Denison Forum
Dr. Jim Denison
Oppenheimer won five Golden Globes last night, including best drama, while Barbie took the award for cinematic and box office achievement. But everyone who attended the ceremony won something as well: they each received a gift bag worth $500,000. You read that right—thirty-eight different items were included in the bags, among them Colombian emerald earrings valued at $69,000 and six bottles of wine worth $193,500.
Giving such opulent gifts to such wealthy people seems to say something about the materialism of our consumeristic culture. The two movies pointed in the same direction.
Reviewer Simon Western explained the popularity of Barbie, the highest-grossing worldwide movie of 2023: “It reaffirmed the chosen ideology of our times, i.e. America Dream individualism, which makes us feel that we are filled with individual agency and are in control, and we can choose our futures.”
While I refused to see Oppenheimer due to its nudity and sex scenes, I found a New York Times interview with director Christopher Nolan most interesting. The film centers on scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s work in building the first atomic weapon, leading to the bombs that were later dropped on Japan and the atomic age that followed. Nolan describes Oppenheimer as “the most important person who ever lived,” explaining: “If my worst fears are true, he’ll be the man who destroyed the world. Who’s more important than that?”
Perhaps the One who created the world? More Here
