Please Don't Watch "The Interview"
There are a lot of people on the internet talking about the controversy surrounding the release of Seth Rogen and James Franco’s political-action comedy film, ‘The Interview,’ in which they play journalists who have been instructed to assassinate North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-Un. On December 17, a number of major North American cinema chains canceled screenings in the interests of safety, amid fears of threats from the North Korean government for “merciless” action against the United States if the film’s distributor, Columbia Pictures, went ahead with the release. Many film studios have also decided to cancel screenings and productions of other films which portray North Korea, including a film adaptation of Guy Delisle's graphic novel 'Pyongyang' (a personal account of his experiences in the North Korean capital while working as a liaison between a French animation studio and a North Korean one, which is worth the read by the way) which was going to star Steve Carell. Sony’s own cancellation of the theatrical release of the film drew criticism from prominent figures in Hollywood (like George Clooney) and even the President of the United States, Barack Obama; encouraging the film’s release. These criticisms claim that this is an issue of government censorship, and that canceling its release ultimately defends the DPRK’s dictatorial regime, which is notorious for committing atrocious human rights violations against its own population.
On December 24, Sony made the film available for online rental and limited release at selected cinemas on December 25. However, all of their arguments, for and against the film’s release, have for the most part completely ignored the voices of Koreans and the Korean diaspora. I have become increasingly frustrated with local theaters in my community that have decided to screen the film. I am openly calling them out for catering to the hipsters, college students who haven’t yet developed a social conscience, and tech yuppies those individuals who are participating in the process of gentrification, rather than serve the people who actually live here. A group of friends and myself went down to one of these establishments, and before being able to speak with the theater’s manager we were openly mocked by people wanting to see the movie with racialized slurs about Asians, including accusations that we were North Korean spies. I am asking everyone to please not go and watch it this Christmas, and to inform the people you love during the holidays who are considering watching it why that’s a bad idea.
Let me explain what would’ve happened had the film been released: South Korea’s current ultraconservative and majority right-leaning government, headed by Park Geun-Hye (Korea’s first female President, whom a lot of people on the internet praised without actually researching ANYTHING about her politics, or the fact that she also happens to be the daughter of a terrible dictator), would have increased government oppression of South Koreans with left-leaning political opinions to avoid military confrontation from North Korea.
You see, whenever North Korea gets paranoid and releases threats out into the world, it’s not some joke. According to the IISS, North Korea happens to be the world’s largest military organization in the world, controlling 1,106,000 active and 8,389,000 reserve and paramilitary troops. Not only does the South have to start getting ready with its own military in defense whenever the North threatens the South*(see edit for detail), there is also always a huge drop in foreign investments in South Korea’s economy as a result, due to fears that the money they’ve put in might not make a profit because of a potentially devastating war. South Korea was once one of the poorest nation-states in the world because it was trying to recover from Japanese occupation and the Soviet/US proxy war that happened directly after that. Today it’s one of the world’s financial leaders and a big player in the global economy (the popularity of Korean Pop media [hallyu] and the soft-power role it plays in South Korean diplomatic relations is proof of that). The South’s ultra-conservative government is terrified of losing that status, and will stop at nothing to keep things the way they are. (*edit: South Korea has a military conscription policy which applies to all males aged 18 - 35, for a length of service ranging from a minimum of 21 months and up to 36 months, depending on the branch of the military. This means that many of our relatives and friends who are currently serving their mandatory service could possibly be involved in an armed conflict if situations escalated into an aggressive atmosphere that breaks the tensions on the border between the North and South.)
So to the people who still want to go and watch it: go ahead and get angry that you can’t watch another white-guy douchebag comedian’s politically incorrect movie with a box of overpriced greasy popcorn and rant on and on about free speech and government censorship from behind your computer screen, but your support for the film could potentially limit free speech for many South Koreans and directly put people’s lives in danger. Not only that, but you are also supporting a film that makes money by parodying the struggles of real people, in this case - North Koreans and North Korean refugees. Don’t pretend to care about human rights, free speech, or government censorship if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I leave you with this quote: “The day will soon come when North Koreans are finally free, and liberated concentration camp survivors will have to learn that the world was more interested in the oddities of the oppressors than the torment of the oppressed." -Adrian Hong, North Korea Is Not Funny
Finally, here is a commentary from my friend about the above quote: “…many North Korean people who do manage to escape end up in poverty, are unsupported and receive a ton of prejudice [in South Korea], and in many circumstances, kill themselves because the difference between the world “inside” (the oppression and censorship we joke about) and the “outside” (the world as we know it to work) are so different that they can’t deal with the immense pressure of relearning everything or realizing the extent to which everything was a lie.”
