3 ms·

See ‘Didacticism’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didacticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didacticism vs ‘Art for art’s sake’: https://en.m.wikipedia.or

See ‘Didacticism’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didacticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didacticism vs ‘Art for art’s sake’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_for_art%27s_sake https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_for_art%27s_sake The Barbie movie is highly didactic. It’s like a series of college essays strung together on a thin string of story. You come out of the the theater ready to debate the issues in the movie. Oppenheimer on the other hand is ‘art for art’s sake’. It’s not trying to ‘splain anything to you. You come out of the theater speechless, just carrying the weight of it all. Edit: Barbenheimer.

engineer_22 3y ago
Barbie started off pretty strong, but I lost interest when they repeatedly changed course. I got the feeling there were too many cooks in the kitchen.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Barbie was a shallow representation of the multiple generations of various feminist ideals and discussion points. Only 2nd wave feminism gets any actual discussion, though there's a mild discussion to point out that today's kids are on the 4th wave and have different ideas. The thing is that most people just agree with 2nd wave Feminism, as its the type that was well regarded and well pushed from the 1950s onwards. So Barbie plays it safe, pushes the older, well-agreed messaging and doesn't stray too far from the guard-rails. --------- Like, after watching Barbie, is anyone actually ready to discuss if sex-work / prostitution is pro-Feminisim or anti-Feminism? Erm... no. It avoided any sketchy issue or anything remotely controversial. Is sex-work pro-Feminism because women can decide how to act for themselves and use their innate femininity to gain power over males? Or is sex-work anti-Feminism because males who enjoy sexual material can turn into malicious actors who play into bad stereotypes and harmful myths? (And thus the females who partake in it are subject to male-gaze or something, its been a while since I've read feminist writing) Nothing wrong with that mind you. Barbie was designed to just be enjoyable, but it is a watered down discussion. But the minute real-world issues show up, you're hopelessly unprepared if you've only reached the surface-level that Barbie-movie brought you to. ----------- Hell, even just the 4th wave feminist child vs 2nd wave feminist mother dynamic in Barbie is so... short and shallow. The movie just leaves off without much debate, or exploration of the contradictory viewpoints. The only conclusion at the end is the younger generation might find Barbie fun if we play with them together, which is... absolutely avoiding the deeper issues and debates brought up in the movie. ---------- Oppenheimer on the other hand... gives you far more capability to discuss the pros-and-cons of the 1940s / 1950s politics of nuclear weapons. Its very deep on the subject.
karaterobot 3y ago
I broadly agree, but Barbie was both entertaining and very successful. It's also not a Disney movie. It would be a better example of how you can make a good, successful, didactic movie if you have very sharp filmmakers with enough pull to get it done their way.
crazygringo 3y ago
Funny, my take on Oppenheimer is the opposite -- and I loved both movies. Nolan is making the explicit argument that Oppenheimer is the most important person of the 20th century, it's literally a biopic that adheres (shockingly) faithfully to history, is explaining everything to you from the history of Los Alamos to justifications to drop the bomb to arguments for and against the H-bomb, and you come out of the theater absolutely ready to debate the issues. Oppenheimer is the literal opposite of art for art's sake. It's a straight-up history lesson that presents different sides of one of the biggest moral questions of the 20th century. Now other films of his, whether Tenet or Inception or Interstellar -- those are much more art-for-art's-sake. You can discuss them aesthetically all you want, but aside from questions of taste and clarity and plot, there isn't much of substance to debate. (On the other hand -- while Barbie was hyped as providing a lot to discuss, it was actually mostly just a very clever super funny comedy. It didn't really lead to all that much debate, aside from whether the idea of playing guitar "at" someone was merely a really funny joke, or one of top five funniest jokes in the movie...)
- aaomidi 3y ago
  The whole Barbie thing wasn’t important until the vocal political right made it their new public enemy #1.
- cameldrv 3y ago
  IMO the movie is making the point that Oppenheimer's security clearance review was politically motivated and essentially baseless. There's also a scene where Oppenheimer demands that workers without a clear need to know be told what they are building for morale/efficiency reasons. The fact is though that the Manhattan Project had multiple Soviet spies, and Oppenheimer's policies enabled them. It's even come out more recently that Oppenheimer is mentioned as a Soviet intelligence source in a decrypted cable from the San Francisco consulate.

