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denimbex1986 · 1 year ago

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'We Have Become Death

We f’d up,” are the simple, clarifying words of Mo Gawdat — author of Scary Smart and former Chief Business Officer at Google X — on a recent episode of the podcast The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett.

He was referring to the release of ChatGPT and similar Generative A.I. systems, which have exploded as the latest in a series of global crises we’ve been faced with in the last several years. An urgent open letter has been written by leaders in the tech industry requesting a “six-month pause” on experiments and advancements as they assess potentially catastrophic consequences. The Center for Humane Technology is racing to governments with a desperate plea to “regulate before it’s too late.” (You can see their talk on A.I. and its various implications here.) Members of Congress are pushing for an A.I. bill. And, the “Godfather of A.I.,” Geoffrey Hinton, exited Google with dire warnings. Collectively, the community behind the creation and dissemination of this iteration of A.I. is having what Gawdat calls its “Oppenheimer moment.”

If they are having such an (in relevant terms) immediate mea culpa, then the question becomes: Why proceed without caution before the release of this species-altering technology? The answer, as it turns out, is very similar to what J. Robert Oppenheimer contended with in the 1940s, and what Gawdat describes as the first inevitable: “X advance (a weapon, a new technology, A.I.) will happen… ‘because of the other guy.’”

In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Hinton said, “I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.”

If I Don’t Do It, They Will

“The other guy” is a primary motivator for a host of human ills. For the most part, the people we know (personally) are human and flawed, but not psychopathic soul-sucking wormholes who seek the destruction of all they encounter. Yet, society at large often functions in a pathologically self-destructive manner. So there is some inherent disconnect between how we function in individual interactions, and the organizational and collective choices we make.

That break can be found in the avaricious, fear-based, survival impulse of the “other guy” ethos. “If I don’t do it, then they will.”

And, if that happens, I will lose: money, position, power, authority, and in the deepest recesses of our lizard brains, all resources and ability to survive.

It’s irrational, and makes us behave in ways that are counter to our long-term well-being. It reflects a deep distrust of our fellow man. It also indicates that we don’t have a lot of faith in our own ability to adapt and pivot with changing landscapes, while maintaining a focus on integrity and keeping things like generational well-being top of mind. Because sometimes the right thing to do in the face of a new technology is to go very slowly, or opt out entirely. The competitive, and fearful, instinct to rush ahead is also pathologically megalomaniacal, because, in this interpretation, the “I” is the only one worthy of holding real power.

In recent months, many of us have been pressured to implement tools like ChatGPT into our daily business activities: to test, learn, and master them as quickly as we can, always with the hope of gaining advantage over “the other guy” and with the baseline assumption that “if we don’t, they will.” But the reality is, in the long term (which few think of in the context of earnings reports), the other guy has just as much to lose as we do. But we’re scared, so we panic, and make moves that are too quick and with too little thought.

So what does any of this have to do with Oppenheimer or Barbie? Quite a lot as it turns out. Oppenheimer reflects the stagnant patterns of thinking that got us into this mess, Barbie is — both overtly and subtly — representing new ways to address problems, and a more collaborative leadership style that just may free us of the perils we, ourselves, have created.

Those warning against A.I. (largely leaders in the space) say that it is an extinction level risk as great, or greater than, nuclear weapons and/or global warming due to the staggering speed with which it is, can, and will evolve. (Yes, evolve, not advance.)

Why Oppenheimer? Why Now?

So shouldn’t we care about Oppenheimer’s story more than ever? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the interpretation — and director Christopher Nolan’s new film fails to embrace the moment. Oppenheimer (based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin) follows Cillian Murphy as the titular character in his early academic life through his work on the Manhattan Project — leading the charge in the creation of the atomic bomb. This is set against some explorations of his personal life, connections with the American Communist Party, and, importantly, two government hearings. One, a hearing in 1954 to determine his security status, and the second, Lewis Strauss’ Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce in 1959.

One description of the film says it “thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.”

