"Christopher Nolan's #Oppenheimer explores the work of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer & colleagues to create the atomic bomb.
Yet, the film fails to depict a key part of the story, using 2 female scientists as stand-ins for ALL of the women who contributed."
Hundreds of women were essential to the Manhattan Project, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer. But they are largely absent in the #film.
@Sheril I went and watched it today and one thing that struck me was how it consisted of cishet white men almost exclusively. There was a very short scene where a female scientist argued that radiation would affect her as much as every one else, therefore she should be allowed to work on the project, but that was it. All women in the movie had supporting roles as wives or assistants or they were depicted as mere objects of pleasure.
@Sheril I mean, it’s a Nolan film. Of course it ignores most of the women. Women are only important to Nolan in how they motivate men. It’s my primary criticism of him and why I don’t care for his work.
@Sheril It might be difficult to follow source material about Oppenheimer and tell a story with more women in it. Women were isolated. Men took credit for their work. Their involvement wasn't well documented.
I believe Nolan made an effort to depict them. It might have been a difficult job.
Here's an article from LLNL about Lilli Hornig. In the article she talks about being isolated from her peers.
@Sheril Isn’t Oppenheimer about J. Robert Oppenheimer rather than the Manhattan Project, hence the name? So it would make sense that a biographical movie focuses on a singular person? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film)
@Sheril Nolan's film was a biopic of Oppenheimer, not the many women who contributed to the project. To maintain a coherent storyline, there were some aspects of reality that simply could not be effectively incorporated into the plot. There are always choices directors have to make, especially when making a film about someone's life. Not everything or everyone is going to make the cut.
@Sheril I'm probably too stupid in modern terminology to understand this point. Wasn't the movie about physicist Robert J Oppenheimer? So understandably it would be about Oppenheimer and his contribution to the Manhattan project no?
@Sheril Oh, I guess you didn't get the memo about not including women in any of the important stuff like history or accolades or anything similar.
Ask Rosalind Franklin. Or Nettie Steven's. Or Jocelyn Bell Burnell...and so on.
@Sheril Yes there are only two women in the movie, but in my opinion "& colleagues to create the atomic bomb." is not a good summary of the film. It is about the inner conflict of a person and the fragmentation of political reality by the bomb.
@Sheril . So sad, not recognising telent of extremely talented women only because of gender! Imagine, how many decades were lost in progress of mankind, just because of traditional mindset!🤔☹️👎
@Sheril diversity in mass murder 🖤 love to know a diverse crowd made indigenous, mexican and japanese people suffer! We need more diversity in the western military industrial complex and colonialist capitalist endeavors 🖤
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