Oppenheimer: Florence Pugh nude scenes censored with CGI

With the premiere of Oppenheimer, some countries have opted to fully censor Florence Pugh’s full frontal nudity scene.

At long last, Christopher’s Nolan epic biopic Oppenheimer — the second half of the meme ‘Barbenheimer’ — has premiered and greatly exceeded its box office earning predictions.

Fans have been eagerly waiting for the movie, which follows the life and work of the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer, to release as it marks Nolan’s first R-rated movie and the first of his movie to have “prolonged nudity.”

However, while this is still an achievement in Nolan’s career, the addition of full front nudity isn’t sitting well with some conservative countries as they’ve completely censored the scene featuring Florence Pugh. But, unfortunately, this kind of censorship has robbed the scene as a whole of its power. Warning: slight spoilers for Oppenheimer below.

Florence Pugh’s nudity scene in Oppenheimer has been censored

In an article featured in The Hindustan Times, it was revealed that India has censored a moment in Oppenheimer that features a prolonged scene of Florence Pugh showing off full frontal nudity. Oppenheimer has been rated “rated U/A in India, which is reserved for movies that contain moderate adult themes and can be watched by children under 12 with parental guidance.”

To hide Pugh’s nude body, theaters in India have covered Pugh in a “black dress” as to preserve her modesty.

While everyone has the right to consume media the way they want, this kind of censorship does rob the scene itself. Pugh shares this scene with Cillian Murphy (who plays Oppenheimer) and both actors are completely nude as they sit across from one another after being apart for several months.

Their nudity serves two purposes and both are integral for their characters’ motivations. The first reason is pretty obvious: they’re lovers who are currently engaging in a one night affair as Oppenheimer is married at this point in the film. Though the pair broke up when Oppenheimer got his wife pregnant, he promised Jean (Pugh) that he would always be there when she called and he’s in the scene as she called him while suffering a mental health crisis.

The second reason the pair is naked is because they’re meeting at the height of his creation of the atomic bomb and, as Jean is a member of the Communist Party USA (which people often thought meant the members were working for the Russian government), this was a way for Oppenheimer to speak freely with her without fear of her wearing a wire to extract information from him.

By censoring Pugh’s nudity, it robs the scene of the tension between her and Murphy, which is a shame because their layered relationship has a lasting effect on Oppenheimer both politically and emotionally. Nudity is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay, but if it serves the story in a meaningful way, it should be left alone.

Oppenheimer is now in theaters and you can find more coverage of it below:

Oppenheimer review | Epic runtime revealed | R-rating explained | Best way to watch Oppenheimer | Christopher Nolan on sex scenes | Cast and characters | Filming locations | True story explained | Is Oppenheimer streaming? | Nolan ranked by Rotten Tomato scores | Is it based on a book? | Age-gap controversy explained | Robert Pattinson’s influence | How Oppenheimer died | Christopher Nolan explains strange script | Did Japan ban Oppenheimer? | Review roundup | Does Oppenheimer have a post-credits scene? | Who dies? | Box office | Ending explained