![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8233f488-9b91-483f-b0f1-164f90a1d6dc_546x708.png)
<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nToday\u2019s headline in The New York Times<\/em>, while slow in arriving, should not have surprised anyone: \u2018Barbenheimer\u2019 Isn\u2019t Funny in Nuclear-Scarred Japan<\/a>.<\/strong> It seems that for days, \u201c\u201cTwitter users in Japan, where nuclear bombings by the U.S. military during World War II killed hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been spreading the hash tag #NoBarbenheimer.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd on Monday, the backlash ignited a rare display of internal Hollywood corporate discord, as the Japanese subsidiary of Warner Bros. criticized its headquarters\u2019 handling of social media for the Barbie<\/em> movie.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a letter posted to the official Japan account for \u201cBarbie,\u201d which will be released in Japanese theaters on Aug. 11, the Japan subsidiary lamented its American counterparts\u2019 promotion of Barbenheimer memes as \u201chighly regrettable.\u201d<\/p>\n In one such instance, the official \u201cBarbie\u201d movie account responded to a fan-made image depicting Barbie with an atom bomb bouffant with the comment, \u201cThis Ken is a stylist.\u201d In another, it replied with a kissy-face emoji to a movie poster showing Barbie and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, against the backdrop of a nuclear explosion. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a summer to remember,\u201d the studio\u2019s tweet said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some Japanese Twitter users responded with photos of the 1945 bombing victims.<\/p>\n Also related to Japanese views, interesting article here<\/a> on how the atomic bombings influenced (and was represented in) anime<\/em>. Here\u2019s one image of the post-bomb landscape but much else is far from realistic.<\/p>\n Back in the USA, two new \u201creviews\u201d of the movie. President Biden caught it yesterday in Delaware and called it \u201ccompelling.\u201d Oliver Stone wrote that he had once turned down directing an Oppenheimer bio-pic because he couldn\u2019t find the thread of the narrative, but found the Nolan film \u201cmind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, longtime nuclear weapons expert Bill Hartung observes in a lengthy article<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, all too many of us don\u2019t grasp the stakes involved in a nuclear conflict, thanks in part to \u201cpsychic numbing<\/a>,\u201d a concept regularly invoked by Robert Jay Lifton, author of Hiroshima in America: A History of Denial<\/a><\/em> (co-authored with Greg Mitchell), among many other books. Lifton describes<\/a> psychic numbing as \u201ca diminished capacity or inclination to feel\u201d prompted by \u201cthe completely unprecedented dimension of this revolution in technological destructiveness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After mentioning a few issues he wishes the movie covered, he adds:<\/p>\n Another crucially important issue has received almost no attention. Neither the film nor the discussion sparked by it has explored one of the most important reasons for the continued existence of nuclear weapons \u2013 the profits it yields the participants in America\u2019s massive nuclear-industrial complex.<\/p>\n Once Oppenheimer and other concerned scientists and policymakers failed<\/a> to convince the Truman administration to simply close Los Alamos and place nuclear weapons and the materials needed to develop them under international control \u2013 the only way, as they saw it, to head off a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union \u2013 the drive to expand the nuclear weapons complex was on. Research and production of nuclear warheads and nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines quickly became a big business, whose beneficiaries have worked doggedly to limit any efforts at the reduction or elimination of nuclear arms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And concluding:<\/p>\n On the global level, the 2021 entry into force of a nuclear ban treaty \u2013 officially known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 is a sign of hope, even if the nuclear weapons states have yet to join. The very existence of such a treaty does at least help delegitimize nuclear weaponry. It has even prompted dozens<\/a> of major financial institutions to stop investing in the nuclear weapons industry, under pressure from campaigns like Don\u2019t Bank on the Bomb<\/a>.<\/p>\n In truth, the situation couldn\u2019t be simpler: we need to abolish nuclear weapons<\/a> before they abolish us. Hopefully, Oppenheimer <\/em>will help prepare the ground for progress in that all too essential undertaking, beginning with a frank discussion of what\u2019s now at stake.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On this date in 1945, in my daily Countdown to Hiroshima<\/a> at my Pressing Issues site (please go take a look to see what transpired in past two weeks):<\/p>\n \u2013 Paul Tibbets, pilot of the lead plane, the Enola Gay<\/em> (named after his mom) on the first mission, reported to Gen. Curtis LeMay\u2019s Air Force headquarters on Guam. LeMay told him the \u201cprimary\u201d was still Hiroshima. Bombardier Thomas Ferebee pointed on a map the aiming point a distinctive T-shaped bridge in the center of the city, not the local army base. \u201cIt\u2019s the most perfect aiming I\u2019ve seen in the whole damned war,\u201d Tibbets said. But the main idea was to set the bomb off over the center of the city, which rests in kind of a bowl, so that the surrounding hills would supply a \u201cfocusing effect\u201d that would lead to added destruction and loss of life in city mainly filled by women and children.<\/p>\n \u2013 Japanese cables and other message intercepted by the United States showed that they were still trying to enlist the Soviets’ help in presenting surrender terms–they would even send an envoy–but were undecided on just what to propose. The Russians, meanwhile, were just five days from declaring war on Japan.<\/p>\n \u2013 Top U.S. officials were on now centering on allowing the Japanese to keep their emperor when they give up.\u00a0 In his diary Secretary of War Stimson endorses a key report which concludes: “The retention of the Emperor will probably insure the immediate surrender of all Japanese Forces outside the home islands.”\u00a0 <\/em>Would offering that win a swift Japanese surrender \u2013 without the need to use the bomb?\u00a0 <\/em>Not considered.<\/p>\n Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including \u201cHiroshima in America,\u201d and the recent award-winning <\/i>The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood \u2013 and America \u2013 Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb<\/a>, and has directed three documentary films since 2021, including two for PBS (plus award-winning \u201cAtomic Cover-up<\/a>\u201d). He has written widely about the atomic bomb and atomic bombings, and their aftermath, for over forty years. He writes often at Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell\u2019s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood. Today\u2019s headline in The New York Times, while slow in arriving, should not have surprised anyone: \u2018Barbenheimer\u2019 Isn\u2019t Funny in Nuclear-Scarred Japan. It seems that for days, \u201c\u201cTwitter users in Japan, where nuclear bombings by the U.S. military during World War II killed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-43330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43330"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43333,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43330\/revisions\/43333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43330"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6897b5b0-ee30-433c-beb3-842e69443bdd_780x350.jpeg)
<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc81933a9-dd23-4414-bdd4-fbe8cc285667_1113x1376.jpeg)
<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n