If you were hoping to spend Dec. 25 at a movie theater watching a comedy about the violent death of a dictator, you are out of luck.
Sony Pictures on Wednesday announced it is pulling The Interview, the Seth Rogen and James Franco film linked to a massive hack and threats of violence on U.S. soil. The decision came as authorities investigate whether or not the threats are credible, and in advance of solid evidence about who is responsible for the attacks. U.S. intelligence officials believe it was North Korea; others (including the smart folks at Wired) say the links are tenuous at best.
I’ll leave the cyberforensics to the pros and steer clear of questions about the film itself. I have not seen it (though TIME’s esteemed critic, Richard Corliss, has), and though I suspect scholars will have a field day dissecting The Interview‘s handling gender and race, I defend the studio’s right to make movies about whatever they choose. The Interview may be, as Corliss writes, a “parade of ribald gags,” but Americans, unlike North Koreans, are free to watch such fare. Ribald is nothing.
As a Beijing-based correspondent who often writes about North Korea, the interesting bit is how the fury surrounding the film casts light on how we think about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the country is officially known. Despite its axis-of-evil pedigree, its truly egregious human-rights record, and a nuclear weapons program, North Korea is more of a punch-line than a policy priority or topic for serious, sustained discussion. And that, I reckon, is what’s really dangerous.
It is not the jokes, exactly, but the fact that they play into a narrative that wildly underestimates, or willfully ignores, North Korea. Asked by the New York Times about the fallout from the film, Rogen, said the backlash was “surreal, “not something that we expected at all.” Few expected a hack of this magnitude, sure. And Kim Jong Un’s regime may not be directly responsible for this particular attack. But his country is indeed experienced in cyberespionage. And yet, Rogen could not fathom that they’d lash out?
In a roundabout way, Rogen’s quote reminded me of comments by Merrill Newman, the 85-year old veteran who spent two months as a detainee in Pyongyang before being released in December 2013. During the 1950–53 Korean War, Newman led South Korean fighters operating behind enemy lines. North Korea hated the unit. Yet, according to The Last P.O.W., a new Kindle Single written by longtime foreign correspondent Mike Chinoy, Newman entered as a tourist unconcerned that he could run into trouble with the regime, let alone be arrested and detained for war crimes.
The Most Controversial Films of All Time
The Interview, 2014 The James Franco-Seth Rogen movie hadn’t even been released when it made its greatest impact. The Interview, about two Americans on a mission to kill Kim Jong-un, has sparked conversations about the tastefulness -- or not -- of depicting the killing of a foreign head of state. But it also is widely seen as having sparked the Sony hacking scandal, as the hackers, known as the Guardians of Peace, have urged Sony not to release the film. The ripple effect of the email hack saw off-color remarks about Angelina Jolie, Aaron Sorkin, and President Obama between Sony executives go public.ColumbiaBirth of a Nation, 1915 Birth of a Nation is held in high esteem as one of the most ambitious and innovative early films. It has also, in the near-century since its release, been derided for its use of blackface to depict black men as sexually rapacious and its characterization of the KKK as heroes. Is it possible to admire a film’s technical excellence while acknowledging that its content is deeply offensive? Many film scholars, who point to Birth of a Nation as part of the foundation of modern film, believe so.Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesThe Great Dictator, 1940 Charlie Chaplin’s lampooning of Hitler came before the U.S. was necessarily ready to hear it -- the country hadn’t yet entered World War II yet. The Great Dictator was controversial both for its advancement of anti-Hitler rhetoric and, at the same time, its turning Hitler into a figure of comedy.
United Artists/Getty ImagesThe Lost Weekend, 1945 Billy Wilder’s frank depiction of alcoholism, anchored with a tragic performance from Ray Milland, was startling for its time. Though it won several Oscars and the Palme d’Or, it had been, before its release, far from a sure thing. The success of The Lost Weekend allowed for fuller depictions of social issues on film, even though it could be uncomfortable.Paramount/Getty ImagesLolita, 1962 This film was perhaps the first of director Stanley Kubrick’s to directly court controversy; the poster famously asked “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” and the question was very much worth asking. Lolita, the novel, is a strange and surreal look at an older man’s obsession with “nymphets,” or young girls; the film manages to carry across the same subject matter, though Lolita herself was aged up to avoid outright banning.MGM/Getty ImagesBonnie and Clyde, 1967 Arthur Penn’s depiction of the short, glamorous lives of two bank robbers kicked off the New Hollywood era and scandalized audiences with its over-the-top violence. Bonnie and Clyde made its subjects look like, well, movie stars -- and then killed them in a brutal, seemingly endless hail of gunfire.