That sentence is the essence of an alarming lack of personal responsibility on Oppenheimer’s part (a deficit that the film tacitly endorses). It also captures the rather heroic lens that is afforded the character. This isn’t a story about understanding how we allowed one of humankind’s greatest disasters to happen; it’s a film about the feelings (or lack thereof in interpersonal matters) of the man who ran the project to do so — half of which focuses on his hurt feelings after losing his security clearance years after said large-scale homicide of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Oppenheimer’s security level forfeiture was primarily due to the paranoid and wounded feelings of a petty and small man: Strauss (played, admittedly, gorgeously by Robert Downey Jr.). Hours of screen time dedicated to a small-minded squabble in the telling of the choice to burn the world.

What should have been the essential focus of the story links to the excuse given for releasing and implementing Generative A.I. today: “the other guy” dynamic. Sadly, Nolan’s Oppenheimer isn’t so much interested in honing and questioning the validity of that reasoning, other than offering a brief mention of it. If anything, it leans into and plays up this dynamic sans investigation.

“We can’t let the Nazi’s make the bomb first.” That’s the entirety of the discussion regarding why they initiated the Manhattan Project.

What Oppenheimer Fails (Refuses) To See

A fair, and pretty hard to argue with, assertion… Yet, creating the weapon actually wouldn’t have necessarily prevented Germany from doing the same. So, what was the plan once both sides had it? Weren’t there other options? Like striking key research targets either via bombs or assassinations? How about kidnapping the scientists to our side?

These first few violent ideas aren’t necessarily advisable or viable. However, we might retroactively brainstorm the first bad ideas that come to my mind, because if we do that, eventually we’ll land on better ones. The point is we must not simply stop at “we have to” without doing the work of probing that premise thoroughly.

Because, ultimately, the Nazis lost before the completion of the Manhattan Project. However, as seen in Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Russia was able to make progress on an atomic weapon as a result of it — sending us into a Cold War and decades-long specter of mutually assured destruction. One which is still very much playing out on a global stage.

The U.S. was not wrong to do everything in its power to prevent the Nazis from gaining ground. At all. Nor was their motivation to “beat Germany to it” nearly as morally bankrupt as the “I’ll lose free-market competitive edge if I don’t release my potentially civilization-ending A.I. system before the other guys,” excuse that tech leaders used. What’s important to note is that the film breezes past the crucial question of “Why?” in favor of far less essential (and interesting) explorations.

The movie notes that the war was all but over by the time the weapon was actually, and sickeningly, deployed. However, again, it’s wishy-washy in its portrayal of accountability. It does little to question the U.S. having taken this action when they so clearly didn’t need to: choosing to rain fire on people who had nothing to do with the decisions that arrogant leaders made behind closed doors. Oppenheimer as a film is entirely non-committal about, nor seemingly deeply interested in, the essential parts of this story and what truly matters: personal responsibility in the face of global catastrophe.

Essentially, why we are the way we are and how we can be different.

It gives Oppenheimer an out by having him relay “both sides” of scientific opinion. Yet, he was in no way “neutral” in reality. Oppenheimer was in the rooms and a part of the discussions about which cities to target and did indeed have “blood on his hands.”

Again, the film fails to make much of this other than a cursory acknowledgement. In fact, we pointedly don’t ever see Japan or its citizens. Instead, we bear witness to a few heady sequences wherein Oppenheimer imagines destruction hitting his own home turf. Indeed, he chooses to look away from actual footage of the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — footage Nolan does not show the audience.

Okay, you don’t want to be exploitative, but you don’t have to be in order to acknowledge the lived experience of those who actually suffered.

Much of Oppenheimer is beautifully made, and it’s brimming with brilliant performances, centered by Murphy’s. But it’s laboriously — and unnecessarily — mired in flabby side-stories. Saliently are the issues of what it chooses to focus on.

