Anger Over ‘Barbenheimer’ in Nuclear-Scarred Japan

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To Americans eager for signs of life in an ailing cinema culture, the simultaneous box office success of the “Barbie” movie and the biopic “Oppenheimer” has been cause for celebration, with filmgoers embracing the jarring juxtaposition of the two very different blockbusters. In Japan, however, this jubilant fusion, including “Barbenheimer” double features and online mash-ups of Barbie’s pink fantasia with images of Oppenheimer-era nuclear explosions, have been met with a very different response: anger. For days, Twitter users in Japan, where nuclear bombings by the U.S. military during World War II killed hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been spreading the hash tag #NoBarbenheimer. And on Monday, the backlash ignited a rare display of internal Hollywood corporate discord, as the Japanese subsidiary of Warner Bros. criticized its headquarters’ handling of social media for the “Barbie” movie.