Silver Screen Collection/Getty ImagesA Clockwork Orange, 1971 Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian drama features shocking sex and violence, to the degree that the film was restricted within the U.K. for decades. Its central notion, of behavioral therapy as a force for evil, has also provoked debate since the film’s release.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesKramer vs. Kramer, 1979 This domestic drama, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a couple whose marriage ends, was upfront about the challenges of raising children and the degree to which married life could be fundamentally unsatisfying.Columbia/Getty ImagesBasic Instinct, 1992 This film made Sharon Stone, for a brief time, one of the most compelling movie stars on Earth. Her role as the voracious novelist and serial killer Catherine Tramell outraged gay audiences who viewed her as a homophobic stereotype, and spooked some men who were unaccustomed to Stone’s forthright sexuality. Either way, no one could stop talking about Catherine, or about Stone.TriStar/Getty ImagesEyes Wide Shut, 1999 Stanley Kubrick’s final film was perfectly in keeping with his careerlong interest in provocation. Eyes Wide Shut depicts a seamy New York underworld in which just about everyone is looking for sex, power, or both. Though the film’s graphic sexuality (including a scene at an orgy) was shocking, it was its depiction of the act of love as a transaction that really unsettled audiences.Warner Brothers/Getty ImagesRequiem for a Dream, 2000 Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film, based on the work of Hubert Selby, Jr., was unabashed in its depiction of drugs’ effects. Each of the four principal characters suffers, brutally, for his or her addiction, culminating in one character’s psychotic break, another’s amputated arm, and a third’s descent into prostitution. The film’s miserabilist outlook, graphic sex, and body-horror imagery are as effective an antidrug campaign as exists.
Artisan EntertainmentFahrenheit 9/11, 2004 The 2004 presidential election was ugly to an unprecedented degree, with attacks on John Kerry’s service from the right’s Swift Boat Veterans for truth and this documentary-length Molotov cocktail tossed at George W. Bush from director Michael Moore. Moore, who’d previously been booed at the 2003 Oscars for an anti-Bush speech, mixed together insinuations about voter fraud in Florida and ties between the Bush and bin Laden families into an antiwar statement. In its sheer provocation and palpable anger, it was the perfect film for its polarized time; the fact that it was received very differently by audiences of different political persuasions seemed somehow apt.LionsgateThe Passion of the Christ, 2004 This film, depicting the torture and eventual death of Jesus, was one of the biggest hits of all time. But it hadn’t necessarily had a clear path to acclaim; pre-release, the film was pilloried for perceived anti-Semitism. As audiences flocked over the weeks preceding Easter, some criticized director Mel Gibson for an excessively violent and sadistic vision of Jesus’s death.NewmarketBorat, 2006 Sacha Baron Cohen’s depiction of a Kazakh immigrant interacting with real people stateside showed America in a terrible light; it was hilarious, painful viewing. But for months after the film’s release, questions over just how fair Borat had been to its participants persisted. And Baron Cohen’s career continued to push boundaries of taste, with subsequent movies lampooning gay men (Bruno) and Sub-Saharan African heads of state (The Dictator).20th Century Fox
Some DPRK basics: for North Korea, the Korean War, also known as the Fatherland Liberation War, never ended. There was an armistice agreement, but it was meant to be temporary; a peace treaty was not signed. North Koreans are taught that the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, was a masterful general who repelled two waves of foreign invaders, the Japanese, and then the Americans and South Koreans. His son, the late dictator Kim Jong Il, and his grandson, current leader Kim Jong Un, stayed in power in part because they’ve convinced their people that the U.S. military and its South Korean allies could return at any moment, and only a strong leader — a veritable God among men — can keep them safe.
As much as he’s revered at home, Kim Jong Un is infantalized by outsiders. When he came on the scene in late 2011, biographical details were scarce. We knew that he was probably in his late 20s, that he spent part of his adolescence at a boarding school in Switzerland, and that he might like basketball. From these clues were cobbled a narrative that felt credible: he was young, malleable, and maybe more open to the West. TIME put him on the cover under the tagline “Lil Kim.”
It’s worth considering how wrong we were to dismiss him. There is no question that Kim Jong Un is younger than your average autocrat. But he did not emerge, baby-faced and bumbling, from nowhere. He was raised by dictator Dad in a family where shooting is the preferred pastime. At some point after his stint in Switzerland, he attended his country’s most prestigious university, the Kim Il Sung Military Academy. After purging his uncle, touring sad-looking factories, or disappearing for a while, people were quick to count him out. Each time, he proved us wrong. His long-suffering country is still in a tenuous position: the economy is weak, and thanks to the porous border with China, ordinary people have more access than ever to foreign goods and ideas. Hunger persists, health care and education are rudimentary or absent, especially in rural areas, and people have almost no political or civil rights. These are serious and enduring problems. But from a North Korean perspective, the leader is strong.
If you need to crack a Kim Jong Un joke this holiday season, I get it. We tend to joke about things that are strange, things that scare us, and things that we don’t quite understand. But do so with an eye to what’s really going on north of the 38th parallel. The Interview may be funny. North Korea definitely is not.