It drags us through a story of a fight between Oppenheimer and those who would stymie his influence in Washington. Opposition that is centered largely on the respective egos of the players: Murphy’s Oppenheimer vs Downey Jr.’s Strauss. Essentially, Strauss wants to strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance in order to sideline his authority and damage his reputation. A large piece of Strauss’ motivation is that Oppenheimer embarrassed him once, and he (incorrectly according to the film) thinks Oppenheimer gossiped about him with Einstein.

This is so off the mark for a film like this.

If we want to watch an endlessly empathic and powerful depiction of how our base natures, traumas, and smallness drive the fate of humanity, we’ve got Succession.

What’s relevant here is that Oppenheimer (the movie) is choosing to focus on hearings that weren’t really all that consequential to anyone other than the people involved. Given his role in history, why bother? This is a creative choice that supports an egoistic focus on the centrality of an individual who is “larger than life,” which is fundamentally toxic at its core — because it outsizes the importance of “some” to the detriment of the many.

In other words, what Nolan sees as central to Oppenheimer’s story is this one man and his (fairly petty) needs. Not what he did, why he did it, the damage he created, and how we might, right now, choose something better.

Later, during a Congressional hearing to confirm (or deny) Strauss’ Cabinet appointment, Oppenheimer is effectively “vindicated” via testimony condemning Strauss’ role in Oppenheimer’s demotion. Ultimately, they are both “denied.” Oh, the humanity!

Real, perhaps. But is this the piece of this story we need, rather than the bigger picture of the ramifications of the atomic bomb on and for the world, as seen through a personal lens. If the Washington hearings-centric part of the film had touched on Mccarthyism in some new way, perhaps that might even make some sense. But they don’t.

This is in addition to time wasted on shallowly threaded themes about Oppenheimer’s romantic nature. Who cares if he’s a womanizer? That’s a bit irrelevant in the face of the start of the weapons that could still equal our collective demise. This is to say nothing of the poor use, and inexplicable nakedness, of international treasure Florence Pugh. There is waste everywhere in this film.

Perhaps there are some cries of “But it’s based on a book.” So what? It didn’t have to be. Nor did it have to adhere to that book sans imagination. It’s an adaptation of a life, whichever way you slice it.

Who and What Deserves Our Attention?

There is a decent (though, not revelatory) movie about building the bomb and wrestling with its consequences (the latter of which, again, there is shockingly little of) in about an hour and a half. An hour and a half that could have also easily humanized Oppenheimer, allowing us to understand more of what was driving him as it relates to the weapon, which, again, this film fails to depict in a manner we can sink our teeth into. Seemingly, it was his dream to work on a physics project in New Mexico. If that self-motivated goal is reason enough, well then, we have our answer on why we as a species may actually extinct itself.

There is a potentially great movie here, if the filmmakers had chosen excise all the (overwrought, though gorgeously shot) nonsense, and take that extra hour and a half (of a three-hour runtime) to focus on the depiction of a fully developed character who represents those global consequences via a specific story: The story of a specific (and known to us, the audience) Japanese citizen, seen in the same time periods that we follow Oppenheimer, until their lives inevitably, tragically, and profoundly consequently, collide.

That may have felt resonant.

Yet, Nolan’s choices inevitably default to what has been done before cinematically, rather than offering a new, and needed, perspective.

Once upon a time, we believed that the story of the creation of Facebook was about how Mark Zuckerberg outsmarted two hulky twins. But, it’s not that at all, as we’ve seen. It’s everything it wrought, which he didn’t stop. The story of a man overcoming his geekiness, having sex with lovely women, and succeeding professionally is just the story we’re used to. It’s not actually what’s meaningful — to us.

The fact that this film thinks that Oppenheimer’s reputational woes are what’s crucial says everything. The truth is, his feelings are irrelevant. As is whether he was an a**hole, or not. It’s of no consequence if he was wronged (maybe) by a man he accidentally humiliated. And discovering that he was vindicated in their little boy’s fight (and given a shiny medal for his efforts) is utterly devoid of value.

