Many women were instrumental in making the Manhattan Project a success, but Christopher Nolan forgot some of them in his latest film.
The Manhattan Project was a research and development project carried out during World War II. It involved the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada and was aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bombs were designed, and is the subject of Christopher Nolan‘s latest film, ‘Oppenheimer’.
However, despite the fact that during that period women suffered multiple episodes of inequality, the reality is that many of them were fundamental and played a key role in the success of the Manhattan Project. Women scientists, physicists, chemists, explosion technicians? History would not have developed as we know it if it had not been for them.
In fact, one of the members of the Manhattan Project, Maria Goeppert Mayer, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 after her involvement in the company whose story is told in Christopher Nolan‘s film. She and many others were forgotten in ‘Oppenheimer’.
Oppenheimer’ fails the Bechdel Test
The Bechdel Test is a method for assessing the gender gap in films and series. To find out if an artistic production passes the Bechdel Test, three questions must be asked and answered in the affirmative.
Does the film have at least two female characters, do these two or more female characters interact with each other during the film, and do these two or more female characters talk about something other than a man?
In the case of Nolan‘s new film, the answer to the last two questions is negative. Therefore, ‘Oppenheimer’ fails the Bechdel Test.
Lilli Hornig
In Nolan‘s latest film, very few women are featured. With the exception of Robert Oppenheimer‘s wife Kitty and Jean Tatlock, the lover of the character played by Cillian Murphy, Lilli Hornig is one of the few women who appears in the film.
Lilli was a scientist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project. She studied plutonium and chemistry and worked in the explosives group.
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Maria Goeppert Mayer was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. She was the second woman to win the prize after the well-known Marie Curie, who won it in 1903. Until 2018, she was the last woman to win the Nobel Prize. Donna Strickland and Andrea Ghez were the last two winners.
Their influence on the Manhattan Project and the Los Alamos National Laboratory was based on their studies of uranium isotopes and the possibility of separating these isotopes by photochemical reactions.
Charlotte Serber, idolised by Robert Oppenheimer
Charlotte Serber was the librarian at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Although she had no scientific role in the Manhattan Project, her importance was paramount, as she was in charge of organising and protecting all the confidential documents.
Oppenheimer himself praised and admired her work, which he described as fundamental. “I emphasise the amazing success in controlling and accounting for the vast amount of classified information, where a single serious error could not only have caused us the greatest embarrassment, but could also have jeopardised the successful completion of our work,” explained the director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Leona Woods, Joan Hinton or Elizabeth Riddle Graves were also forgotten by Christopher Nolan.
As we can see, there were many women who played an important role in the Manhattan Project and whom Nolan left out of his latest film. Leona Woods was a leading nuclear scientist, Joan Hinton was part of the team of scientists who contributed to the development of the first atomic bomb and Elizabeth Riddle Graves helped with the testing of the first device from a distance, as she was pregnant and had to avoid any radiation. After the Manhattan Project, Riddle Graves continued to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory.