Will I see the Oppenheimer Film?
Kathleen Burkinshaw writes….
Will I see the Oppenheimer film? My answer – NO! I have no issues with the director, Christopher Nolan, as a person, nor toward the talented actors.
Do I hope people who haven’t considered nuclear weapons a current threat before, will now make nuclear disarmament part of their conversations (along with the demons plaguing a brilliant physicist during/after he developed the atomic bomb for our country’s war effort)? Yes!
That said, I don’t need to see Oppenheimer because I know how the story ends-even if they weren’t brave enough to show that in the movie itself.
I’ve needed some time to process my emotions after reading reviews, interviews, and social media posts. I discovered that Oppenheimer, even with 3 hours screen time, dismissed the rest of the story.
Spoiler alert — the bomb killed members of my family. My mother was 12 years old on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima. She watched her beloved Papa die, lost her friends, and her home. 145,000 people died within the first 5 years of the bomb being dropped. And, not always mentioned — thousands survived only to carry the emotional/physical scars their entire life, unintentionally passing it on to their next generations-as my mother did to me.
So, I find it appalling that neither the death, injuries, nor damage from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs were depicted. Not to mention the omission of victims who suffered/continue to suffer from the Trinity test, despite filming the explosion for Oppenheimer in New Mexico!
Oppenheimer is not the first film about Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombing that I’ve avoided. I can’t even listen to the specific chapters depicting the bombing in the audiobook for my own novel, The Last Cherry Blossom (TLCB) — it’s no fault to the lovely, talented narrator. But researching and writing those chapters devastated me. I’ve read a short section of the bombing to students for more than 11 years, and I cry every time. I still hear the agony in my mother’s voice, her sobs each time she shared the horror of that day. I can still hear her screams as she relived them in her nightmares — nightmares that lasted her entire life. Just as she couldn’t unsee it, I can’t unhear the pain in her voice.
Greg Mitchell’s headline for his Mother Jones article,‘Oppenheimer’ is a Good Film that Bolsters a Problematic Narrative, also touched on another issue for me. Mitchell described the lone narrative used in the movie about dropping the atomic bombs, “… an officer who insists the Japanese won’t surrender otherwise, … a host of American soldiers will then have to die storming the country’s beaches…reminded of how savagely the Japanese have fought to the last man in other circumstances.”
Why is this problematic? It’s false. There were many complicated reasons involved in the decision to use the atomic bomb. To me, the American/Allied soldiers who fought, gave their lives especially in the last two pivotal Pacific battles, won the war. The atomic bombs were just science experiments and a warning to other countries.
This issue has been argued by many scholars*. Yet rather than debating the ‘why’, what matters now, in 2023 is showing the Hell that the atomic bombs (along with the mining/testing of nuclear weapons) unleashed 78 years ago.
I realise that Oppenheimer depicts a “singular dramatic moment in history…” a phrase referenced to Nolan on motionpictures.org post.
But what about that same singular dramatic moment in the lives of Hibakushas (atomic bomb victims)? Because of that moment, I witnessed the frightening effects of my mother’s PTSD throughout my childhood — such as her hours in a darkened room holding the few pictures she had left of her loved ones.
I live with it now having a chronic progressive nerve pain disease. My damaged immune system is attributed to my mother’s exposure to radiation from the atomic bombing.
Before my last thought, I must mention that I began my mission to educate students about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (and why my mother finally let me tell her story to students) 14 years ago, because my daughter (then in 7th grade) was so upset when she heard students discuss that “cool” #mushroom cloud picture.
She asked me to speak with her class about the PEOPLE under that famous mushroom cloud, like her Grandma. My mom finally gave me permission to discuss it. She realized these students are future voters and should know why nuclear weapons should never be used again.
I wrote TLCB not just to honor my mom, my family, and all the atomic bomb victims. I also wrote it so that readers could connect with the people in Hiroshima during the last year of WWII – to show that the children in Japan loved their families, worried what would happen, cried over lost loved ones, and wished for peace-Allied children were feeling and wishing the very same things. We must connect with the humanity under the famous mushroom clouds, so not to repeat the same horrific mistake. Students in my daughter’s class weren’t being cruel, they needed a connection.
And I must say, I’ve had the privilege of making this connection with thousands of students around the world. It’s these future voters/leaders’ compassion and empathy that gives me hope that peace and nuclear disarmament could be achieved.
You might understand then, why I’m furious about the “Boppenheimer” /”Barbenheimer” memes. Believe me, the irony of two movies so polar opposites premiering the same day hadn’t escaped me.
However, I’ve seen pictures of Barbie and Ken dolls in the cute pink convertible with the mushroom cloud behind them, swimsuit Barbie with sunglasses standing in front of a PINK mushroom cloud, and the worst – the mushroom cloud wall art. Yes, it exists,and it is NOT “…beautiful within the chaos…”
Under that mushroom cloud are 80,000 people that died immediately or within hours that day-like my grandfather. Many people evaporated from the extreme heat of that blast-with only their shadows left to prove their existence. No family should ever have to experience that ever again.
One final thought, followed by a final question. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had the strength of 15,000 tons of TNT. Even so-called low yield nuclear weapons (which is an oxymoron) have a strength higher than that. So, the next time a nuke is used it could be 800,000 people dead in a large US city, in one day. Tell me, would you want someone selling mushroom cloud art after your family members are killed under that same cloud, now that you know the rest of the story?
*Suggested reading: ICAN, Did the Atomic Bomb End the Pacific War? by Paul Ham, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, ‘Oppenheimer’: A Masterpiece Missing a Piece, by David Corn,Mother Jones WB Responds to Japan’s Outrage Over Barbenheimer Tweet
Click on the link to read an interview with Kathleen Burkinshaw
Kathleen Burkinshaw, the daughter of a hibakusha, is the writer of The Last Cherry Blossom, a book that has been adopted by the UNODA as Education Resource for students and teachers to sensitise the world about the suffering involved in the atomic bomb blast. She first wrote and published this article in her own blog.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International
Borderless 