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So, Yeah … The Terrorists Won
Hollywood, in case you haven’t heard, is a brave place. There’s no adjective the town is fonder of during bouts of self-congratulation. Every film that wanders into liberal erogenous zones of race, class, gender, or sexual orientation is always hailed as courageous, though that’s an odd way to describe material that simply reaffirms an industrywide ideological consensus.
Don’t get me wrong, some of these films are legitimately praiseworthy. I happen to think, for instance, that — unserious and reflexive conservative carping notwithstanding — 12 Years A Slave was actually a harrowing, moving portrayal of the depredations of slavery. But brave? There are few views that command such absolute consensus in modern American society as the notion that the possession of human chattel was a grave sin. The movie wasn’t exactly swimming against the tide.
Now, however, Hollywood has a legitimate opportunity for bravery — and the industry is wilting in the heat. From Fox News:
The hackers behind a devastating attack on Sony are threatening an “11th of September”-style attack on movie theaters showing an upcoming film that pokes fun at North Korea’s communist dictatorship…
In a message emailed to various reporters and accompanying the latest in a series of leaks that have included employee emails, health and financial information, the hackers who call themselves “Guardians of Peace” sent a grim warning to people planning to attend screenings of “The Interview,” even warning people who live near cinemas to leave home, according to a report from Variety.
“Warning…We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to,” reads the message posted on Tuesday. “Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear.”
Silly terrorists. If you really want to cause social chaos, the proper strategy is to not interrupt screenings of a James Franco film.
I have no idea whether The Interview will be any good. Given the talent involved, I suspect that it will be legitimately funny and eye-rollingly sophomoric by turns. But I like the pluck involved in producing a film whose entire premise is taking a shot (literally and figuratively) at Kim Jong-Un and the regime in Pyongyang. That seems like the kind of thing that ought to happen in a boisterous, rollicking free society.
So how is Hollywood dealing with the threat? From ABC News:
Sony has told theaters they do not have to show “The Interview,” after the group claiming responsibility for stealing troves of Sony executives’ emails released a note apparently threatening attacks on the theaters where the movie will be played, sources said.
Actors James Franco and Seth Rogen also canceled all press appearances in light of the threats, a representative for Rogen said.
Wait, what? Am I the only one who remembers that period when members of the entertainment industry were at the forefront of the argument that even the most minuscule change in American life produced by the threat of violence meant that the terrorists had won? And now they’re going to ground because of chest-thumping from a pudgy boy dictator with the Brad Pitt haircut from Fury?
If Hollywood was as brave as its denizens say it is every time the wine is flowing at the Beverly Hilton, wouldn’t this be an opportunity to defiantly declare that it won’t be silenced? To rub the hackers’ noses in the fact that this is how a free society functions? Or is this that kind of “bravery” where you tweak the Southern Baptist Convention to your heart’s content but lose bladder control when you get on the wrong side of anyone with actual power?
Update: Variety is now reporting that Sony has pulled the theatrical release of The Interview altogether. No word yet on whether it will ever see theaters, though the language of the piece makes that seem a distant possibility. From a statement quoted in the piece:
“We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public,” it continues. “We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.”
We stand by their right to free expression? Or we stand behind it while it takes three rounds to the chest?
Published in General
I agree. That should be the general rule for any movie with James Franco in it.
I’m with Joseph Stanko. When did America turn into a bunch of wimps? Kim Jung- whats-his -face is a threat to us how? He’s the only one in North Korea that has to worry about his calorie intake. The rest of the country is starving to death. I think we should flatten the regime and give the movie to the civilians of North Korea as a Christmas present.
Taking a stand for a Rogan/Franco gross out comedy seems just a few notches above defending the right of Nazis to march in Skokie… But it still is a stand that should have been made.
Blue Yeti: I know, I thought of that a few minutes after I wrote the comment, but was not in a position to correct myself. Someone on the NY times website suggested that Sony should just make the movie available to everyone on the Internet. Is that possible, and if not, why not?
I am with Crow’s Nest: Americans should be marching in the streets, demanding that this movie be brought to our local theatres.
Two words: Director’s Cut!
I made this exact suggestion in a conversation at dinner with Ricochet’s own Rob Long last night. I’m sure there are agreements in place with distributors that prevent them bypassing them, but perhaps they could be waived in this unusual situation.
As far as marching in the streets, well, I think there are many, many issues that might come before The Interview. But point taken.
It now appears that the US government is going to ID North Korea as thee source of the attacks. So now what? Do we go to war against North Korea?
That is the problem. We get attacked and do nothing.
Flatten them. Then others will think twice.
No, we laugh at them and hack their computers, if we haven’t already. Then we tell the goof ball in charge of that country to seek the advice of someone who understands the difference between their capabilities and ours. After that we send Dennis Rodman over there to patch things up. And then we tell the goof ball running things over there that the next time we make a movie about him, that Rodman is going to be cast as his character.
But North Korea hasn’t attacked us yet — unless you count hacking, and I don’t. All they’ve done is threaten us.
That’s why I think the proper response at this stage would be a counter-threat. But only if it’s credible, and with Obama in the White House, it wouldn’t be.
Is the CEO of Sony related to Mitch McConnell?
Blue Yeti is a tremendous voice of reason here. Thank you.
And, based on the reports of the time it is taking to get operations running, this is an attack. What if 25% of our companies had to go off line for several weeks? That would have a huge impact. I will be interested to hear the full story comes out. And I hope Sony finds a way to make a buck or two out of the project.
This whole thread gets two thumbs down. (Now we’ve done it!)
Kenneth’s five sockpuppets are verklempt.
