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Why I’m Not Getting On the “Interview” Outrage Bandwagon

The arguments for hyperventilation don't hold water.
The-Interview-Franco

I’m afraid I feel like a bit of a contrarian on the subject of “The Interview.” Maybe it’s just that if George Clooney and Jonah Goldberg are reading from the same hymnal, I’ve got an itch to find another church.

First of all, Sony is a Japanese company, right? I mean, inasmuch as we’re imputing nationality and civic obligations to some set of values or ideals and all that, that’s what Sony is, right? The particular subsidiary involved in making the decision to kill “The Interview” is American, but if we want to talk about a larger entity implicated in a decision here, it’s Sony Pictures’s parent, which is in Tokyo. Right?

I’m not suggesting that Sony behaved in an “un-American” fashion because it is, you know, actually not American. I’m just pointing out that expecting huge multinational corporations to take a stand for the values of a particular political community is a little absurd on its face. Indeed, we have a hard enough time getting huge multinational corporations not to run roughshod over the ideals, values, traditions and even basic human needs of particular political communities – forget about actually standing up for their ideals.

Second, aren’t the theater owners the main ones who caved in to terrorism? The hackers threatened violence if the movie was released – the specific expectation was that theaters would be bombed. The theater owners were advised that if an attack happened, they’d be liable for any injuries or loss of life. So they decided not to screen the film. By pulling the release, Sony is responding to a reality created by the theaters, and is doing so in such a way that maximizes its (limited) options going forward. That’s hardly a profile in courage, but in truth the only way to actually “stand up” to terrorism, in this instance, would have been for the theaters to show the film – because the theaters were the ones directly threatened with violence. No other action comes remotely close.

And by the way, we still don’t know for sure that the Guardians of Peace are actually working for the North Koreans, though the FBI is convinced they are. What if they aren’t? Treat it as a hypothetical: if the hackers and extortionists are a bunch of freelancers with a private grudge, using North Korea as a pretext, does that change how we feel about everybody’s cowardice? If Sony delayed or canceled the release of a film because a Unabomber type of individual threatened to blow up the premier, would we be talking about the first amendment? What if it were a John Hinckley type who threatened to blow up the premier of a film that he thought showed his favorite star in a poor light? In those cases, we’d take it for granted that the issue is security, not censorship.

Third, I’m curious to know how the inevitable law suits for breach of contract are going to be settled, because the answer strikes me as extremely relevant to the “artistic freedom” question. If Sony keeps the rights and simply sticks the film in a drawer, while the various suits that will be filed in various directions are settled for money, then we can truly say that the terrorists intimidated Sony into refusing to let people see the film. But that’s not the only possible outcome. The film could be released at some point in the future. Sony could give up its rights as part of a settlement. Does anyone else want them? Do they think they are worth anything?

Studios put films in drawers all the time, for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. Scott Rudin shoved Ken Lonergan’s film, “Margaret,” in a drawer for years because they couldn’t agree on what the final cut should look like. And nobody would argue that questions of freedom were implicated. Obviously, shelving a film because of threats of violence is different from shelving a film because you are in a pissing match with the director – but my point is that in this situation, any industry player can be a profile in courage if they want to be. Heck, George Clooney could offer to take the film off Sony’s hands for a dollar and release it himself. That would certainly call Sony’s bluff – wouldn’t it?

Fourth, I think it does matter that the film’s politics appear to be kind of awful. Now, to be fair, I haven’t seen the film; I’m going by the descriptions I glean from Gracy Olmstead’s round-up, and Adrian Hong’s piece in The Atlantic. George Clooney is, of course, absolutely right that first amendment tests tend to come from “bad” defendants: pornographers, exploitation artists, vulgar propagandists. But still, it would be nice if anybody were willing to finish the sentence “this film is important because” with something they actually believed.

But I want to make another point about the film’s politics, such as I understand them to be, and how they connect to the common knee-jerk “we’ve got to fight back” response. To whit: the way in which the film assumes the normalcy of its premise. Not the “let’s use journalists” gimmick, but the premise that killing Kim is a perfectly normal American policy.

This is a film that presumes it’s American policy to try to assassinate the leader of North Korea, because – well, that’s what America does: assassinate people who are horrible. To be clear: the government of North Korea is truly, monumentally, Guinness Book of World Records-class horrible. The whole regime should drop dead tomorrow. But that doesn’t explain why we would be fantasizing about killing him. It’s significant, I think, that while “Team America: World Police” simultaneously satirized America’s hegemonic pretensions and indulged in them (and, as an aside, I do wonder how well that film has aged), from the descriptions it sounds like “The Interview” simply takes those pretensions for granted. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but the premise is kind of like “Zoolander” but with Mugatu as the good guy. Right?

I don’t think the nature of the film is irrelevant to the cowardice of the entertainment industry in the face of the threats of terrorism. Our eagerness to address unpleasant problems with violence is one side of a coin whose other face is our cowardice in the face of threats of violence to ourselves.

Which brings me to my last point. This week, the United States took the long-overdue step of publicly pursuing normal relations with Cuba, ending a half-century of pointless hostility. In the course of that half-century, the United States entertained some pretty ludicrous plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, none of which worked. Most of those who look back at that record do not conclude that it covers America with glory.

The situation on the Korean peninsula is far more treacherous, and North Korea’s regime is vastly more horrible than Castro’s was at its worst – and Cuba is not currently at its worst. But I still have to ask, notwithstanding the awkward timing: what is the purpose of America’s policy of hostility? What is our realistic goal here? And how does the fantasy policy of assassinating the latest excrescence of the Kim family relate to those goals, if at all?

The United States has never seriously considered normalization of relations with North Korea. Why not? Can anyone seriously argue that the policy we have pursued for 60 years has been successful? That North Korea has changed for the better in any way, or become any less of a threat? South Korea has changed enormously for the better – with a thriving economy, a vibrant democracy, and a military fully capable of repelling a North Korean attack without American assistance (albeit any such attack would still be devastating to the South). North Korea has only changed for the worse, not only in terms of its human rights record but in terms of its potential threat, having acquired both atomic weapons and ballistic missiles. Either that situation is a consequence of our 60-year policy or, at a minimum, that policy has done nothing to prevent it.

I doubt that the Kim regime could survive normalization with the United States, which is why I think any overture would be rebuffed. That is not only not a reason to avoid such overtures; it’s a positive reason to declare that America’s goals on the Korean peninsula involve normalization with the North. Let such a declaration be scoffed at; let it lead nowhere for the time being. Let the conditions for normalization – denuclearization of the peninsula, an end to North Korean support for terrorism, North Korean recognition of South Korea – be treated as non-starters and evidence of the unseriousness of the American overture. I don’t care: given America’s current stance, merely declaring such a goal, even if it led to no on-the-ground changes, would represent a fairly dramatic change in direction.

Or, you know, we could get all worried that we’re too chicken to stand up for our right to indulge in the stoner comedy equivalent of hashtag activism.

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