North Korea vs The Interview

I'm sure some of you have already heard about the Seth Rogen and James Franco movie The Interview (2014, dir. Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen) being pulled from theaters due to threats made by a group of hackers.

Now I've usually tried to avoid political stuff from my blogs but seeing as how this is dealing with movies, and I've been asked about my thoughts on the incident by a friend of mine, I thought I'd say a few words.

I didn't really have much interest in seeing The Interview, not because of its politics or anything but because it just didn't look that funny to me. But when I heard it got pulled from theaters I thought it was a bit much. But when ever something like this comes up I try to look at every angle.

Grant it I'm still not sure about all the ends in and outs on this whole thing, I'm sure there's finer details I'm missing but here's my thoughts on it as of right now.

On one hard, I oppose it being pulling it from theaters. I mean, we've released movies, shorts, and television shows that have been nothing but making a mockery of a foreign and domestic leaders. Charlie Chaplin made a complete mockery of Adolf Hitler in his film The Great Dictator (1940, dir. Charlie Chaplin). The Three Stooges even took their jabs at the Axis party in countless shorts. Even in recent years, countless TV shows have thoroughly destroyed America's leader, it would take forever to count all the shows and movies that made fun of George W. Bush. The biggest examples in recent years of extreme political satire comes from Trey Parker and Matt Stone who have had a ball with their show South Park and their movies South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (1999, dir. Trey Parker) and Team America: World Police (2004, dir. Trey Parker), the latter of which take no prisoners in its satire and featured satirizing of North Korea's Kim Jong Il. So why was The Interview pulled and not these movies? I'm sure these movies got a handful of threats but they still premiered. Hell, after You Natzy Spy! (1940, dir. Jules White) The Three Stooges were pretty much put on Hitler's death list after that. Maybe Kim Jong Un doesn't have a sense of humor. 

But the threats were made after Sony Studios were hacked and many of their classified info was leaked to thousands, and these people were making threats about bombing theaters releasing the movies and given how hackers are becoming more of a threat considering how we have 'Hacktivists' who have come through with their threats. This day and age we do have to take into consideration the idea that threats made online can come to flourish.

So, to summarize its a really complicated issue. One the one hand I do believe they should have released the film, but at the same time we can't take threats lightly this day and age. So this is a mixed bag for me, but then again I may not be the proper person to talk about this.

What do you guys think?