Warner Bros Japan finds itself in hot water as it issues an apology following an unfortunate incident involving the official Barbie Movie account. The account replied to Barbenheimer memes that featured images of atom bombs, causing outrage among social media users.
The controversy arose when Barbie and Oppenheimer movies were released simultaneously in the United States, leading to the emergence of the Barbenheimer phenomenon.
Some of the offending images depicted Margot Robbie with a mushroom cloud hairstyle, to which the official Barbie movie account replied with a tone-deaf remark, stating, “This Ken is a stylist.”
Scheduled for release in Japan on August 11, the Barbie movie has garnered considerable attention on social media, with the hashtag #NoBarbenheimer trending in Japan, the world’s third-largest movie market after the US and China.
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Among the disturbing memes that enraged Japanese netizens, one showed Cillian Murphy, who portrayed Robert Oppenheimer, often known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” carrying Ms. Robbie on his shoulder through a burning city. The Barbie movie’s official account further added fuel to the fire by commenting, “It’s going to be a summer to be remembered.”
Warner Bros Japan issued a statement on their own Barbie account, expressing deep regret for the American headquarters’ official account’s insensitive response to the “Barbenheimer” fans’ social media posts.
The controversy has struck a personal chord with many social media users, with one individual sharing a heartbreaking story about their grandfather, who was in Hiroshima just days before the bomb struck. The mushroom cloud claimed the lives of many children who were the same age as those who played with Barbie dolls.