It’s all ego, ego, ego… What’s essential is that over a hundred thousand people died as a result of a terrible idea implemented by brilliant (yet staggeringly limited) minds, who wouldn’t listen to reason when they could have. We need to hear the stories of those people who lost their lives in an (entirely unnecessary) show of force. Only one reason is that their ancestors are likely the ones motivated to think through actual solutions for what we’re facing now.

But, Oppenheimer doesn’t care about them, and it’s got nothing new to say.

Do you want to know why filmgoers will know that the sequences featuring government procedural hearings are weighty and essential? (Oscar-worthy, even?) Because they’re shot on 70mm black and white film and have lots of (again, very good) acting. (In other words, it can’t wait to tell you just how important you need to understand that it is.) Its high-brow razzle dazzle at its best. But at its center, it’s just as devoid of crucial, fresh ideas as anyone saying, “We’ve gotta do it before the other guy does.”

Oppenheimer is outdated and clinging to the past in all the ways that are harmful, and avoiding innovation in the manner that matters to us if we’re to save this planet (or the human species): one of the mind and spirit. The film does not seem to have the ability to put its gaze anywhere other than the most obvious, and often least meaningful, targets.

Its worst crime is that it is structurally built to (cinematically) “sell” the successful test of the bomb as a triumphant moment. There’s lots of important and fast-paced walk and talks, a propulsive feel, setbacks, obstacles, and driving sound. Everything is (very well) designed to tell you that this is leading somewhere astonishing. Then, just before the bomb drops, silence… followed by the infamous recitation of the Bhagavad Gita line, “I have become death the destroyer of worlds.” Well, congratulations on a successful set up and sequence. There was clapping in my theater when the bomb hit.

Brava! Everyone gets to — soul-crushingly — miss the point together.

And the thing is, Christopher Nolan is too good of a filmmaker not to understand the tension that he was building and releasing. This was meant to feel like an achievement, and we’re trained (by what we’ve watched previously) to subconsciously interpret that as “good”: a positive outcome. He could have just as easily used the tools of cinematic storytelling at his disposal to subvert that, and deliver a different (better) conscious and subconscious message to the audience.

As to that now-famous line, some say that Oppenheimer was effectively proclaiming himself a God. While others say he meant he was “compelled by the God/new power nuclear energy to be a force of destruction.” Neither is true. He was a man who made bad choices.

There were scientists that didn’t take part in the project, and later, many who advocated against using the bomb, particularly with the war all but over. Oppenheimer made neither of those choices. In fact, as the film depicts, there was an “almost zero” possibility (meaning some degree of potentiality) the bomb would have ignited the atmosphere, quite literally destroying all of the planet just in the testing phase. Again, a phase they reached when they were already pretty much victorious, and certainly the Nazis weren’t getting a bomb of their own. Yet, they pressed on, without the knowledge or consent of the very lives they risked.

At one point in this film Oppenheimer’s wife (played by Emily Blunt) says of death related to his infidelity, “You don’t get to commit the sin and then have us feel sorry for you that there were consequences.” This is as close as the film gets to holding him accountable, and it really is a cop out. Because, Oppenheimer (the film) does want us to feel sorry for him in the end. Again, over a really petty gripe that equalled him losing some privilege.

Perhaps this film isn’t asking the truly salient questions because the creators aren’t able to step outside of their own embedded systems to know that there are more important questions. In other words, they’re taking it as a given that Oppenheimer had no choice, and was acting, therefore, heroically — and again, the film structurally sets us up to see him in this light. If that’s the case, then we need creators, and thinkers at large, who are able to open the door to better, more useful questions and perspectives. Those who won’t take norms as a given. Because the norms we currently have are driving us on an inevitable path to our own end.

These aren’t just stale notions: they’re going to, quite literally, destroy us.

Barbie and the Art of Being Relevant, With a Sense Of Humor

It would be unimaginable to propose that Barbie (the film, not the literal world-polluting plastic doll nor the cultural symbol that attacked women’s sense of self for decades) is the solution to the problems that Oppenheimer, and his ilks’, thinking created. (But what if we did?)

