Social media jokes that combine the summer’s two hit movies with the #barbenheimer hashtag are also annoying in Japan.
The world is excited about the developer of a nuclear weapon On J. Robert Oppenheimer narrative film, not in Japan.
Japan is the only country that has actually experienced a nuclear weapon.
In Japan, as of Thursday morning, it had not even been announced when the Oppenheimer film would possibly be released in Japanese cinemas. Another summer hit, Barbie, will also premiere In Japan only on August 11.
The Oppenheimer film has not even been advertised. The reason has been estimated to be that tomorrow is Sunday, the day of remembrance for the victims of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
Oppenheimer, called the father of the atomic bomb reportedly clapped his hands over his head on August 6, 1945, when he heard the bomb go off in Hiroshima. The US dropped yet another bomb on Nagasaki on August 9th.
The bombs quickly killed over a hundred thousand people. Later, tens of thousands more died and got sick because of the radiation. The material destruction was also enormous.
The memory of the bombs is reflected in the attitude of the Japanese towards the film made about their developer.
From Hiroshima Akane Toyoda, 35, told the news agency Reuters that many people do not want to see the film. Some, on the other hand, are interested in seeing it precisely because it brings out the American point of view.
Combining Barbie and Oppenheimer was too much
However, more than the movie itself, Japanese people seem to have been moved by the joke with the two hit movies of the summer.
Memes have spread on social media linking Barbie from Warner Bros. and Oppenheimer from Universal Pictures. The films have inspired the hashtag #Barbenheimer.
In Japan, it has been considered offensive that Barbie’s pink world has been associated with Oppenheimer and the detonation of a nuclear bomb. In exchange, Moni has published photos of Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bomb victims on the messaging service X with the hashtag #nobarbenheimer.
– Do you see those girls who survived the Nagasaki mushroom cloud. I wouldn’t have thought that Barbie would joke about those girls, wrote one user.
Others have sought to show the offensiveness of the memes by linking the Barbie movie to the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States instead of the nuclear bomb.
Warner Bros. had to apologize to the Japanese for responding to the #barbenheimer joke in light-hearted fashion.
Warner Bros. said he was sorry for his insensitive behavior on social media. The Barbie movie account’s replies to the #barbenheimer posts have now been deleted, says The New York Times magazine.
After the war, the developer of the nuclear bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, became a supporter of disarmament and an opponent of the hydrogen bomb project. Among other things, he opposed the test in which the first hydrogen bomb, Ivy Mike, was detonated in the Pacific Ocean in 1952.
implemented an extensive project using VR technology about the testing of Ivy Mike in 2019. The unique video takes the viewer on the spot to see and experience the explosion 70 years ago.
Here you can watch the video and read related articles.