Didn’t expect to see movie critics defending fascism on the platform formerly known as Twitter, yet here we are. With movies like Oppenheimer, you get one of three things: genuine critiques of the film, praise from those who loved it, and then comments from those who fully missed the point of everything presented to them. The genuine critiques I have seen are all incredibly valid. It is the comments about this movie from people who woefully missed the point that are proving problematic.
… Like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying that he hoped Oppenheimer was going “inspire a generation of kids to be physicists but it really missed the mark on that.” The movie is about the creation of the atomic bomb that killed over 200,000 Japanese civilians during World War II. What in Altman’s mind was supposed to be inspiring about that?
Other people are focusing on the women in Oppenheimer’s life and fully misunderstanding the point that the movie, as a whole, is shown through Oppenheimer’s perspective and even says up front that he is a womanizer! So of course the women in his life are only seen as whole and intelligent when they are benefiting him.
To be quite clear, the criticism going around about the first 20 minutes of Oppenheimer has been thoroughly dunked on and for good reason: Those 20 minutes were about his time at Cambridge—where women could attend but were not awarded degrees until 1948—which he left in 1926, and split between scenes from the hearing over Oppenheimer’s security clearance and Lewis Strauss’ cabinet appointment, where women were not historically present.
Then there’s the abhorrent poll about whether “not showing Hiroshima” will result in Oppenheimer losing some Oscars. First of all, there is an entire plot point in the movie about how the white people in charge continued to ignore the bombing of Nagasaki when talking about the atom bomb, so leaving it out of the conversation yet again is … a choice. Second, saying that you want to see the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) and that it would cost Nolan an Oscar for not showing it proves to me, at least, that you’re focused on the wrong things about this movie.
And then somehow it got so much worse, with talk about Oppenheimer, an actual historical figure, being “unlikable” as a character and some siding with McCarthyism (a.k.a. American fascism) as well as endorsing President Truman’s assessment of Oppenheimer—that was not at all meant to be taken at face value.
No genuine critique can be heard through the nonsense
So why is this a problem? Because if someone has a critique of Oppenheimer they are trying to share, it is getting lost in all the bad faith takes. It is why right-leaning people are completely ignoring (whether purposefully or through their own lack of media literacy) the message of the film. We’re left with a shell of a conversation when we could instead be examining the message of Oppenheimer, which does not excuse the actions of J. Robert Oppenheimer or those who pushed the Manhattan Project even when, according to some historians, the war was seemingly coming to an end.
Is my anger partially because I loved Oppenheimer? Yes! I want to be able to discuss it in an intelligent way with others online, but instead we have to wade through these absolutely off-the-rails takes on the film. The fact that Grace Randolph watched Oppenheimer and concluded that Truman was right, Oppenheimer was a cry baby, brings such fire to my blood because that’s not what the movie is saying. And spreading that message about a movie that rightfully calls out the actions of those behind the Manhattan Project is honestly dangerous.
I don’t know, maybe I am just built differently, but I wasn’t worried about Oppenheimer’s charisma when I was watching a weapon of mass destruction come to fruition.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