We frequently dismiss the most relevant aspects of our lives as being less so, because they don’t come with the grave approval or consideration of an (imagined or real) outside validating source. We may limit the investment in our relationships in favor of our careers, and so on. How often do we undermine something, naming it fluff, because, at its core, it’s joyful — and centered on the heart?

The basic premise of Barbie, the film, is that things are all but perfect for “Stereotypical” Barbie (Margot Robbie) in Barbieland. Though not so much for Ken (Ryan Gosling), who is — along with the other Kens — all but an accessory to the primary dolls (the Barbies). When Robbie’s character starts to experience inexplicable (human) flaws, she must travel to the “real world” to seek the girl who is playing with her, and thus creating this unwanted frailty. Ken decides to travel with her, and discovers the joys of the patriarchy.

A battle for Barbieland, and for their individual and collective identities, ensues.

Barbie is a genuinely brilliant, funny script that is executed with a stunningly deft hand. It also has something real to say, and a novel approach to do so. Two hundred writers could have walked into a general meeting with Mattel and walked out with a solid take on a story, which may or may not have generated an entertaining film that sold dolls. What co-writer and director Greta Gerwig’s film is doing is adding to a real conversation that has implications well beyond anything as limited (and, candidly, condescending ) as “girl-power.”

It’s been fascinating to see the various takes on “what myth” the film is telling. Is it the hero’s journey, or the heroine’s? There’s one interpretation that makes note of some interesting links to the myth of Inanna (the story of a Queen reclaiming her throne after a visit to the underworld).

The truth is, Barbie can’t be boxed in (yep) that way, because it contains aspects of various mythological stories and structures, while also boasting of a (Oscarcast-worthy) dance number, and perhaps the best Snyder cut joke to date. We won’t go too far down the rabbit hole with either the hero or heroine’s journey, here, but a (very stripped down) focus for the sake of this piece is that the hero’s journey offers a bit more in terms of receiving external accolades and rewards in the end (as one point of distinction). The heroine’s journey, in a very broad sense, kind of picks up where that leaves off.

After abandoning femininity in favor of masculine systems, the protagonist attains a certain level of cultural achievement and says, “Huh, I have all this stuff. I was a part of the system… Now what?” This brings on a crisis in which they ultimately ask, “How do I integrate the depths of myself and my soul with ideas of external reward and cultural significance?” It’s more complex, but one thing it’s asking us to think about is: “What does happiness truly mean and look like to me as my most complete self?” And, importantly, outside of the context of cultural validations such as money, ego-driven success, and accolades.

Barbie is a movie that celebrates humanity in all its simple, sometimes ugly, often easily missed glory, as seen through the eyes of a doll meant to represent an idealized version of it. There are several sequences in which Robbie’s Barbie soaks in the subtle, and not so subtle, pieces of joy available to us every day if we look for them (and aren’t distracted by pain-causing drives): the wind in the trees, laughing with family, the sunshine while waiting for a bus, and the face of a woman who is old enough to have seen it all, and love herself through it.

This is important, because, as noted, the ambition to win (often financially, but also in other respects) at all costs has stripped of us our ability to act in accordance with our own, long-term, interests. Barbie, effectively, suggests that we slow down and put our eyes back on what’s truly essential.

The heroine’s journey is about coming into our own sense of self, fully, putting external drives in their proper place, and in so doing, changing the world around us. What’s interesting about this film is that a number of characters experience this transformation, perhaps most centrally Robbie’s Barbie and America Fererra’s Gloria (a mom who works for Mattel and is struggling with the loss of connection with her teen daughter). There is also an element of healing the mother/daughter split that is present in the heroine’s journey, which Ferrera’s character embodies, along with Ariana Greenblatt’s Sascha, her daughter. The point is, multiple characters are taking their own hero and/or heroine’s journey, which impacts the whole. It’s the intersection of the community and (true) individual good that saves the day in this film.

