Commentary: Studio had no choice but to pull ‘The Interview’

Well, what a year, huh? Crazy stuff in politics, in sports, in entertainment. Really crazy in entertainment.

Let’s take, for example, the explosion of the Sony computer-hacking scandal into an international event with the pulling of the comedy “The Interview” from theaters after the biggest chains bailed.

Let me begin here by disclosing that I am as staunch a free-speech advocate as there is — really I am — and yet I’m astonished this film was made in the first place.

Let me take it point by point:

• Sony was insane to have ever commissioned a film depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In fact, it was really sort of unimaginable. Yes, I know the comedy “Team America: World Police” contained a puppet depiction of the assassination of Kim Jong Il. But this was different. The recent film featured real actors, for starters.

• To some degree, Sony didn’t deserve what happened to it in the loathsome — and quite criminal — hack attack, but the action didn’t come out of left field either.

Even a film dismissed as a dumb comedy that portrays the actual sitting leader of a country getting bumped off has to be seen as a provocative, hostile piece of business, even if it’s just a stupid, very much fictitious movie — particularly since we’re talking here about such an isolated and reactionary regime. I mean, how the heck did we think it was going to react?

• Sony had no choice but to pull “The Interview” from release, since no movie is worth risking violence and destruction to screen it. Even if the chances of someone planting a bomb at the multiplex was .001%, those odds are still too high to take any sort of chance in the interest of being able to attend a movie. Plus, Sony’s decision was essentially made for it once the theater chains decided to turn tail and run.

I know that President Obama said he thinks Sony made the wrong move. I disagree. The studio made the only move it could under the circumstances. Bagging the film is not a case of caving to terrorist intimidation, but the inevitable consequence of an idea that should never have been given the green light in the first place.

How would we feel if a nation that collectively we loath — say, North Korea — made a movie about the killing of Obama? Free expression? Honestly? Don’t think so. We’d be mighty angry. Probably not so angry that we would start hacking the studio that produced it or threatening violence. That hopefully isn’t who we are. But we would be pretty upset.

• Those screaming, “This is the slippery slope down the rabbit hole to oblivion. Hereafter, these repressive regimes will be controlling all of our entertainment” simply don’t get it. And it’s indicative of a disturbing, uniquely American form of hubris to believe that what’s good for the goose is different for the gander.

• This would be an entirely different conversation if the film in question depicted the assassination of the leader of a fictitious nation, or of a historical figure long dead. The point is that making it about a real, living, breathing person changed every bit of this equation. It simply wasn’t smart.

It also shouldn’t mean, however, that there will be a chilling effect on politically charged material, or that we will be inspired to cave to every threat. This is a unique case. And it shouldn’t happen again. The line needs be drawn in the sand henceforth.

I believe the angry reaction to the pulling of the film speaks to how we don’t think of North Korea as an actual nation but as a cartoon republic, that North Koreans are so repressive and backward that we should be able to do and say anything about them and it shouldn’t count or matter.

But as much as we may minimize and pity these folks, they are still citizens of the world. And as much as we dismiss Kim as an irredeemable, vile nut case, you can’t make a comedy about his murder and expect that he and his cowed, imprisoned subjects will just take it all in creative stride.

Times Community News North columnist RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at [email protected] and Twitter at @MeGoodWriter.