In 2023, I did the Barbenheimer. I watched the Barbie Movie and then sat through Oppenheimer.
I’m sure there were blogs, articles, and whatnot written about these films and then more that spoke to the phenomenon of watching the two together at that time, and possibly even the release of two films so different around the same time. In hindsight, it spoke so much —and I believe it still does— to our time.
On the one hand, war. Russia had launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year before in February of 2022 and in just a few short months, Israel would start its bombing campaign and war on Gaza; a cry for self defense that would almost immediately start to look like a genocidal war campaign. Within the scope of these world events, the two conversations on the tongues of those who cared to dialogue about movies was “feminism” —how far it had come, how far it still had left to go, and whether or not a 1h 54m film about lifesized dolls could truly speak to ‘the struggle’— and “the consequences of war”.
Fast forward to the summer of 2026, as I sat through the ending credits of The American Doctor, fresh off of a conversation with a coworker about my take on The Odyssey, I was reminded of this strange Barbenheimer time of just three years ago.
With the sacking of Troy, Zeus’ law —a modern framing of Xenia— was broken. If considering just Christopher Nolan’s framing of this film, from the Trojan Horse onward, this crime that went against the Gods added to and further invalidated the law of Zeus. To interpret more simply, because someone had the idea and gall to break a socially recognized rule and norm, it opened the door for others to do the same, commit similar offenses, because someone else had already done it once.
I thought of this as I watched the 1h 31m film about three doctors from America that speaks of this fresh sin, the purposeful targeting of children and medical facilities within the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Army in a land where there has “never been a ceasefire since 1948”. Rule 35 the first and fourth Geneva Conventions provide protections for hospitals and safety zones to protect the wounded, sick, and civilians. A protection that has been violated time and time again, with documented evidence in videos and photos, with impunity and under the protection of the United States government, among many others.
Permission given through complicity and silence, war crimes that open the door to more war crimes. Zeus’ law broken. These two films connect and root these two times in a way I’d not expected, and speak to our time —in the case of The Odyssey— the Trojan Horse has been lauded since the time of Troy, and since my last recollection of Greek history, lauded as a military success to be learned from and repeated. And so, I wonder, for how long will we— for I believe that all of us alive and breathing are complicit, responsible for, and accountable to the atrocities being committed against the Palestinian people and any other people wronged during our time— for how long will the crimes against humanity that the Israeli Defense Force is committing be lauded by the masses before we —all of us— can see that what is being done is wrong; should be punished, is a punishable offense, is unethical, immoral, and illegal, and something that should be held to account?
Caia Rose 