(Interestingly enough, this last season of the Max comedy The Other Two really captured the heroine’s journey.)

Barbie doesn’t actually fall squarely into the trajectory of the hero or heroin’s journey, and that’s part of the film’s brilliance. The heroine (in that mythological structure) must travel into her darkness, the underworld, and her shadow. (The hero must do some of this as well, of course, it’s simply more central in the heroine’s journey.) Barbie’s underworld is our world, the “real” world, where she must face the consequences of the pain she (as an idol) inadvertently caused. Barbie, the film, is subversion and acknowledgment of what that symbol has meant in the world, as seen through a specific, individual lens.

This is part of personal responsibility. Truly owning — feeling — the pain we have caused. Of course, Barbie also doesn’t have the immediate answer for this pain. Nor should she. She needs the wisdom of those who suffered from it, among others.

Robbie’s Barbie is very reluctantly called to action and to leave her comfortable existence (as in the hero’s journey). She’s compelled, quite literally, by a force outside of herself. But, it’s not because she is the sole savior of this — or any — world. Quite the opposite.

This is a movie that is, in many ways, about cooperative leadership and co-owned responsibility. In Barbieland, there are the structures of our world: the President, lawyers, doctors, authors, and so on. However, there is a fluidity to how they step into leadership, based on need and available expertise.

Matriarchy or Patriarchy?

In terms of the myth of Inanna, there are some fascinating parallels. Barbie must travel to the underworld (Los Angeles) and reckon with her own objectification, and loss of (overt) power. While there, Ken, who has no sense of purpose or authority in Barbieland separate from the Barbies, becomes enamored — and frequently confused about — symbols of masculinity: like horses, and, as Clueless so aptly put it, complaint rock.

Ken returns these ideas to Barbieland, upending their order, and implementing the manosphere version of the patriarchy. So, he’s kind of the worst for that section of the film. However, in many ways, understandably so, having been so disempowered previously. This is one of the insights that the film is offering, which a lesser story may not have.

There is a key distinction between this film and the Inanna myth, and it’s salient to what Barbie (the movie) is getting right. Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie is not reclaiming her own throne. Not entirely. She’s actually giving it to the rightful person. The leader of Barbieland is Issa Rae’s President Barbie, not Stereotypical Barbie. The reclamation is for all of the women who have been displaced, not just herself.

Importantly, Stereotypical Barbie isn’t able to accomplish this on her own. In fact, she’s entirely shut down until America Ferrara’s Gloria steps in. When Gloria feels doubt in her ability to succeed in saving the Barbies’ world, her daughter says “we have to try, even if it’s not perfect.” That’s likely a choice point for many of us at this time in our history, where action seems futile, but we must try anyway. Gloria chooses to accept that calling, and in so doing, she becomes the primary driver of the rescue mission. Though again, all of the Barbies (including Robbie’s) must actively participate in order for them to be successful.

Gloria is also the one who called Barbie to the real world initially, as she was experiencing a devastating split with her daughter and sense of place in the world. She activated an initiation for herself, for Barbie, and both of their worlds, all born of a desire to create a greater union, rather than a desire to advance the self or ego. The pain of those circumstances earned Gloria the wisdom she needed in order to activate, awaken, and re-empower all the Barbies. They, in turn, have the humility to listen to one who has experienced what they have not, but have (inadvertently, perhaps) been a part of creating.

In the end, there’s a joke in which Rhea Perlman’s character calls Robbie’s character “Self-Effacing” Barbie, because Robbie acknowledges that she didn’t, singularly, save the day or create a change.

It actually matters that we engage with this healthy level of humility, because no one person — or persons — will solve the existential reckoning we’re in. This is going to take a radical shift in how we perceive polarities like the individual and the collective. This kind of thinking is in direct opposition to the Oppenheimer-esque point-of-view that “only I am qualified,” (I being an individual, a nation, or a company) and “if I don’t do it, then…”

In the end, Stereotypical Barbie exits Barbieland. She doesn’t return home to rule as in the hero’s journey (or the Inanna myth). She chooses her humanity. She selects this world (in all its mess), rather to remain an ideal. She wants to have the ideas, rather than be one. The last moments of the movie solidify its genius. Because it wasn’t about Barbie becoming a CEO, or world leader, or gaining some other validating title. Rather, the focus was on her embracing a very human, often humiliating (though necessary), deeply vulnerable, and ultimately life-affirming medical need: tending to her pussy.

