6 mo. ago • 92%

‘There wasn’t enough about the horror’: Hiroshima survivors react to Oppenheimer

www.theguardian.com ‘There wasn’t enough about the horror’: Hiroshima survivors react to Oppenheimer

Film about ‘father of the atomic bomb’ finally opens in Japan after being delayed by outrage at ‘Barbenheimer’ memes

Film about ‘father of the atomic bomb’ finally opens in Japan after being delayed by outrage at ‘Barbenheimer’ memes

Archived version: https://archive.ph/8vjF7

62 comments

That's probably why the movie was titled Oppenheimer and not Hiroshima & Nagasaki, because the movie was focused on the man and his work and the regrets that came from that work, while nations celebrated the end of a second World War.

This movie was the type of movie that was always going to upset someone, and while it sucks that Japanese citizens were killed, their Emperor's military might was a brutally murderous raping scourge set loose on that section of the world, while also working with some of the other worst regimes of the world. Overall Japan fucked around and attacked first, did a lot of horrible shit to many different peoples, made some truly horrible friends, and then found out in one of the most devastating ways possible, I feel bad for the innocent civilians, but it was always ever going to end the way it did, if not a lot worse.

I'm just glad Japan grew to be what it is now and that it chose better ways to engage with the world than more attempts at domination, even though Anime, Manga, video games, and more have dominated the world's hearts.

117
- NPR played an interview with a survivor.
  
  He said that he hoped people in Japan would watch Oppenheimer and see the excitement when the nuclear bomb testing succeeded. He felt that it showed the American point of view and that a bomb was their ticket out of a terrible war with Japan.
  
  He also said we should discuss these things now because by the time the century anniversary comes there will be none of "us" left.
  
  44
  
  It's interesting how differently survivors of an event feel when compared to people who only ever learned about the event through history.
  
  14
  
  I heard there was a plot to stop the emperor from surrendering, despite the massive devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would've taken 10x as many losses from air raids and ground battles for them to concede.
  
  3
- Few people know about the barbaric shit the Japanese did during WW2. Some really... Really fucked up shit.
  
  34
  
  Bruh, Unit 731 is a meme at this point.
  
  32
- Switched strats to focus on a culture victory.
  
  20
- Yeah.
  
  And the whole horror of the bombs devastation wasn't truly realised until much later, and acknowledged, in the US? Quite a lot later, probably.
  
  We're watching it from Oppenheimer's pov essentially, it's not a documentary.
  
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- but it was always ever going to end the way it did, if not a lot worse.
  
  This takeaway is mythologization of America's most reprehensible act.
  
  While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: “The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria … changed their minds.”
  
  The principal argument mounted to justify the use of atomic bombs — that they would quickly end the war and avoid an invasion that could result in as many as one million casualties — doesn’t hold much weight. Instead, historical evidence more strongly indicates America’s desire to circumvent the need for negotiations with the Soviet Union over the future of East Asia. The Potsdam Conference, held by Allied leadership in the summer of 1945, aimed to determine the postwar settlement in Europe. The United States did not want to be forced into similar negotiations — with the Soviets at the table — for the postwar settlement of the Pacific.
  
  We murdered 210,000 civilians because of a perceived threat to capitalism.
  
  10
  
  Every Purple Heart that has been given out since WW2 all come from a surplus we made in preparation for a land invasion of Japan. Think about that. Had the bombs not worked, our own estimates put the casualties at hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Just US soldiers. Not even counting Japanese soldiers or civilian lives. I don't think the Soviets would have had a magical method to invade without similar casualties.
  
  Were the bombs the right move? I don't know. It was almost 80 years ago in a complicated time that none of us discussing it now can fully understand. I think it's telling that Japan surrendered shortly after. I also think it's telling that no nuclear weapon has been used in combat since then. But based solely on our estimates of what a land invasion, either by the US or the Soviets, would cost in terms of lives lost, I do think it's a fair argument to say the bombs wound up costing less.
  
