Last summer, at the peak of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, it seemed like cinematic gender essentialism – the kind that made a Ghostbusters reboot a lightning rod for controversy the guts of a decade ago – had finally died off. Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day, and what was set up as a versus between the “boy movie” and the “girl movie” quickly became a both/and. There were no movies for this gender or that, just a couple of great films that we all wanted to see. I saw them back-to-back. Loads of people saw them back-to-back, and tons more watched both films at some point in their long runs on the big screen. The movies were back, and this time, quadrants could be damned.
Then awards season came along and, as usual, crushed all my hopes and dreams.
I wrote about the girliest movie for girls going, Brian De Palma’s Scarface, for Crooked Marquee! You can read it here.
The Sundae 