Seven awards, including Best Picture, for Oppenheimer, tell us something about Oscars 2024. We need not spill ink or use up gigabytes to claim for the millionth time how Cillian Murphy is a remarkable actor. Or how Christopher Nolan used the material at hand, the bestselling biography of a scientist, into a cinematic experience that swept both critics and lay cinemagoers alike. Oppenheimer’s awards sweep nudges us away from cultural debates towards realpolitik. And geopolitics beyond the subject matter of the film. The firm establishment of American exceptionalism — every once in a while a film ends up doing it masterfully.

American exceptionalism — a belief that the United States of America is exceptional — became one of the dominant leitmotifs not just internally but also on the global stage post-9/11. However, within a decade, it became severely disputed. Political scientist Seymour Lipset argued that this exceptionalism is based on the genesis of the nation. The US was, arguably, born out of a revolution and continues to “define its raison d’etre ideologically”. Americans are as Americans do. Like, believing in institutions like religion and family, and putting their faith in absolute moral authority.

The many wars of the US in the 21st century have both fostered and dismantled this exceptionalism. The US is exceptional in its single-mindedness in pursuing what it perceives as its national goals — its foreign policy is crafted........

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