The release of the two films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, on the same day provoked the Barbenheimer trend among movie fans to express their ironical humor. There were images of Margot Robbie wearing a mushroom cloud hairstyle. In response to this, the official Barbie movie account replied: “This Ken is a stylist.”
Barbie was released in Japan on August 11, five days after the 78th Memorial Day of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
Other meme images that offended Japanese social media users include a scene of Cillian Murphy, who played Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” walking through a burning city with his wife Robbie on his shoulders. The official account of the Barbie movie replied that “It’s going to be a summer to be remembered”.
These two movies highlight the historical background of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan which resulted in about 140,000 deaths in Hiroshima. Three days later, over 74,000 people died from the nuclear bomb in Nagasaki.
The content of this movie and this trend of memes imply that they are completely disrespectful to Japanese people and U.S. soldiers who died from the atomic bomb. Also, it shows how the majority of people in the U.S. are ignorant to Japanese tragedy.
Now, the more we approach the upcoming 80th anniversary of the nuclear bomb, the more we need to change that perspective toward historical backgrounds.