As to “the bad rap” that Barbie is giving men, this feels like a misreading. If anything, Barbie makes the point that a sure sign that you’re still trapped in the patriarchy is the idea that the antidote to it is the inversion: the creation of an imagined, utopic matriarchy.

The Kens are infantilized and disempowered to the degree that they are dangerous (and sad). They don’t represent men in total. They represent men out of alignment with their own dignity. Just as the Barbies, once infected with the patriarchy (which is just a system like any other, and does not represent every member of said system) are disconnected from their grace and intelligence. Barbieland isn’t a utopia and the problems haven’t been solved. It’s not an aspiration. It’s simply a mirror.

The answer to the life and death crossroads we face today isn’t to invert our systems. It can’t be found in thinking that small. Every one of us (no matter our job or role in life) is faced with daily questions as consequential as, “How do I make an ethical choice in an inherently unethical system?”

As such, we must find a path forward that looks unlike any we’ve tread before. And a “dream land” or house, or imagined intellectualized paradise that discounts our essential humanity isn’t going to cut it. Barbie actually gets this.

We’ve Got Questions, Barbie’s Got Answers

Solutions to embedded problems aren’t going to be found with the same thinking that created them — a true pattern interrupt is needed. So, it’s equally unlikely that the people who are thriving in these systems will be the cure for them. At least not on their own, and without the benefit of those who have new ideas. Ideas that were born because the people offering them have needed to develop ways to exist without the immediate benefits of our current structures. In other words, those outside of the system. Also, possibly, just everyday people, as Barbie proposes via America Ferrera’s character.

In the movie version of life where a tidal wave shatters Los Angeles and 13 very special and important people get on a ship, I have no illusions about where I’d be. I’m drowning in that wave with everyone else. But perhaps it’s people like us who can help spark some ideas. Because we’re not getting on that ship, we’re motivated to do so.

I’d also make the argument that it’s also the more “important” one. We should not disregard the knowledge of those who created these A.I. (and other) tools as they ring alarm bells now. However, if they’d had true wisdom, would they have created and deployed these technologies in the first place? Would they not have, possibly, found a different, as yet unforeseen path? One that does not fall back on the excuse of, “but the other guys” as if that’s the flat bottom of human thinking and capability. They’re far too smart to truly believe that, and too brilliant not to have been able to predict the perilous outcomes.

They simply chose to move ahead anyway. Yes, they must be part of the solution, but not all on their own, and without input from the very lives they are already negatively impacting. They’ll have to take their medicine just like Barbie did straight from a ruthless adolescent mouth.

A movie, like Oppenheimer, dedicated to one such person’s angst about his own ruinous work isn’t what we need. Worse still, a movie that is largely about his unrelated angst. His egoic emotions aren’t useful to explore. We’re all too familiar. What’s at issue is an entire culture reformed in the face of the atomic bomb.

Barbie calls the status quo on its crap and offers a new vision. Oppenheimer is not only upholding — but clinging to, and celebrating — a status quo that has brought us to a crushing confluence of crises. Simply in the design of the film, in who it centers, in the way it’s constructed, it is doing that. The single man, with such weight on his shoulders… (Who in reality needed scores of people and support to “achieve” what he did.) This film is the essence of the systems that got us here.

Barbie, however, is a film that is at once scathingly funny, deeply loving, an expression of awe in the face of the mundane, about the individual in collaboration with community as the solution to ills, and the embodiment of a number of rooted cultural myths.

When all is said and done, Barbie really is just the better movie. There is also an argument to be made that it’s the more “important” one.'

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