{"id":14902,"date":"2024-04-01T06:20:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T06:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/oppenheimer-hits-nuclear-scarred-japan-8-months-after-u-s-premiere\/"},"modified":"2024-04-01T06:20:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T06:20:21","slug":"oppenheimer-hits-nuclear-scarred-japan-8-months-after-u-s-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/01\/oppenheimer-hits-nuclear-scarred-japan-8-months-after-u-s-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Oppenheimer\u2019 Hits Nuclear-Scarred Japan, 8 Months After U.S. Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/01\/multimedia\/01japan-oppenheimer-tckw\/01japan-oppenheimer-tckw-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018Oppenheimer\u2019 Hits Nuclear-Scarred Japan, 8 Months After U.S. Premiere\" title=\"\u2018Oppenheimer\u2019 Hits Nuclear-Scarred Japan, 8 Months After U.S. Premiere\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Watching \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/07\/19\/movies\/oppenheimer-review-christopher-nolan.html\" title=\"\">Oppenheimer<\/a>,\u201d the Oscar-winning biopic about the father of the atomic bomb that opened in Japan on Friday, Kako Okuno was stunned by a scene in which scientists celebrated the explosion over Hiroshima with thunderous foot stomping and the waving of American flags.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Seeing the jubilant faces \u201creally shocked me,\u201d said Ms. Okuno, 22, a nursery school teacher who grew up in Hiroshima and has worked as a peace and environmental activist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Eight months after Christopher Nolan\u2019s film became a box office hit in the United States, \u201cOppenheimer\u201d is now confronting Japanese audiences with the flip-side American perspective on the most scarring events of Japan\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The movie follows the breakthrough discoveries of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team before the United States struck Japan with the first salvo of the nuclear age. It won seven Academy Awards last month, including for <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/03\/10\/movies\/oscars-academy-awards\" title=\"\">best picture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Okuno, who watched the film in Tokyo on Saturday, lamented that it did not reflect the experiences of the hundreds of thousands of atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is scary to have this film go out in the world without the proper understanding of the effects of the nuclear bomb,\u201d she said. As for the regret that Oppenheimer expresses in the second half of the film, \u201cif he really thought he had created technology to destroy the world,\u201d she said, \u201cI wish he had done something more about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bitters End, the indie Japanese distributor that released the film, said in a statement in December that it had decided to put \u201cOppenheimer\u201d in theaters after \u201cmuch discussion and consideration,\u201d because the \u201csubject matter it deals with is of great importance and special significance to us Japanese.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Long before the movie opened in Japan, prospective viewers were <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/01\/world\/asia\/japan-barbenheimer.html\" title=\"\">angered<\/a> by American fans who seemed to make light of the atomic bombing with fused images from \u201cOppenheimer\u201d and the film \u201cBarbie\u201d in an online \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/07\/21\/movies\/barbenheimer-strike.html\" title=\"\">Barbenheimer<\/a>\u201d meme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mindful of domestic sensitivities, some theaters in Japan are carrying trigger warnings, with signs cautioning audiences about scenes \u201cthat may remind viewers of the damage caused by the atomic bombings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, some critics said they appreciated that the film was being shown in Japan. \u201cWe must not create a society that makes it impossible to watch, think and discuss,\u201d wrote Yasuko Onda, an editorial board member at The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan\u2019s largest daily newspaper. \u201cWe must not narrow the eyes that see films.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While some people, including atomic bomb survivors, have protested the exclusion of scenes from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Yujin Yaguchi, a professor of American studies at the University of Tokyo, said that \u201cOppenheimer\u201d simply reflects a conventional viewpoint that omits many others from the narrative, including the Native Americans whose land was used for nuclear testing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The movie \u201ccelebrates a tiny group of white male scientists who really enjoyed their privilege and their love of political power,\u201d Mr. Yaguchi wrote in an email. \u201cWe should focus more on why such a rather one-sided story of white men continues to attract such attention and adulation in the U.S. and what it says about the current politics and the larger politics of memory in the U.S. (and elsewhere).