Sony Pictures’ capitulation to threats related to its movie “The Interview” marks a new low in corporate cowardice. It is simply unprecedented for a company to cancel the release of a movie because of threats made on behalf of a foreign power that rates as one of the most brutal dictatorships in modern history.
True, hackers whom the U.S. now says are associated with North Korea had penetrated the studio’s computer system, stealing huge amounts of data. And they’d issued a warning against releasing the movie. “Remember the 11th of September 2001,” it said. “We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.”
Those words were worrisome. But since when does Hollywood allow foreign thugs to censor its artistic product? It’s a terrible precedent, effectively granting a distribution veto to any shadowy group of hackers with an ax to grind and a sinister résumé.
This is a nation that refuses — rightly — to negotiate ransom to save the lives of hostages who will be beheaded within days by terrorists, but a rogue regime halfway around the world can now determine whether we see a movie that ruffles its feathers. You can argue about the propriety of filmmakers depicting the fictional assassination of an actual world leader — North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — itself an apparently unique cinematic theme. But having made the film and then to be bullied into pulling it back is far worse than never having made it at all. “The Interview” should have been released in some form, if only through video-by-demand. But other options, too, have apparently been ruled out.
It’s somewhat easier to understand why Regal Entertainment and Cinemark, among other theater chains, dropped plans to show the film. After all, Cinemark is still battling lawsuits over whether it should have foreseen that a man dressed as the Joker and wielding a small arsenal would burst into one of its theaters and kill or maim scores of people. The U.S. tort system is unique in fostering such claims, which have already resulted in a federal judge ruling last fall that such a massacre was “a foreseeable next step in the history” of mass shootings.
Is it any wonder that theater chains balked at showing “The Interview” given explicit warnings of the possible consequences? Imagine their liability in the event of another tragedy.
The end result, though, is that Kim Jong Un now gets his way. He is not only a loathsome thug — he’s also become America’s one-man film industry censor.
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