The trending trends over the weekend have all been electoral, which should not be surprising, since politics has co-opted the television grills, which continues to be the main forum in which a society dialogues with itself. In the case of Spanish television, the agora where a country shouts at itself. But there is more. There is cinema. Let's take a breath, then, in a week in which Alberto Núñez Feijóo has been the star of the daily hashtags without interruption since the TVE presenter Silvia Intxaurrondo snapped at him "that's not correct" and gave him the thousand-yard look - those of us who have lived in the Basque Country tend to believe that that icy and piercing look is an attribute of Basque female genetics -, and we look outside of politics to attend the very interesting Hollywood battle to revive projection rooms, which in the last thirty days has experienced the resurrection of Indiana Jones, the exhibition of hegemony by filmmaker Tom Cruise –which he is, and the most important without having to write or direct– with his commitment to great spectacle, and, this weekend, the unusual duel between Oppenheimer, by Christopher Nolan, and Barbie, by Greta Gerwig, who has kept social networks active for the exemplary battle between the seriousness of what is important and what is important and what is important the lightness of fun.
Universal and Warner Bros, distributors of the two films, have allowed the coincidence of the premiere to cause a curious competition on social networks, which began months ago, but which has gained strength in recent days. The competition, baptized on social networks as Barbenheimer, has operated to create the idea of an unprecedented film event, to the point that last Friday was the best day at the box office since 2019, that is, since before the outbreak of the pandemic, which has so affected a film business that had been injured for some time by the emergence of digital platforms.
The beauty of the fight, which in the first place was winning the Mattel doll but which is being beneficial for both titles, is this apparent contradiction between what is important and what is banal that turns out to be not so much. Neither Barbie is exempt from political ambition – in fact, her speech seeks a sophisticated look at the war of the sexes – nor what the biopic of the inventor of the bomb tells is as important as it is solemn. Which, on the other hand, underlines what we already knew about the artistic personality of both Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan.
That Barbenheimer is fine because he draws well the contours of the contemporary Western citizen, light but pompous, joyful and fatuous at the same time. But he overlooks the fact that there is another premiere in the running, even more profitable: Insidious: the red door, closing the famous horror saga whose cost in relation to its box office makes it the real deal of the moment and reminds us that we are light and serious, but we are also afraid. Too much.
