To be uncomfortable with the film Oppenheimer?

[LKM23]

I haven't seen the film, I'm sure it's a brilliant thriller and will be a Blockbuster hit. I don't think I'll watch it though, it makes my feel really uncomfortable.

It feels like a man who at the end of the day killed thousands of people and damaged millions is being celebrated and turned into a hero.

I lived in Japan for 10 years in my twenties. I visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and spent a lot of time with people both directly and indirectly affected by the dropping of the bombs. Those scars are real and still there and will be for a very very long time. It changed Japan and the people who live there forever and at the end of the day I think he was an awful person.

AIBU?

The war in Japan was far from over and the Japanese had vowed to continue.

This! As usual this is all based on European experience. Just because the war in Europe was effectively over doesn't mean WW2 had ended - but of course, the rest of the world doesn't matter. Have you ever heard stories from anyone who was in a Japanese POW camp OP?

As often happens we have here an OP who asks for opinions, doesn't like the opinions she gets, and stamps her foot. I saw the trailer for the film last night and didn't get any sense of celebrating a hero.

OP, if you think the A bomb has left untold scars on Japan, why is it that you don’t think Operation Meetinghouse did? After all, as you surely know given your deep knowledge of Japanese wartime history, the firebombing campaign in Tokyo killed many more civilians in one night than both nuclear bombs did.

And that firebombing campaign had already destroyed most of the major cities in Japan by the time the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima - there was literally nowhere else left to drop it.

It feels like a man who at the end of the day killed thousands of people and damaged millions is being celebrated and turned into a hero.

Having just got back from watching it, you are 100% wrong.

This is why it's important to judge a movie on its content, not just on what you think it's going to be.

The film does not depict Oppenheimer as a hero, not does it depoct him as a demon, it explores his life and work that includes his involvement in the Manhattan project. It is very much an exploration of him, his life, his work and the team that put the atomic bomb together in the first place - I love science and there was still far more actual exploration of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics than I was expecting in a blockbuster movie - as well as the aftermath and the fallout from the project.

@Gelpen

Oppenheimer was indeed only part of the puzzle to creating the atomic bomb and I hope the film shows this. His name has become synonymous with atomic weapons, but just as with every event and discovery in history, he did not do it alone. The science didn’t spring into his head fully formed. It is perhaps unfair to him to label him solely with this inglorious achievement, particularly as he himself was so horrified by it.

Agreed.

YABU. Japan has been very successful in pushing a martyr narrative. They were utter, utter bastards before an during the war. They would have carried on being so. Maybe read up on it a bit?

Very well said.

I have read the thread. There’s no good reason to be racist. I had a dear relative who was in army and saw a lot of action. He had dear friends die. He saw awful things.

He never hated anyone else. He was never racist. I don’t care what excuses you might have. There’s no ‘good reason’ to be racist.

“the U.S. had already intercepted communications from Japan showing that the emperor had asked the Russians to mediate a surrender, and almost every top U.S. military leader from the time later came forward saying that Japan was already defeated before the bombs were dropped. The remaining debate between historians is less about whether Japan was already going to surrender, and more about why the U.S. used the atomic bombs at all. On the one hand, some argue that President Truman saw the bomb as just one more legitimate weapon to continue fighting with until the end, but others insist that the actual purpose was to intimidate the Russians and secure the U.S. as the winner at the beginning of the Cold War.”

https://classroom.synonym.com/evidence-japan-going-surrender-10861.html

Climb down of your high horse. As I said, I had a relative who went through similar. He was never racist towards anyone. And I wasn’t judging your relative, I was judging you and your choice of words. There is never a good reason to be racist. I don’t care what you say, there is no good reason to be racist end of.

So would you condemn someone who lost their entire family in Belsen for not liking Germans?

Yep, Meetinghouse was horrific - that and similar raids are the reason why so many parts of major Japanese cities are concrete jungles...

there was literally nowhere else left to drop it.

Almost, by Aug 45 there were a few Japanese cities left undamaged and some sources have it that a deliberate decision was made to leave some built up areas intact.

I don’t think you have read up about the film. There are lots of articles about it. It’s not at all a celebration of the bomb.

It's uncomfortable but it's history. We can't censor the past because it makes people feel feelings.

You misunderstand the "good reason" was to hate the Japanese not be racist. It's not the same thing.

Yes. That’s like saying all Germans are Nazi’s. Yes I would. As I say, I know people who’ve been through utter shit and don’t just automatically turn on a whole nation of people. It’s not an acceptable attitude to have, it’s how fucking racism starts and how it is allowed to continue.

Okay, I’ll rephrase if you want. There’s never a good reason to hate a whole nation of people due to their race or ethnicity.

If that makes you feel more comfortable have at it.

Theres never a good reason.

You are being wilfully ignorant.

Exactly.

The aim of the Manhattan Project was to develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazi's did and it was Einstien who brought it to the attention of the Allies.

But you seem to think the Japanese were wronged in some way: victims almost ?.

The Japanese started the war in the far east and treated both civilians and POWs in the most appalling way. They pursued a near genocide in China killing 3.9 million civilians and with barbaric savagery in Nanking. Then you have Unit 731 where they conducted experiments on live human beings - do some research to fully understand what happened there - it is estimated 300,000 people were murdered.

Perhaps the Japanese need to reflect on that too.

This.

One poster mentioned that Germany and the individual Soviet soldiers committed many more crimes against civilians than the British and Americans. Watch the Berlin 1945 documentary. The Soviets were horrendous

The Nazis had been significantly more horrendous to Soviet civilians during Operation Barbarossa - about 20 million civilians died, and 8 million combatants. The later behaviour of the Soviet troops in Berlin was indeed horrendous, but it was seen as direct revenge.

If you are interested, there are books written by people who have researched the subject intensively. You don't actually have to buy the glitzy Hollywood version of the story. Most of it happened in Portakabins.

The Soviets also saved our ass, we won WW2 because of them.

I love this. Exactly.

^ this