As I embark on my topic this week, I must remind myself to be very circumspect as to how I go about writing down what I am thinking. There has been considerable talk over the last fortnight about the moving picture “The Interview” and the reaction it has provoked across the Pacific in North Korea and the series of counterreactions that has spawned…
So there is no misunderstanding, let me state for the benefit of those who do not know me what everyone who knows me does not need to be told: I am an avowed anti-communist. I am indeed, a capitalist of the first order. I am in no mood to share what is mine with anyone else. And though I appreciate the thought, I am in need of no handouts from the government, s’il vous plaît, as I can, I assure you, take care of myself on my own…
Moreover, the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un appears to me to be quite a laughable fellow in his own right. He needs no lampooning as he is already a joke unto himself. A rather sad and pathetic joke, as he is the leader of a country of some 25 million people, over whom he has complete and utter sway, including the power of life and death. That he holds such sway, I find personally very offensive…
I, of course have not seen “The Interview” but am given to believe that it is a farce that celebrates the farcical cult of personality that is Kim Jong-un and takes as its plot a farce-laden mission by two young Americans tasked by the CIA or some such other secretive U.S. agency to assassinate the North Korean leader…
It seems Kim Jong-un took umbrage at the advance reports of this entirely fictional celluloid scenario and he unleashed some of his own technical resources to attack the computer systems of Sony Pictures, the production company responsible for the creation and distribution of “The Interview,” wreaking mayhem along the way by revealing, with the help of the U.S. media to whom many confidential Sony memos were provided, a number of embarrassing exchanges relating to Sony Pictures’ producers, directors, stars and starlets….
This outraged and alarmed many Americans, including elements of the U.S. Government, who had perhaps underestimated the technical savvy of what is understandably considered to be a backward, almost Third World country. That hacking episode was accompanied by threats, emanating from no less of a source than Kim Jong-un himself of further reprisals upon the United States, including, it sounded like, terroristic acts of violence against any moviegoers in the United States who chose to attend screenings of “The Interview” at their local theaters…
Amid the outrage over this threat, some theater chains and owners, concerned about their liability if the North Korean leader made good on any of those threats, voiced reluctance or refusal to run the movie at their venues. In reaction, Sony, at least initially, cancelled the intended Christmas Day release date for “The Interview.” Then, three days before Christmas, some entity the U.S. media widely insinuated was an arm of the U.S. Government shut down North Korea’s access to the Internet. As it turned out, at least a few intrepid theater owners braved whatever it is that North Korean agents have in store for us and actually ran the movie, through some special arrangement with Sony, on Christmas Day…
I am not privy to what is being said about the United States in North Korea, but I am frightfully aware of what has been said about Kim Jong-un and Korea in the U.S. over the last two weeks. All order of invective has been hurled the dictator’s way. His reaction to “The Interview” has been cited as yet further proof of how unsuited he is to be seated at the pinnacle of governance in his country. And the anger at him has been extended toward Sony executives and theater owners for what is essentially deemed cowardice and a craven willingness to abandon the American principle of artistic license and freedom of thought, expression and speech in the face of the Korean reaction and threats…
Lost in all of this, it seems to me, is our sense of decorum, proportionality and, yes, decency. The problem is not on the east side of the Pacific, we reason, but on the west side of the Pacific, at the top half of the Korean Peninsula. As Americans, native and naturalized, we figure it is not along the boulevards or in the theater houses of Main Street USA where this brouhaha originated but in the palace in Pyongyang. This international incident did not come about because of the creative fancy of our movie makers or the license the studio heads gave them but because of Kim Jong-un’s inability to take a joke in the spirit in which it was intended…
No matter how funny some of us may find them, some jokes are simply inappropriate. I would suggest that even a short one or two line joke about murdering a head of state is inappropriate. When that two line joke is transformed into an 110-minute moving picture presentation that costs $40 million to produce and which will be seen by 100 million Americans and at least 50 million citizens of other nations all over the globe, I would say it has gone beyond merely being inappropriate to being, well, an international incident with potentially grave implications…
In 1865, 1881, in 1901 and in 1963, assassins succeeded in killing four U.S. presidents. In 1933, in 1950, 1975 and in 1981, assassins attempted and failed to kill four U.S. presidents, coming very close each time. This is not something we Americans, native or naturalized, find to be funny or worthy of farce. By extension, it should be easily understood why the citizens of another country, no matter how backward we perceive that country to be, would find objectionable making jokes about the killing of their ultimate political leader…
I am all for free speech and artistic license. I can imagine a movie script, for example, in which the current president is represented as a simplistic, platitude-mouthing moron of the lowest political instinct who has demeaned the White House by transforming its living room into a basketball court and engaging in every other stereotypically ethnic behavior imaginable, while promoting all order of unworthy and unqualified personages to head the important ministries of government, who proceed to break the national treasury through a series of welfare agency giveaways to the teeming masses of Democrats who voted him into office in the first place. The plot would revolve around the resolve of some patriotic duck hunters from Louisiana to take matters into their own hands by embarking on a zany and fun-filled series of hijinx-prone capers ultimately intended to dispatch the occupant of the executive mansion. Somehow, I don’t think that script would ever be transformed into an actual Hollywood production…
And that is the point. Some things are in such poor taste that they are not worthy of being validated by our celebration of freedom of expression, and a $40 million show of faith by studio executives. Lest someone point out my own hypocrisy before I do, I will acknowledge now that probably at some point, I will order up a copy of “The Interview” and sit down to view it in the chalet’s screening room, alternately chortling and howling like a hyena throughout the showing. So to the extent that I will view it and most likely enjoy it myself, I am afraid, I too will, at some level, be encouraging this exercise in poor taste. But my personal shortcoming does not render any less inadvisable drawing upon the assassination of a foreign head of state as subject matter for comedic presentation…