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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be uncomfortable with the film Oppenheimer?

584 replies

LKM23 · 21/07/2023 18:23

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?

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daisychaindays · 22/07/2023 09:40

Readthebooks · 22/07/2023 09:31

You know what the Japanese did, right?

We should ignore history at our peril

^This. That bomb meant my grandad made it home alive after being held as a Pow for over 4 years, presumed dead for a long time. Weighed 5 stone and had various diseases. Him and his friends suffered horrendously at the hands of the Japanese, they were cruel fuckers.

Agreed.

I'm sorry for what your grandad went through.

MissyGirlie · 22/07/2023 09:41

You grandad’s life is not more valuable than those of innocent children
Were Japanese children magically more innocent than those dying of hunger under Japanese rule elsewhere in Asia? Hunger induced entirely by Japan's aggression?

Or do they not count?

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 09:42

If our government was committing atrocities, how many people would accept that it would be justifiable to drop an atom bomb on us and our children?

daisychaindays · 22/07/2023 09:42

@GrinAndVomit of course no one is comfortable with the death of children but are you actually saying allied soldiers lives didn't matter? Are you saying they should've been left there, joined by probably thousands more of US had not used the bomb?

yogibutton · 22/07/2023 09:42

I do not believe that any use - ever - of nuclear weapons can be justified.

yogibutton · 22/07/2023 09:44

@GrinAndVomit I made this point - it is always "the others" who are the evil monsters. A foundation of justifying things like this is a firm belief in your own "goodness" and that your government and army never did and could never do anything really quite so bad to justify a similar attack on your family.

FluffyMochi · 22/07/2023 09:45

I live in Nagasaki and am very keen to watch the film as an act of remembrance.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 22/07/2023 09:45

And it’s easy to say that with the benefit of 80 years hindsight & a full and complete understanding of what atomic weapons can do

a decision to drop an atomic bomb now would be made with 80 years of additional knowledge

Lacucuracha · 22/07/2023 09:45

Readthebooks · 22/07/2023 09:31

You know what the Japanese did, right?

We should ignore history at our peril

^This. That bomb meant my grandad made it home alive after being held as a Pow for over 4 years, presumed dead for a long time. Weighed 5 stone and had various diseases. Him and his friends suffered horrendously at the hands of the Japanese, they were cruel fuckers.

Your grandfather made it home alive because Japan had already decided to surrender. The US knew this and still dropped the bombs.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 22/07/2023 09:47

You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts

the Japanese’s own records show that post Nagasaki they were still tied 3-3 on the imperial council as to whether to surrender & only the emperors intervention insisting they surrender made it so

echt · 22/07/2023 09:48

Kabbalah · 22/07/2023 09:39

NANKING !!!!!!!

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not done as revenge mission for Nanking.

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 09:49

daisychaindays · 22/07/2023 09:42

@GrinAndVomit of course no one is comfortable with the death of children but are you actually saying allied soldiers lives didn't matter? Are you saying they should've been left there, joined by probably thousands more of US had not used the bomb?

I’m saying innocent children matter more than soldiers, yes.

Againstmachine · 22/07/2023 09:49

Kabbalah · 22/07/2023 09:39

NANKING !!!!!!!

I'd also advise people to look up Unit 731.

Also Japan since the war barely has apologized for Nanking etc.

melj1213 · 22/07/2023 09:50

mids2019 · 22/07/2023 06:24

I think this is pure hollywood.

Oppenheimer was amongst a group of brilliant physicists including Fermi and Feynman looking at the theoretical aspects of fission for the the Manhattan project. I don't actually think one man (or woman) can take credit for the atomic bomb actually as there were a series of advanced that led to its conception (including Einstein who thought of its possibility after populating his relativity principles).

nice to see a theoretical physicist in a blockbuster film but will this not just stereotype the profession needlessly? Oppenheimer did a lot of work on quantum theory as it applied to spectra for instance which I guess will hardly get a mention.

