WB is apologizing for a meme meant to promote the two mega-box office hits Barbie and Oppenheimer.
Fans who can’t decide which film to see have decided to watch both films back to back leading to the coined phrase Barbenheimer.
However, Laprensa Latina reports a meme depicting the two films leading characters walking away from what appears to be a nuclear explosion has ired folks in Japan.
Memories there are still understandably strong about the two atomic bomb drops that resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 people.
“Warner Brothers regrets its recent insensitive social media engagement. The studio offers a sincere apology,” the company said in its statement to Variety on Tuesday.
The apology follows pushback to the meme from the division of WB in Japan.
“We consider it extremely regrettable that the official account of the American headquarters for the movie ‘Barbie’ reacted to the social media postings of ‘Barbenheimer’ fans. We take this situation very seriously. We are asking the U.S. headquarters to take appropriate action. We apologize to those who were offended by this series of inconsiderate reactions. Warner Bros Japan,” WB Japan wrote on its own Twitter account in Japanese.
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Randall, thank you so much for posting this, as well as the articles by MOTHER JONES. As you may already know, being the daughter of a Hiroshima survivor, the “BarbenHeimer” memes infuriate me. It’s irresponsible that in 3 hours of screen time, not one picture, or end notes of the 80,000 people that died that day-like my Grandfather. Also no mention of the thousands that survived and lived with their emotional and physical scars, unintentionally passing them to their future generations, like my mother did with me, and in turn my daughter. Not to mention the people who died, suffered, continue to suffer from the Trinity test fallout- especially since the explosion for OPPENHEIMER was filmed in New Mexico! If they had, maybe I wouldn’t have to see the ridiculous memes with pink mushroom clouds, or mushroom cloud portraits for sale.