'The Interview' and the Sony hack (three)

Well, that’s Hollywood, where studio memos are atomic secrets, and financial records are off-limits even to God. Personally, the question for me is why Sony makes Adam Sandler movies in the first place, but I’ll leave that aside. Whether the hackers who called themselves Guardians of Peace wished to spare the American public any more of them, it would unquestionably be a side benefit. But their overt goal, of course, was to prevent the release of The Interview, a comedy with the hilarious plotline of assassinating the present ruler of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. In this, it at first appeared that they would succeed, which elevated the incident from the level of industrial espionage to a First Amendment crisis.

Forgive me for not invoking the ghost of Patrick Henry.

Sony Pictures can make whatever films it likes, and the genius behind The Interview, Seth Rogen, can find humor in any subject he chooses. I don’t blame Kim Jong-un for finding his fictional assassination a very unfunny idea, though. Back in July, the North Korean government brought its concerns about The Interview to the UN General Assembly Security Council. That may seem a little over the top, too, but when a Japanese corporation hires American producers to make a film about killing a neighboring head of state, even a slightly less paranoid regime than that of North Korea might suspect active incitement if not worse. The idea that the film was being presented as a “comedy” — yuk, yuk, let’s kill Kim — naturally made it all the more offensive, though hardly less serious.

Shifting perspective

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot, and imagine that an Iranian film company had made a movie about assassinating President Obama. I can’t imagine civil libertarians in America charging into the streets to defend the rights of Iranian artists to freely express themselves and give Teheran moviegoers a good belly laugh. Or we might try asking Fidel Castro, who hasn’t had a good month anyway, just how funny he found the idea of Bobby Kennedy locked up in the Justice Department trying to perfect an exploding cigar. Or Rafael Trujillo, Patrice Lumumba, Ngo Dinh Diem, Salvador Allende, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi — but, oh, the joke was really on them, and they aren’t around to respond.

The Guardians of Peace upped the ante by threatening to target moviegoers attending The Interview, and that finally pulled the plug: killing the Christmas gross was, finally, serious enough to bring the whole film industry to attention. It also brought volleys of denunciation for distributors with cold feet and for Sony itself when it temporarily postponed the release of The Interview. Typical of the political response was that of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who for a brief, shining moment earned her pay by releasing the Congressional torture report: “Today’s threat against moviegoers is unconscionable, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. Law enforcement is investigating these threats, and will do everything possible to keep the public safe.”

Defending our right to go to the movies

That’s telling ‘em! Forget that the perpetrators, if the Obama administration is to be believed, were safely ensconced in North Korea, and that very few competent intelligence analysts believed that the Guardians, whoever and wherever they are, had the capacity to carry out their threat. The threat itself was enough to make a business embarrassment into a constitutional issue. If there’s one sacred liberty Americans will go to the mat for, it’s their right to go to the mall and the movies.

Now that The Interview is in release, Sony may yet recoup the estimated $75 million it stood to lose in profit, and even make some extra. The harebrained executives who approved making the film and prompted the hackers in the first place will, presumably, walk the plank: In Hollywood, the First Amendment stops at the teller’s window.

But we ought to get over the idea that portraying actual public figures as legitimate targets of assassination, even (or especially) in jest, is merely an exercise in free speech. Certainly the Secret Service doesn’t think so, nor do the laws of the land. The fact that such figures may live abroad does not alter the equation. I can fault Kim Jong-un on many counts and even agree that the world might be a better place without him. But I can’t blame him for giving two thumbs, or thumbscrews, down on The Interview. In his place, I’d probably have done the same.