Barbenheimer and the Kanto earthquake

If the Japanese people find “Barbie with atomic clouds” hurtful, they must realize that the Rising Sun flag also makes many Asians uncomfortable.

LEE YOUNG-HEEThe author is a Tokyo correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo. Will I be able to see the movie “Oppenheimer” by the end of the year? I’ve been waiting for a long time as a fan of director Christopher Nolan, but it may be a challenge in Japan. The Japanese release date for the biographic film of the physicist and “father of the atomic bomb” Robert Oppenheimer has yet to be decided. Some say that it will not be released in Japan. It was expected to be controversial, but I didn’t think I wouldn’t be able to see it at all.

In Japanese culture, people say the effect of “Barbenheimer” is significant. After the two movies — Barbie and Oppenheimer — were simultaneously released to great successes on July 21 in the U.S., the two titles were combined as “Barbenheimer” and memes of the two films spread fast. On a photoshopped image of Barbie with the atomic bomb explosion above her head, Warner Brothers, the production company of Barbie, left a meaningful comment. Japan is the only country in the world hit by atomic bombs. Japanese people protested. “Why make the atomic bomb a topic of a joke?” they asked. “Do you know the suffering of the victims?” In the end, Warner Brothers apologized for lacking consideration.

The atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed about 200,000 people. The victims also include about 40,000 people from the Korean Peninsula.

There is a strange tension between the United States and Japan. At the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May, victims and their bereaved families demanded an apology from U.S. President Joe Biden for the atomic bombings. The United States refused. Instead, Biden visited the monument and the memorial. But Japanese people criticized him for only stopping by for a moment and not looking around.

Sept. 1 marked the 100th anniversary of the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. Amid the chaos, the Japanese spread a rumor that Koreans poisoned wells, and Japanese people brutally killed 6,000 Koreans. The Japanese government at the time encouraged the massacre by issuing an official letter, “Be wary of Korean riots.”

But Tokyo denies the obvious fact and claims that there was no official record of the massacre. People like Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike practically denied the massacre and said, “Historians will reveal what is true.”

I hope Oppenheimer will be released in Japan. I hope for an active discussion among the Japanese after watching the film. Japanese people regard only Japan as a pitiful victim and want to forget Japan as a victimizer. If the Japanese people find “Barbie with atomic clouds” hurtful, they must realize that the Rising Sun flag also makes many Asians uncomfortable.