Barbenheimer

Barbenheimer is the het ship between Barbie Roberts and J. Robert Oppenheimer from the Barbie and Oppenheimer fandoms.

Canon
Barbie is a character based on the doll by the same name, made by Mattel. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist often called the "father of the atomic bomb." Thus, obviously, there would never be a chance for the two of them to meet in canon. However, in 2023, with the release of both movies, where the two characters were the main characters of each of their respective movies, fans started shipping the two of them.

Both characters have to deal with existential dread looming over them. Barbie is tasked with coming to grips with human mortality and her place within it. While in Oppenheimer's case, death is a possibility that looms large over the entire film, be it the scientist and his colleagues reflecting on the genocide being carried out by Adolf Hitler in the World War II timeline, the devastating impact their deterrent bomb could (and would) have, or how death is a ticking clock that taunts Oppenheimer as he strives to urge America away from nuclear proliferation.

Both Barbie and Oppenheimer also need counsel in the final act of their stories. For Oppenheimer, it's Albert Einstein, a friend and colleague in real life who could relate to the regret the movie's protagonist was experiencing. In Barbie's case, this mentor is the doll's real-life inventor, Ruth Handler. When Barbie is at a loss as to what her ending is supposed to be, it's Ruth who guides her to the possibilities. Like Einstein, she offers advice that is not easy to hear and is deeply impactful on the protagonist and their audience.

Fanon
Despite the massive popularity that the Barbenheimer movie collaboration got worldwide, the ship is still considered to be a crack ship. Not many people ship Barbie and Oppenheimer romantically, instead choosing to explore their dynamic as friends or fellow main characters. In some fanworks, Barbie goes to the human world, but also goes back in time to Oppenheimer's era. In these fanworks, Barbie time travels and finds herself in Oppenheimer's world, navigating all that that entails, with him. Or, in the opposite way, Oppenheimer goes to Barbieland. And Barbie guides him as this new world totally puzzles him. Sometimes, he even ends up falling in love with Ken, and then, the three of them end up in a polycule.

Both Cillian Murphy and Margot Robbie also famously portrayed popular DC Villains. Cillian Murphy portrayed Jonathan Crane throughout Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy while Margot Robbie also famously played Harley Quinn in the DCEU. Both of these characters were also coincidentally psychiatrists at Arkham Asylum, so fans found the coincidence that both leads of the film had played similar roles in the past enhanced the same-day release Oppenheimer and Barbie shared even more and added an entirely new layer to the event beyond just a simultaneous theatrical release.

Many thought that both films releasing on the same day would result in a rivalry and debate over which movie would be the superior to watch, when in actuality it only resulted in a much larger celebration of both, and fans instead suggested a double feature of the two films as opposed to choosing one or the other.

On November 30th, It was officially announced that Murphy and Robbie would be paired together for Variety’s 2024 Actors on Actors interview series. This had been teased by Variety a day prior when an image of the set was released featuring two chairs with one having a black pillow and the other a pink one.

Currently, on AO3, the ship has over 20 works written. While all over social media, fans have made tons of fan arts of the two together.

Fandom

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