Godzilla at 70: The monster’s warning to humanity is still urgent

The monster in the 2023 movie “Godzilla Minus One.” Toho Co. Ltd., CC BY-ND by Amanda Kennell, University of Notre Dame and Jessica McManus Warnell, University of Notre Dame The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations. Many of these witnesses have spent their lives warning of the dangers of nuclear war – but initially, much of the world didn’t want to hear it. “The fates of those who survived the infernos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were long concealed and neglected,” the Nobel committee noted in its announcement. Local groups of nuclear survivors created Nihon Hidankyo in 1956 to fight back against this erasure. Atomic bomb survivor Masao Ito, 82, speaks at the park across from the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima in May 15, 2023. Richard A. Brooks/AFP via Getty Images Around the same time that Nihon Hidankyo was formed, Japan produced another warning: a towering monster who topples Tokyo with blasts of irradiated breath. The 1954 film “Godzilla” launched a franchise that has been warning viewers to take better care of the Earth for the past 70 years. We study popular Japanese media and business ethics...