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some viewers who saw the movie over the weekend said they recognized that the film had another story to tell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tae Tanno, 50, who watched it with her husband in Yokohama, Japan\u2019s second-largest city, said she focused on Oppenheimer\u2019s revulsion as he began to grasp the devastating damage that he and his fellow scientists had unleashed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI really thought that, oh, he did feel this way \u2014 a sense of remorse,\u201d Ms. Tanno said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That depiction of a moral conscience may reflect changes in American public sentiment, said Kazuhiro Maeshima, a professor of American government and politics at Sophia University in Tokyo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A few decades ago, a film portraying the guilt felt by the bomb\u2019s creator might have been unpopular in the United States, where the received narrative was that the atomic bombs had averted a costly invasion of mainland Japan and saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers, Mr. Maeshima said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1995, for instance, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1995\/01\/31\/us\/smithsonian-scales-back-exhibit-of-b-29-in-atomic-bomb-attack.html\" title=\"\">drastically cut back<\/a> an exhibit displaying part of the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Veterans\u2019 groups and some members of Congress objected to portions of the proposed material that raised doubts about the American rationale for dropping the bomb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThirty years ago, people thought that it was good that the bomb was dropped,\u201d Mr. Maeshima said. \u201cNow, I feel like there is a more ambivalent view.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Japan, viewers may now be more willing to watch a movie that does not focus on the victims, nearly eight decades after the end of World War II and eight years after Barack Obama became the first sitting <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/28\/world\/asia\/obama-hiroshima-japan.html\" title=\"\">American president to visit Hiroshima<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Kana Miyoshi, 30, a native of Hiroshima whose grandmother was 7 years old when the bomb fell and lost her father and a brother in the attack, saw the film with her parents in Hiroshima on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like other viewers, Ms. Miyoshi was struck by the scenes of celebration after the dropping of the bomb, but she said they should not be condemned. \u201cThis is reality, and we cannot change it,\u201d said Ms. Miyoshi, whose grandmother died almost three years ago at 83.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many Japanese support nuclear disarmament, and the country, which has no atomic weapons of its own, relies on the so-called nuclear umbrella of the United States for protection. As North Korea strengthens its nuclear arsenal and Russia threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, experts said \u201cOppenheimer\u201d could stimulate discussion about nuclear deterrence as the United States approaches an election that may sharply change its commitment to global alliances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere\u2019s so much to confront here in Japan\u2019s position vis-\u00e0-vis nuclear weapons,\u201d said <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu\/jennifer-m-lind\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Jennifer Lind<\/a>, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College who specializes in East Asian security. \u201cThis movie is coming at such a fascinating time for them to think about \u2018what is our national policy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Japanese peace activists also see fodder for discussion in \u201cOppenheimer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity to think about nuclear weapons from a very international perspective, because normally in Japan the nuclear weapons issue is taught as a story about Hiroshima and Nagasaki,\u201d said Akira Kawasaki, who serves on the executive committee of Peace Boat, a Japanese nonprofit group that operates cruises oriented around social causes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As scientists develop artificial intelligence and other potentially destructive technologies that could be misused by governments, Mr. Kawasaki said that \u201cOppenheimer\u201d offered a potential warning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cScientists are very vulnerable and very weak in front of all that power,\u201d Mr. Kawasaki said. \u201cAn individual cannot be strong enough to stand up against those things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching \u201cOppenheimer,\u201d the Oscar-winning biopic about the father of the atomic bomb that opened in Japan on Friday, Kako Okuno was stunned by a scene in which scientists celebrated the explosion over Hiroshima with thunderous foot stomping and the waving of American flags. Seeing the jubilant faces \u201creally shocked me,\u201d said Ms. Okuno, 22, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/01\/multimedia\/01japan-oppenheimer-tckw\/01japan-oppenheimer-tckw-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[367,92,31,20632,20631,20633,221],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14904,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14902\/revisions\/14904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}