  3
  
  While I'm not defending the use of the bombs as bargaining chips, Japan would have suffered the same fate as Germany under Soviet rule. North Japan and South Japan, alongside a Tokyo Wall, would have not been just a "threat to capitalism".
  
  -3
Article is a bit click-baity. Many of the survivors who saw the film were okay with its depiction and understood why the film presented the atomic bombings the way that it did. The film is ultimately about J. Robert Oppenheimer, and showing the physical outcome of the bombings would have itself been a potentially crass and shocking inclusion in a relatively subdued character study of a complex and tortured individual. Everyone knows that the physical outcome of the bombings on Hiroshima are shocking and terrible and left a lasting scar on the nation, coming to define the national identity of the Japanese, and especially Hiroshima natives that survived the blast, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. But it's sort of like The Wind Rises. Oppenheimer was a physicist, and a very talented one. That his work contributed to the horrors of war is part of the tragedy of the individual and their story, just like it was for Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Zero.

46
- The Guardian does seem to be getting a bit more clickbaity lately.
  
  6
The movie was going to be difficult to get everyone to enjoy honestly. But I do think that last scene where he's infront of all the people really is done well.

16
Did the journalist need to submit an article before the end of the week and dug this up from their rough draft folder?

12
Something is most keenly felt in its absence

7
It's the one thing I think the movie totally dropped the ball on. There was an opportunity to show what happened in Hiroshima, and Chris didn't take it.

After seeing Oppenheimer I started reading Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya, it's pretty harrowing stuff. And I was already aware through other cultural osmosis/research what conditions on the ground were like after the bomb. What a wasted opportunity.

6
I'll care when Japan stops pretending to be a victim of WW2, makes actual good faith attempts to return looted artifacts from their colonies, and admits at least some* of the "comfort women" were slaves.

1
- Lol everytime I go on Lemmy and suggest that your nation returns my nation's looted treasures, you guys say "see no cause they're safer with me, your country is a shit hole" and you still to this day ignore all the atrocities you guys committed against us. Don't try to tell me the people you nuked weren't victims, just to avoid the reality that you guys did something so evil, and made it out to be a hero move
  
  -6
  
  Of course they were victims, but they were victims of their imperialist government at least as much as they were victims of the US if not more so. The Japanese military led an aggressive, savage campaign. They raped and brutalized with impunity. They tortured POWs with impunity. They carried out disgusting medical experiments and vivisections with zero humanity. Perhaps you are familiar with the rape of Nanking? Unit 731?
  
  They sneak-attacked the US and pulled them into the war, and even after they were completely defeated they would. not. stop.
  
  It’s a very complicated issue. Debate will go on forever about whether or not the US nuking Japan was the “right” choice. It will never end because it is based on hypotheticals about what might have happened in an alternate timeline, and what the true motivations behind it might have been.
  
  One thing is very clear though: Japan’s government and their military were beat and they should have surrendered but they did not. Their military continued to operate their systematic campaign of torture and rape.
  
  The US had atomic bombs and responded by using them. Was it the right thing to do? Who knows. Japan’s government fucked around, repeatedly, and their citizens found out.
  
  Putting it all on the US is a level of cope beyond anything science could have imagined.
  
  10
  
  That's interesting, do you ever get that about the treasure stolen and hoarded by the Japanese occupiers and soldiers from the Chinese and Korean people?
  
  I recall that being a huge issue back on the early 2000's without being addressed.
  
  6
  
  So you'd rather have twice as many die during the invasion that would have been needed for Japan to surrender without the bomb?
  
  Nukes are the only reason Japan wasn't wiped out entirely via invasion.
  
  5
Twice as many Japanese would have died had we invaded.

-13
- Those weren't the only choices.
  
  The bomb could have been used on a military target rather than an overwhelmingly civillian population.
  
  13
  
  Those weren't the only choices
  
  True, if you don't know about it, look up the bat bomb.
  
  4
- Actually, the Japanese were already trying to find a way to surrender at the time. The Soviet Union invading would've been the last straw, the US was trying to get in a bomb first because they didn't want the Soviet Union to have a victory. And to them, that was worth hundreds of thousands of lives.
  
  5
- And so many allies
  
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