[ SECRET POST #6065 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6065 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #867.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/qxcsbzf.png

[(Anonymous)]

Call me cynical, but I don't believe all the people complaining about this would flock to the movie theater to watch a film about the displaced people of Los Alamos. I think they like to virtue signal about it, though.

[(Anonymous)]

I just think they think "media criticism" means "identifying the ways in which this piece perpetuates systems of oppression." I don't necessarily blame them, because you really can get the impression that that's what you're supposed to do to be a serious viewer/reader/etc.

[(Anonymous)]

If it were about the people of Los Alamos, you'd probably have some of them saying it's a travesty for focusing on Americans rather than on the impact the bomb had on the Japanese.

Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. No disrespect to the people of Los Alamaos, but if you're going to argue that Oppeneheimer should tell another side of the story, they seem like a strange choice.

Re: Not OP

[(Anonymous)]

Why?

I'm trying to be as delicate as possible I promise.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen the "Oppenheimer doesn't have a single Japanese character!" argument floating around. And like...

We know how that story ends. If you wanna revisit it, watch a documentary.

I think Asian representation is (trying) to move away from the stereotypical roles. I don't know how many would want to be in that story. Does that make sense?

I think white people are in a period of trying to reconcile with the atrocities they've done while POC are trying to move out of it because they've been mired in it for so long.

I haven't seen Oppenheimer, so I don't know how glorifying/white man's burden-y it is.

Re: I'm trying to be as delicate as possible I promise.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I honestly don't think the kind of white people who focus on these sorts of things are trying to "reconcile with atrocity" at all. As far as I can tell, their perspectives usually wind up being a different, slightly more benevolent form of racism. It's more a way to feel smug and jockey for status among other white people.

Also, when it comes to WWII, white people weren't the only ones to commit atrocity. The Japanese committed a fair bit of it, themselves, against Filopinos and the Chinese (which is why Chinese people get so angry when, in Western cinema, a Chinese actor plays a Japanese character, or a Japanese actor plays a Chinese character. The bad blood lingers). This does not mean that America gets a pass for dropping the bomb, but it does mean that the reality is more complicated than evildoers vs. pure innocents.

I think it is true that POC in general are trying to move out of it. There have been some complaints out of the publishing world in particular, wherein writers of color feel pressure (often overt, and often from white editors and executives) to focus on racism and race-based trauma in their stories, even when that's not what they want to write.

[(Anonymous)]

You probably would but otoh I would absolutely go watch a movie about the people of Los Alamos. But I haven’t and will not see Oppenheimer because another shitty Christopher Nolan movie about another boring af white man just isn’t my thing. I didn’t even have to read about it to know they’d cut unsavoury bits and credit him with the better efforts of others. My only surprise there was that people were surprised to learn that’s what they did.

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously. People cannot watch films anymore out of enjoyment without some SJW getting their panties twisted about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Fuck off

[(Anonymous)]

Some people sure love being outraged. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

This secret has a point. I agree. No notes.

The real problem is getting yet another "based on a true story" about some poor, beleaguered genius, white man for the millionth time. It'd be a hundred percent less eye-rolling if Oppenheimer didn't whitewash the actual man. An unblinking honest depiction would have been something different, and a hell of a lot more interesting to watch.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're going to get technical about it, during his lifetime Oppenheimer was only considered conditionally white at best. He wasn't being asked to join their golf clubs or anything.

[(Anonymous)]

Some people online say stuff just to say stuff. There's no point engaging with it seriously.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, there's a difference between whitewashing history and telling a focused story. Oppenheimer is a biopic about Oppenheimer and focuses on him, that's all.

[(Anonymous)]

Only I've been watching a lot of history videos about Oppenheimer and nothing I've learned about the man matches what the movie shows. He was more socially awkward than the movie shows, and nowhere near as... I don't know. Deep? Insightful? In real life. Oppenheimer was so smoothed-out in the movie. It felt really fake. Faker than you normally expect to find in a bio-doc.

Which is a shame. Oppenheimer had a sad, interesting life before the bomb.

[greghousesgf]

it's better than that movie that was supposed to be about world war 2 Navajo code talkers that turned out to be about some white guy.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. Yeeeeah. For all that people complain, I just can't think of a way to incorporate the POV of Japanese folks or indigenous people that doesn't feel tokenized or sensationalistic. And why would anyone *want* a white man's version of those stories? I've watched White Light, Black Rain. I just don't trust Hollywood to capture the nuance and cultural context of the lives documented in that film.

Beyond storytelling choices, Nolan stayed in his lane for very obvious reasons. Hate the movie for being three hours long or its occasionally cringey dialogue, IDC, but this particular complaint just feels so laughably contrarian.

[meadowphoenix]

....welll that's the thing. I do think genuis v. normal workers whose lives he destroyed is more interesting than genius v. government/science buddies. Like nolan is simply not going to give me anything interesting thematically in the latter. He's just not going to do it.

but I agree that there's very little point in asking specific directors and writers to expand their wheelhouse in specific way. Like you can definitely make criticism regarding what the films is "saying" versus how the film said it, and those criticisms might include the absence of figures. But I'd have more respect for people reviewing nolan's work and going "why are we giving this dude this much clout when his themes are persistently X?" than "why didn't nolan do something else entirely?"

[(Anonymous)]

....welll that's the thing. I do think genuis v. normal workers whose lives he destroyed is more interesting than genius v. government/science buddies

IDK like, it's a more interesting theme but it's also not really a theme that you can treat in a cinematic way. it's difficult to wrap that material into a cinematic form because the relationship between Oppenheimer and the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is attenuated through so many different processes across so much distance and time. it's a very diffuse thing to try to depict.

certainly it's not a theme that Chris Nolan could ever treat in a cinematic way, but it would be very difficult for anyone. out of people who've made Hollywood movies who are still working, maybe Terrence Malick could do it? IDK.

[(Anonymous)]

+1, that's not a movie Christopher Nolan is going to make. But yeah, I think there have been more and more interesting books, TV shows and movies about the people affected by scientific and technical advances, and in some cases (like the family of Henrietta Lacks) that can have real, lasting impact. Radium Girls is another one.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the argument is more about US/Hollywood media being centered on the White narrative. Or at least, that is a fair criticism I see and I think is worth talking about.
But in terms of the individual film in question?
I mean...I agree that some people just want to be pissy and will use any topic to thread some form "gotcha" to make themselves feel superior while looking down on those who don't agree.

But that doesn't mean that the criticism is without merit.
Cuz Hollywood sure does love giving Nolan money to create whatever he wants and he sure loves telling tales of white dudes with emotions.

I get it. He's a white dude with emotions, duh.
But it reinforces this expectation that someone of Nolan's caliber is "outside" of talks about representation and systemic racism. We "can't" criticize him or his works.
"Failing to see his works for what they are is an individual problem, not a systemic one" is a take I can't wholly support. Sorry

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you secretmaker!! :)

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a difference bw focusing on a single character for a biopic and focusing on the character to the exclusion of anything else that happened around the major events of his life which made him famous, to the point that you have removed a significant context of his achievement. In this case, Nolan did the latter. It wasn't just clammy white scientists juggling radioactive cores that died in the making of Oppenheimer's destroyer of worlds.