we are all gay”.