I think of interest is that a lot of these planet sized minds actually were pacifists fundamentally and dislikes the idea of armies of any hue and thought armed conflict barbaric. There was regret I think after the development and use of atomic bombs and the subsequent activism by scientists to prevent proliferation was ignored (but like climate change).

You need to see the film as it essentially covers what you're saying in your post.

A lot of the film covers the scope of the Manhattan Project and just how many scientists were involved in it - the fact that the likes of Bohr, Heisenberg, Rabí, Álvarez, Lawrence, Lomenitz, Donald and Lili Hornig, Feynmen, Bainbridge, Neddermeyer and many more physicists are included in the ensemble cast shows just how much Nolan wanted to show the scope of the project.

Murphy as Oppenheimer might be the focus of the movie but the ensemble cast show that he was just one of many cogs and if it hadn't been Oppenheimer organising the Manhattan Project then it could have been one of countless others and that was the point. The bomb was always going to be made, with or without Oppenheimer, but at the time it was a decision of whether they made it first or the Nazis did, because someone was going to do it and they wanted it to be the Allies.

There were a few subtle throwaway lines that showed that nobody wanted the Nazis to have the bomb, even the scientists being forced to work for the Nazis - at one point someone was talking about Heisenberg making a mistake by picking the deuterium as the moderator and not graphite in his (forced) work for the Nazis, which had set their progress back; he knew what he was doing and made the 'wrong' choice knowing it would hinder their progress because he didn't want the Nazis to get the bomb before the Allies.

As for stereotyping theoretical physicists - the film shows plenty of Oppenheimer before and after his involvement in the Manhattan project, before the project he is shown to focus only on the science and developing that - it goes into his professorship at Caltech, Berkeley and Harvard as well as his his time in Europe at Cambridge, Leiden and Zurich prewar. He is shown to be an impressive academic who people either admired or resented for his ability to make the work look effortlessly brilliant.

The film actually goes into a lot more of the actual science than I was expecting - I have a science background but even I was lost in places and a friend of mine who studies theoretical physics at Caltech loved how much science they included (she saw it before I did as they got it earlier in the US and she could barely contain her joy at the amount of science and "physics cameos" they included when they could have skipped right over it in favour of making it easier for the audience).

Because of that it allows the film to explore the relationship between the politics and the science, a lot of the early part of the film focuses on Oppenheimer's political stance and the complications this caused both personally and professionally before, during and after the war. In fact his political stance is a big focus, especially for the later part of the film where it looks more to the vilification of Oppenheimer when he came out against the H-Bomb and in his role on the Atomic Energy Commission he fought hard to prevent continuing work on the H-Bomb at that time, due to both lack of need and the enormous human casualties that would result from its use, but the politicians disagreed. That ultimately lead to Oppenheimer's downfall as the politicians used their connections and influence to blackball him and discredit him for wanting to limit their powers because he had realised just what he had created when he became "Death, the Destroyer of Worlds" in his creation of the bomb.

MissyGirlie · 22/07/2023 09:51

yogibutton · 22/07/2023 09:42

I do not believe that any use - ever - of nuclear weapons can be justified.

Fair enough, if that is your moral position.
Just don't try dressing it up as being about 'the children of other ethnicities'.

A foundation of justifying things like this is a firm belief in your own "goodness" and that your government and army never did and could never do anything really quite so bad to justify a similar attack on your family.
Nope. I was clear upthread that it was the net saving of lives that, in my view, justifies the bombs.

From what I have read (and I have read extensively on this topic) Japan was not about to surrender. There were huge arguments about it at the highest levels.

DaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisyDaisy · 22/07/2023 09:54

Well yes, I DEFINITELY won't be watching Barbie!
@LKM23 why will you DEFINITELY not be watching Barbie?

DismantledKing · 22/07/2023 09:54

Theeyeballsinthesky · 22/07/2023 09:47

You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts

the Japanese’s own records show that post Nagasaki they were still tied 3-3 on the imperial council as to whether to surrender & only the emperors intervention insisting they surrender made it so

This. The Japanese were forced into surrender by a combination of the atomic bombings and the declaration of war by the USSR.