engineer_22 3y ago

Barbie started off pretty strong, but I lost interest when they repeatedly changed course. I got the feeling there were too many cooks in the kitchen.

dragontamer 3y ago
Barbie was a shallow representation of the multiple generations of various feminist ideals and discussion points. Only 2nd wave feminism gets any actual discussion, though there's a mild discussion to point out that today's kids are on the 4th wave and have different ideas. The thing is that most people just agree with 2nd wave Feminism, as its the type that was well regarded and well pushed from the 1950s onwards. So Barbie plays it safe, pushes the older, well-agreed messaging and doesn't stray too far from the guard-rails. --------- Like, after watching Barbie, is anyone actually ready to discuss if sex-work / prostitution is pro-Feminisim or anti-Feminism? Erm... no. It avoided any sketchy issue or anything remotely controversial. Is sex-work pro-Feminism because women can decide how to act for themselves and use their innate femininity to gain power over males? Or is sex-work anti-Feminism because males who enjoy sexual material can turn into malicious actors who play into bad stereotypes and harmful myths? (And thus the females who partake in it are subject to male-gaze or something, its been a while since I've read feminist writing) Nothing wrong with that mind you. Barbie was designed to just be enjoyable, but it is a watered down discussion. But the minute real-world issues show up, you're hopelessly unprepared if you've only reached the surface-level that Barbie-movie brought you to. ----------- Hell, even just the 4th wave feminist child vs 2nd wave feminist mother dynamic in Barbie is so... short and shallow. The movie just leaves off without much debate, or exploration of the contradictory viewpoints. The only conclusion at the end is the younger generation might find Barbie fun if we play with them together, which is... absolutely avoiding the deeper issues and debates brought up in the movie. ---------- Oppenheimer on the other hand... gives you far more capability to discuss the pros-and-cons of the 1940s / 1950s politics of nuclear weapons. Its very deep on the subject.

karaterobot 3y ago

I broadly agree, but Barbie was both entertaining and very successful. It's also not a Disney movie. It would be a better example of how you can make a good, successful, didactic movie if you have very sharp filmmakers with enough pull to get it done their way.

crazygringo 3y ago

Funny, my take on Oppenheimer is the opposite -- and I loved both movies. Nolan is making the explicit argument that Oppenheimer is the most important person of the 20th century, it's literally a biopic that adheres (shockingly) faithfully to history, is explaining everything to you from the history of Los Alamos to justifications to drop the bomb to arguments for and against the H-bomb, and you come out of the theater absolutely ready to debate the issues. Oppenheimer is the literal opposite of art for art's sake. It's a straight-up history lesson that presents different sides of one of the biggest moral questions of the 20th century. Now other films of his, whether Tenet or Inception or Interstellar -- those are much more art-for-art's-sake. You can discuss them aesthetically all you want, but aside from questions of taste and clarity and plot, there isn't much of substance to debate. (On the other hand -- while Barbie was hyped as providing a lot to discuss, it was actually mostly just a very clever super funny comedy. It didn't really lead to all that much debate, aside from whether the idea of playing guitar "at" someone was merely a really funny joke, or one of top five funniest jokes in the movie...)

aaomidi 3y ago
The whole Barbie thing wasn’t important until the vocal political right made it their new public enemy #1.
cameldrv 3y ago
IMO the movie is making the point that Oppenheimer's security clearance review was politically motivated and essentially baseless. There's also a scene where Oppenheimer demands that workers without a clear need to know be told what they are building for morale/efficiency reasons. The fact is though that the Manhattan Project had multiple Soviet spies, and Oppenheimer's policies enabled them. It's even come out more recently that Oppenheimer is mentioned as a Soviet intelligence source in a decrypted cable from the San Francisco consulate.