I think it’s a great day. Seth Rogan and James Franco have been thwarted in their doofus-comedy ambitions and a pillar of the entertainment industry has been humbled. Jim Kerrey and Russell Brand have to be looking over their shoulders tonight.
Who cares a whit for the fortunes of a company too witless to secure their networks in the face of repeated warnings? And a digital entertainment company at that? I think y’all need to check your sense of proportion. And a little attention to the choice of battlefield wouldn’t hurt.
Me, I just like watching one stupid evil empire thrash another one. Now they’ve pulled the flick from distribution? The laughs keep coming. Keep this up and we’ll be welcoming the Norks to the community of civilized nations.
Yeah, yeah, I know. First they came for the slapstick gutter comedians. Then they came for the entertainment industry execs. It’s ok, there’s a long way to go before they hurt anything. That there Kim-Jong ‘un ain’t no more of a threat today than he wuz before.
We will fight them on the beaches, and in the streets, and the fields…unless they say something mean, at which point we will immediately surrender.
But seriously, one of the most powerful entertainment industries in the world was just embarrassed by the schoolyard threats of a corpulent pear who is the successor to two corpses, who, lest we forget, are still co-rulers with him.
Am I being over critical of Obama, or is he a big part of the problem here? North Korea has the authority to ban The Interview in its own jurisdictions. Like most nations there’s no constitutionally protected speech there. But when it uses threats of force to close down a movie on American soil, that’s like North Korea enforcing its own laws on American soil. Why is this between Sony and North Korea? Shouldn’t the executive branch be taking much more action when a foreign government is threatening American citizens? Would North Korea try to get away with this with a different President?
I’m trying to imagine this same scenario taking place in the 1960s. Soviet Politburo demands American television executives pull Get Smart off the air. American executives comply with the demand and announce, “We stand by our showmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.”
When I first heard about this movie (before the Sony hack and the terrorist threats), I wondered about the propriety of portraying the killing a real person in a fictional movie. Couldn’t this have been a thinly veiled fictional person? What did they artistically gain portraying a real person in a fictional movie?
There was an outcry, mostly by conservatives, over the Death of a President mockumentry, which portrayed a fictional assassination of George W Bush, released in 2006. Shouldn’t we have the same attitude towards The Interview?
I’m not defending Kim Jong-un, and now that there have been threats to bomb movie theaters, I’m inclined to see it viewed (but as someone else has pointed out, I’m not a movie theater owner).
At this point, I do hope it gets released on other media. But overall, I was ambivalent about the whole project when I heard about it.
It’s not imaginable because we live in a different world now. I highly doubt the Soviet Politburo ever saw Get Smart during its network run. I also doubt Hitler ever saw Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Even if they did, they had no ability to strike at us remotely using a keyboard.
I really don’t see where Sony had much of a choice. If they played the movie after all the warnings and something happened they would be sued out of existance. The film makers and actors could be investigated and/or jailed. Sony’s executives could be called before congressional hearings. Sony could be charged with hate crimes and boycotts could occur. Sony’s shareholders would question managements judgement.
By not showing the movie all those possible things have been avoided. Seems like Sony made a smart decision to me.
But they had extensive capabilities to strike at us in the physical and violent way that this group “Guardians of Peace” group is threatening.
At the same time I’m trying to imagine President Obama ever approaching the resolve expressed in the famous words,
I agree. I don’t think a movie studio can be expected to defend itself from a foreign nation. The job of defending private entities from foreign governments is the federal government’s.
Obama is determined to try to insert government into every possible area where it doesn’t belong, while shrugging off the responsibilities that actually do rest with the federal government.
Maybe it’s too early to say that Obama is not acting, but what reason has he given for us to have any confidence in him?
The same arguments defending Sony could have been (and were) used to justify the American media’s near-universal refusal to republish the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoons, which was an act of remarkable collective cowardice. Acquiescing to extortion both guarantees similar extortion in the future and encourages a self-censorship of “dangerous” expression worse than that currently afflicting our universities. I really don’t have any interest in seeing The Interview, but I’d miss a country in which a film like Team America could not have been made for fear of reprisal. If you’re threatened by hackers, increase your security. If you’re threatened by terrorist attacks, increase your defenses against them. Haven’t we yet learned that appeasement doesn’t work?
We are already at war with N. Korea.
I would like to see the new Congress issue a letter of Marque and Reprisal as an appropriate payback.
That is an appropriate response to acts of Piracy – and it would bring an old remedy into the 21st century.
Very surprising and depressing that there are conservatives here who regard this as no big deal.
We’ve entered a world where the planet’s multi-billion dollar entertainment industry adheres to blasphemy laws — laws which apply only to Islam and, now, selected tyrants. Free speech, buh bye.
I get the empathy toward Sony. They’re in a tough spot. But those casually shrugging off this episode are obtuse in the extreme.
Photoshopping aside, here’s my more serious take on this:
1. Part of this may go deeper politically. Sony is a Japanese corporation and that country’s relationship with both Koreas has never exactly been warm since WWII.
2. Studios buy completion bonds on films. But this is a finished product. Sony will probably not recover their costs.
3. Long term who is going to want to make a deal with these guys?
Offer to stream the movie for free. Here.
The terrorists haven’t won, the beta-males have. I’m sorry, but “we might get sued” is a ridiculous reason to allow yourself to be intimidated by some crazed dictator. You know, maybe we should never leave our houses or get on a plane, because someone might hurt us, or worse, hurt our bottom line. Do people not realize the danger we ask peopleto put their lives in every day to keep another 9/11 from happening? Maybe people will instead go see another movie soon to be in theaters, Unbroken. Part of it takes place at a time in a our nation’s history when we didn’t cower from brutal tyrannical regimes. Every read Kipling’s “Dane-geld”?
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say:–
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:–
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the
time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:–
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”