Sony Pictures Entertainment is in it up to its neck with the recent hacking scandal. The hackers, most likely members of North Korean military, have released e-mails that not only embarrassed Sony executives but also famous stars like Will Smith. Perhaps sensing the backlash, earlier this year Sony Corporation CEO Kazuo Hirai ordered Sony Pictures Entertainment to tone down the sequence in their new movie The Interview where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is assassinated. The movie antagonized the North Korean government, apparently sparking the hacking.
According to Yahoo News, Seth Rogan is apparently annoyed that his movie has been altered, calling it "a very damning thing."
My gut reaction: How would Seth Rogan, and most other Americans, react if someone from a foreign country made a comedy about assassinating the President of the United States?
More below the fold.
Personally, I think the government of North Korea is one of the vilest institutions on earth. The North Korean government is by all accounts extremely repressive, having shifted from a communist regime to what can only be described as a bizarre secular theocracy with Kim Jong Un as its godhead. That said, it is still a regional power with a limited nuclear capability and a well-earned reputation for acting erratically. How Rogan or Sony Pictures Entertainment thought they could make a movie like this without some sort of unpleasant response is beyond me.
Rogan himself, if you look at him and think for a minute, is almost an embodiment of white American entitlement. Not only does he see no problem with making a comedy about assassinating a sitting foreign leader, but he flaunts the fact that he violates drug laws with impunity. (Although I think the ban on marijuana is stupid, if a black person-or a poor white for that matter-were as brazen about breaking the law, he would be in jail or worse.)
Congratulations, Mr. Rogan, you may be the first Hollywood stoner to create an international incident.