TheaBrandt · 22/07/2023 09:55

It’s utterly ridiculous to get riled up about a film you haven’t even actually watched though 🙄

DismantledKing · 22/07/2023 09:55

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 09:49

I’m saying innocent children matter more than soldiers, yes.

And what were those allied soldiers ‘guilty’ of?

Gingerboy22 · 22/07/2023 09:56

WhatsupWhatsApp · 22/07/2023 07:02

But civilians including kids didn't deserve to die for actions of their government and army.

This has happened throughout history and will never change. Some political groups even use/have used their children and women as cover and strategy with no regard to their lives at all. The problem is that Western sensibilities get in the way here and are identified as a weakness by other aggressors who take advantage of that. Not everyone in the world thinks like you do. Of course no one deserves to die but it happens all the time.

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 09:58

DismantledKing · 22/07/2023 09:55

And what were those allied soldiers ‘guilty’ of?

Well, they were active participants of a war and killed other people.

What did the children do?

DismantledKing · 22/07/2023 09:59

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 09:58

Well, they were active participants of a war and killed other people.

What did the children do?

A lot of them were teenagers, fighting for our freedom from awful regimes. You insult their memory and bravery.

yogibutton · 22/07/2023 09:59

@MissyGirlie
But any moral position is based on something. Consideration of large-scale destruction, old people, civilians, children, animals, plants and general non-selectivity of a nuclear attack. Environmental effects for thousands of years. Effects on other inhabitants of earth, political, ecological, historical, etc

They are treaties that countries sign trying to ban certain kinds of weapons to make wars more humane, if one can say so. Cluster bombs is one example. Chemical weapons. There are treaties trying to ensure nuclear weapons can never be used. These are all positions saying these kinds of things can never be used. Precisely because their effects can not be justified by any military aim / historical situation.

GrinAndVomit · 22/07/2023 10:01

DismantledKing · 22/07/2023 09:59

A lot of them were teenagers, fighting for our freedom from awful regimes. You insult their memory and bravery.

By saying we shouldn’t kill children or participate in nuclear war?

Give over

Iwasafool · 22/07/2023 10:01

MechanicalGoat · 21/07/2023 22:31

Don’t be ridiculous, it’s isn’t a generational thing. People are dying around the world in war today. I have heard Ukrainians say they don’t hate Russia, they hate Putin and his cronies but not the Russian people who take no part in the war. Of course the shit that happened during wars was barbaric and I cannot imagine what it felt like to go through it, but saying it’s okay they’re racist or xenophobic because they’re of that generation is bollocks.

I’ll repeat to you what I said to the other poster:

Do you think it’s acceptable for anyone who was in or affected by 7/7 or 9/11 to ‘hate all Muslims’? Of course not. But this is how the thinking starts.

I have a friend who fought in Iraq, of course he doesn’t hate Iraqi’s, no matter what some of them did to him and his comrades.

Come on, this thinking is unacceptable and you know it. It excuses xenophobia and racism. It allows racist/xenophobic thinking and lets it continue, encourages it to grow. It’s what racists pray upon. Dont excuse his hatred of a nation of people, many of whom were and are innocent. There are no good reasons

What people suffered at the hands of the Japanese in WWII was nothing like 9/11 but there are probably survivors of 9/11 who hate Muslims.

Read the accounts of the starvation, the Comfort Women, how people suffered and died in experiments. It went on for years.

Do you know any Ukrainians who have been held in forced labour camps for 6 years or Ukrainian parents who know their child died slowly over a period of months as barbaric experiments were carried out on them? Knowing your child died in terror and pain would make many people hate.

I would imagine many many exPOWs or concentration camp survivors had PTSD which was triggered by the sight or sounds of a German or Japanese face or voice but I suppose no one you know could possibly suffer from that.