Hollywood blockbuster “Barbie” hit theaters in Japan on Friday, the place “Barbenheimer” memes linking the doll-themed movie with the atomic bomb brought about a stir and made distributor Warner Bros apologize forward of the discharge.
Tickets for “Barbie”, starring Margot Robbie within the title function, nonetheless bought quick in Japan as followers flocked to the theatrical launch, timed to coincide with a nationwide vacation marking the primary day of Japan’s prolonged summer season vacation week.
“The pink world of Barbie was absolutely beautiful,” mentioned Misaki Suzuki, 29-year-old nail salon employee, after watching the movie at a Tokyo cinema.
“Barbie” has topped $1 billion in international field workplace since its July 21 debut, making author and director Greta Gerwig the primary feminine filmmaker to surpass that benchmark as a solo director. The success of the fantasy-comedy was additional boosted by the coupling with “Oppenheimer”, the biopic chronicling the creation of the atomic bomb throughout World War Two that opened on the identical weekend.
But the “Barbenheimer” combo sparked a backlash in Japan, because the nation earlier this month marked the memorials of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 78 years in the past.
In now-deleted posts on platform X, previously often called Twitter, Warner Bros’ “Barbie” advertising account had latched on to fan-produced memes that depicted Robbie with “Oppenheimer” actor Cillian Murphy alongside photographs of nuclear blasts.
A Change.org petition was launched on Aug 1, demanding that Warner Bros and Universal Pictures, the studio behind “Oppenheimer”, name a halt to the #Barbenheimer hashtag on social media. It has collected about 22,600 signatures to this point.
A #NoBarbenheimer hashtag trended in Japan on the time, prompting Warner’s Japan division to situation a uncommon public criticism of its U.S. mother or father firm, which then adopted with an apology final week.
Mitsuki Takahata, who voiced Barbie within the dubbed Japanese model, mentioned in an Aug 2 Instagram put up that she was dismayed upon studying of the memes. “This incident is really, really disappointing,” she posted.
Still, Japanese followers of the film, which sends Mattel Inc’s iconic doll into actual life, mentioned the controversy didn’t discourage them from visiting theaters.
“It was harsh”, mentioned 24-year-old college scholar Rie Takeda, commenting on the fan-produced #Barbenheimer memes.
“But the movie was radiant, beyond that I had fun” watching it, she mentioned.
No Japan launch date has been introduced for “Oppenheimer”, which has been criticized for largely ignoring the atomic bomb’s destruction of two main Japanese cities in 1945, accounting for greater than 200,000 deaths.
© Thomson Reuters 2023.