Barbara 'Barbie' Oppenheimer Is An Actual Person And She Has Thoughts On The Films

It's officially the year of Barbenheimer. Releasing both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" on the same weekend has proven to be quite profitable for everyone involved. "Barbie" is officially the biggest box office hit of 2023, and "Oppenheimer" is one of the highest-grossing R-rated films ever, ranking amongst the likes of "Joker" and "Deadpool." It's also been an exciting summer for a woman who just so happens to be named Barbara "Barbie" Oppenheimer. 

Yes, really.

Slate interviewed the woman with the most fortuitous name in the world right now. She's a retired professor living in Newton, Massachusetts, who's also a grandmother of five. Luckily, she has a good sense of humor about Barbenheimer and saw both films. She explained how she's had some fun at the cinematic phenomenon's expense, "I'm on vacation right now, and when I checked in at the hotel, I said, 'Barbie Oppenheimer!' The guy said, 'Are you pulling my leg?'"

While plenty of people are named Barbara around the world, Oppenheimer is a bit more unusual. But it's no coincidence she shares a last name with the famous physicist, as she details the familial connection, "We went to opening weekend of Oppenheimer. My husband's father is third cousins to J. Robert, so we really wanted to see how they treated his story." It turns out she enjoyed both movies and is happy to play a special role in the cinematic event that has meant so much to so many people. 

Barbara Oppenheimer may have seen Christopher Nolan's film opening weekend, but she saw "Barbie" two weeks later with her husband. They didn't wear pink, but she mentioned how she has plans to see "Barbie" again with a group of friends with her Barbenheimer t-shirt. As for her thoughts on the movies, she's glad she saw both of them, which appears to be a common sentiment for everyone who enjoyed the double feature. 

Naturally, "Oppenheimer" holds some special significance due to her relation to the physicist; she believed the film did a good job of telling his story. She elaborated, "Well, the first thing I heard before I even saw it was that it's three hours long, and you're like, Oh boy. But I didn't find that a barrier at all. I thought they did a good job. It really gets into the moral dilemmas that Oppenheimer faced. Did he face them head-on at the time? That's a good question." As a professor in the sciences herself, she had a unique perspective that way, too, when analyzing the film, especially when it came to the politicization of science. 

The question then comes to which movie she liked more. She remained neutral in that regard, "They're so different. I think of myself—though I'm sure I've fallen behind the times—as a feminist, because of the generation I came out of. So I was tickled pink, I might say, that they put Barbie in the Barbie world and then Barbie in the real world. I laughed out loud practically through the whole thing ... I can't choose. I'm glad I saw both." Ultimately, she doesn't need to pick a winner because moviegoers won out this summer. But maybe Barbara Oppenheimer won just a little bit more.