Free Speech, Hate Speech, and "The Interview"

For the last few days, there has been a lot of media hubbub about the hacking of the SONY Film corporation by agents either in or from North Korea or acting on its behalf who have objected to the release of the Seth Rogen-James Franco film, The Interview, a comedy which depicts the assassination of North Korea's dictator, Kim Jung-un, by two bumbling journalists guided by America's [paramilitary intelligence service, the CIA. Today it was announced that the film, which was scheduled to open on Xmas Day, will not be released in the immediate future, and possibly not ever, owing to fears about what further actions, such as terrorist attacks, might be visited upon SONY and American theaters were the film to be shown. The general reaction in the American media has been to denounce North Korea for daring to threaten American freedom of expression and SONY for its cowardly surrender to North Korean threats.

There is much that I find lacking in this collective and apparently unanimous response among my countrymen. Few have paused to ask whether it was ever a wise idea, let alone a tasteful choice, for American filmmakers to craft a major studio Hollywood comedy around the theme of US assassination of foreign leaders, considering that America has, through its CIA as well as other means, overthrown and/or assassinated quite a few foreign leaders over the last century, not to mention the numerous times we have unleashed our military force on other countries,or imposed embargoes and sanctions that caused economic devastation and massive hardships among the population of countries on the receiving end of our policies. I don't think the citizens of the countries which have been through these events are clamoring for a Hollywood laugh fest about something that has actually happened to them. Such a film is a grim reminder both about the many times that the USA, despite its often-trumpeted role as "leader of the free world" and a champion of "freedom and democracy," has violated international law and human rights to impose its will on other countries, and about America's jaw-dropping lack of historical memory and self-awareness and chronic incapacity for moral self-reflection.

The wisdom of making a film which so merrily speculates about killing the leader of North Korea is particularly questionable considering that the USA and many other nations have a very tense and unfunny relationship with this country. North Korea is a traumatized,isolated and impoverished yet highly militarized country whose people are suffering and starving while the government devotes the greater part of the nation's resources to equipping and maintaining a huge army capable of invading South Korea and causing massive carnage and desolation at the drop of a hat. In recent years, North Korea has engaged in such actions as shooting missiles that killed people living on small islands off the Korean coast, and test-fired missiles that came dangerously close to Japan, causing massive fear and anxiety in Japan and raising the specter of war. Provoking such a dangerous, unstable country is not funny. It is reckless and stupid, morally bankrupt and simply disgusting when you consider that it is all being done for the benefit of Hollywood egos and profits. There is a long-standing, common-sense notion that freedom of speech should not extent to crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater, for fear of causing a panic and bodily harm. Same principle here, and on a much larger scale, you Hollywood narcissists!

There is also a long tradition of engaging in political satire that comments on actual persons and situations while not naming them directly. When Charlie Chaplin made "The Great Dictator" mocking Hitler and the Nazis' anti-Semitism, he did not use the name of Hitler for the character obviously modeled on the Nazi Fuhrer. When the film "All the King's Men" was made about the American governor Huey Long, Long's name was not used. One reason for all of this indirection is to avoid lawsuits and legal conflicts, as well as an artistic impulse to make the situation more universal and less bound to specific times and places by placing the persons and events on a fictional pedestal for us to contemplate. There also is, or at least used to be, a sense of respect and decency that restrained the makers of mass market entertainments from creating films or other such spectacles that would appear to endorse assassination or murder of public figures. Those who defend Seth Rogen and SONY want us to think that is now perfectly fine to entertain the public through fictionalized killings of actual public figures.

Yet there is a definite double standard here. When American films or TV shows dramatize or satirize American Presidents and politics, from "The West Wing" through "Scandal," they usually create fictitious Presidents and politicians to function as stand-ins for actual Presidents and politicians. Please show me an actual American film or television program that shows us the killing of a living American President. More to the point, I don't think Americans would find it quite so amusing if, say, a film maker in some country that America has a tense, unfunny relationship with, like Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan made a film or viral video that offered the same scenario as "The Interview" applied to America, with two foreign journalists coming to America and assassinating presidents Bush or Obama. I think you would see a massive outcry, accusations of "terrorism," investigations by committees in Congress, and some even calling for economic sanctions or military strikes against that country.

There is also somewhat of a bullying dynamic here. It is hard to imagine anyone making a film about killing the top leaders of "major" countries such as the UK, Germany or China (David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping). That is because these countries are respected in the United States and no one wants to get on their bad side, particularly China, since it is now seeming like the world's next superpower both economically and militarily. Even the film "Borat," which made fun of Kazakhstan in a quite disrespectful and vicious manner that was either brilliant or boorish, depending on your point of view, did not go so far as to suggest it would be yuk-yuk funny to kill the leader of the country. North Korea, being one of the world's most poor and unfortunate countries, a status that our decades-long embargo and sanctions have contributed to considerably, is a country that people find easy to make fun of and mock even to the point of laughing about killing its leaders. The strong beating up on the weak. Is that really such a novel idea? Is that comic brilliance, or just a very old, very sad and sick joke?

America, and Hollywood, please look in the mirror, and not just into the camera or at your profit margin. "The Interview" is not a wonderful example of free speech. It is hate speech, an incitement to violence that caters to our worst impulses and threatens to pour unnecessary accelerant on an international situation that is already smouldering. The film deserves to be suppressed. There are better ways to make funny films and political satire, and I hope Seth Rogen and his associates will work on them.

