The very online showdown between Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” all started with a date: July 21.
It’s not uncommon for studios to counterprogram films in different genres on a big weekend, but the stark differences between an intense, serious-minded picture about the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb and a lighthearted, candy-colored anthropomorphizing of a childhood doll quickly became the stuff of viral fodder.
There’s even some disagreement over whether it’s “Barbieheimer” or “Barbenheimer” or “Boppenheimer” or yet another tortured portmanteau — a phenomenon on which the AP Stylebook has yet to offer guidance, but for the purposes of this article will be “Barbenheimer.”
It didn’t hurt that both
