J. Robert Oppenheimer's The Day After Trinity

The historical documentary Day After Trinity is a comprehensive film exploring J. Robert Oppenheimer's leading role in the advent of the atomic bomb. However this documentary extends itself beyond the realm of factual accounts of scientific accomplishments as it attempts to engage the scientists and the viewer in a moral and ethical dialogue on the responsibility of the scientists in manufacturing the A-bomb. In the case of Oppenheimer's role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the film asks, "how did a Bohemian intellectual get to be administrator of Los Alamos?" This question was answered by one of Oppenheimer's colleagues in the final minutes of the documentary; "Technical arrogance overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."
This film's relationship to Carol Cohn's article "Nuclear Language and How We Learned to Pat the Bomb" is subtle, yet present. Cohn defines the term "patting" as "an assertion of intimacy, sexual possession, and affectionate domination...Pat it, and its lethality disappears" (176).

The most obvious observations of patting in relation to LosAlamos and the atom bomb would be the popular name of "Oppenheimer's baby" , referring to the atomic bomb. Other practices of patting in the film were apparent with discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets for the atomic bomb. Apparently official orders had been passed down through the rank to leave some Japanese cities in tact so that the scale of destruction from the nuclear bomb could be measured. These cities were referred to as "Virgin Targets". The sexualization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made them a target for domination (or penetration), destruction and terretorialization. Once the American military had ravaged these towns, they then sent scientific teams to explore the repercussions of the atomic bomb, as if they had not just raped the life of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This act reeks of arrogant callousness and territorial domination.

The presence of women in not only the "Manhattan Project" (another act of petting) , but in the film itself serve as another point of interpretation. Women scientists of rank and reputation in the 1940s were few and far between, but they did exist. However, their role in science and particularly in the Manhattan Project was seen as peripheral. The "important" work of decision-making and strategy was done by men, for men The documentary, rather unknowingly, represents women's work in the Manhattan Project as peripheral through its filmic practices. There were obviously women scientists a Los Alamos doing important work, but for more than half the film only men are interviewed. The voice of a certain female scientist is continuously heard while images of the camp were shown, but time after time they neglected to show her face and to dedicate any real camera time to her. Finally, she is interviewed three-quarters of the way through the film for a brief moment, and that is the last the viewer sees of her. There is no probing of her experience as a female scientist at Los Alamos or Oppenheimer's view towards women in science, an issue that could have provided a much more in depth look at life at Los Alamos and Oppenheimer's character. Women who were interviewed more than once were clerical workers, wives of scientists, and members of the communities around Los Alamos. They talked about living conditions, domestic life, and how good looking and charming Oppenheimer was. Their roles were secondary and complementary to the roles of the men at Los Alamos.