Why Kim Jong-il is Not Really So Funny or So Strange

The Kim is dead, long live the Kim.

Kim Jong-il, The second Stalinist autocrat of the House of Kim in North Korea has passed away, and the third, Kim Jong-un, now takes his father's place. This has received a lot of coverage in the American media, with a slight sense of regret, being that the elder Kim had provided so much entertainment for Americans who loved to laugh at the odd, portly dictator with a love of Hollywood films and nuclear missiles. Having visited South Korea several times, I know the anguish Koreans feel about the Cold War division of their country into two opposing halves, and I have observed with sadness how each successive effort by the government and people of the South to reach out to the North has been rebuffed with the situation ending up where it began, with the North engaging in saber-rattling, missile-launching and other acts of symbolic or actual aggression to extort food and other aid out of South Korea and the USA in a kind of bizarre protection racket. How very weird, ridiculous and awful North Korea and its leaders are; how very far removed from us in wonderful, democratic America; or so we would like to believe.

I have been reflecting on Korea and reaching a different kind of conclusion, one that is not especially cheerful or reassuring. In a number of ways, I see the USA becoming more and more like North Korea.

Resemblance #1: Dedication to military power over all else. North Korea is as poor and economically dysfunctional as a country can be, but it still manages to have the fourth largest army in the world. Add to that the development of nuclear missiles, and you can see why military force is so important to North Korea. The rulers know that no one will ever dare to attack them, because any attack on North Korea would result in a devastating counter-attack on South Korea. The modern,high-tech magnificence of Seoul, the South Korean capital, could be attacked within hours by the North Korean army, and if the nuclear missiles ever become fully functional, the threat will be even more acute.

What does this have to do with the USA? Well, we are the number one military force in the world, we have more military bases around the world than anyone else, and in the last several decades we have engaged in more invasions and wars than anyone else. Whoo-hoo! Most Americans almost wet their pants with love of the military, and since 9/11, it has been considered very poor taste, unpatriotic, and maybe even a potential sign of terrorist sympathies to ever EVER question or criticize our wars, our occupations, our bases, the size of our armed forces, our huge expenditures on military matters, and so on and so forth. So we are rather North Korean-like in our devotion to the military and the almost sacrosanct position that military matters occupy in our national psyche. The North Koreans cheer when their missile launches threaten South Korea, and we love to "support the troops" when they invade other nations, no questions asked by the "patriotic" majority.

Resemblance #2: Just as the North Koreans show no remorse for the pain or suffering their aggressive acts cause to others, so do we have very hard time ever admitting, let alone apologizing, for death and destruction caused to other people by our military. For both the USA and North Korea, military action is a conscience-free zone of thought. There are of course Americans who oppose and critique our militarism and aggression, but I am referring to the majority, for whom being "strong on defense"(i.e., aggressive and unapologetic) is a key qualification of national political leadership. Note that,with the exception of Ron Paul, all the current Republican candidates for President continually heap scorn on President Obama for being a "weak" and "apologetic" President, despite his continuation of the Bush wars with expansions into Yemen, Libya and Pakistan, with ever-increasing use of drones to make the killing of "bad guys" even easier.

Resemblance #3: Like North Korea, we are dedicated to maintaining our huge military at any cost, even if our society is crumbling and resources are badly needed elsewhere. In the last two rounds of budgetary brinkmanship on Capitol Hill, the one thing that has given the Republicans pause in their zombie-like, headlong rush to cut back government programs and services despite the toll that such reckless and random amputations would take on non-wealthy Americans was the possibility that defense spending might also have to be cut. Suddenly the Republicans felt a sense of hesitation about their budget-cutting gospel! It is one thing to cut off unemployment benefits to people who can't find work, withhold food stamps from people on the edge of starving, destroy union contracts that provide a decent living to people who do not live off investments, or cut back funding to roads, bridges, schools or water systems that are disintegrating and collapsing. Things like that the Republicans can do without a moment's hesitation or any apparent remorse. But cut back the military by even one penny? Oh no, that is INCONCEIVABLE! That would be a CATASTROPHE! I suspect that if the current right-wing extremists of the Republican party manage to take over the Senate, the House and the Presidency, we will see a massive devastation of most social services and government programs and at the same time, a massive buildup of the military, all wreathed in a beautiful, red, white and blue patriotic afterglow. And then will come the wars, and more "support the troop" mass hypnotism as we send our young men and women to kill and be killed, all in order to "defend our freedom," to finally return maimed and mad to a country whose decline can only be disguised so long by massive military extravaganzas.

So, while we may enjoy snickering and sneering in remembrance of Kim Jong-il and the completely miserable state of the country that he presided over, I see him and the way he ruled North Korea as a frightening foretaste of what America may become if we continue in our blind worship of the military to the exclusion of all other needs and concerns.

But hope springs eternal. Maybe in 2012, Americans will decide that they have had enough of war and that is is time, at long last, to direct our energies to non-military matters, like taking care of each other and preserving our precious planet rather than seeking to blame and attack others. However, I am not at all confident that this runaway train can be stopped in time.