I’ve wanted to watch The Interview since May, when I was sitting in a movie theater and I saw a preview for the Seth Rogen and James Franco film about the assassination of Kim Jong-un.
Unfortunately, I won’t be watching it anytime soon. In case you live under a rock, here’s what you’ve missed. Sony is pulling The Interview as a response to a number of major theaters in the US and Canada opting out of showing it. The theaters are deciding not to show it because a group of hackers, believed to be sponsored by the North Korean government, threatened to attack theaters showing the movie. The hackers wrote,
“Remember the 11th of September 2001,” and
“We recommend you keep yourself distant from the places at that time” (referring to the theaters showing The Interview).
The precedent this sets horrifies me. The US government hasn’t found any real evidence of the attack mentioned in the warning, yet Sony and theaters are scared enough to cancel the premiere and release of this movie. What does this mean for the future? Will any group that doesn’t like an upcoming movie be able to stop its release by suggesting there might be some sort of repercussions?
Yes, terrorist threats should absolutely be taken seriously. Yes, safety should most definitely come first. But when we’re letting them govern our lives, when we’re letting them censor us, something is terribly wrong. It isn’t okay for someone to threaten Sony, theaters, and individuals just wanting to watch a funny movie. In the US, producers and companies are allowed to say what they want. We don’t censor our artists. We don’t execute people who watch things we don’t want them to (yes, this actually happened recently in North Korea, and they made the executions public, according to travelerstoday.com). If we did those things, what sort of nation would we be? North Korea?
Honestly, I don’t even see why they’re so upset. Sure, the movie’s plot focuses on assassination of their beloved dictator, but as Seth Rogen said on The Colbert Report, they tried very hard to make Kim Jong Un as adorable as possible.
If you’re offended by a movie, get over it and move on. It's just a movie. And according to a few reviewers, a badly made one at that.
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