Wednesday Sony announced they would not be releasing a satirical movie portraying the pseudo assassination of North Korea’s dictator.
The move was in response to hacks on the corporation’s servers and threats of bombing American theatres that played the film, entitled “The Interview”.
Theatres were also going to show another movie that poked fun of a previous North Korean dictator as part of its 10-year anniversary, “Team America.”
Those plans have also been scrapped.
Friday the FBI announced that their investigation shows the Sony hacks came out of North Korea, perhaps lending credence to the suspicion that their government was possibly involved.
I was looking forward to watching “The Interview” because it featured two of my favorite comedy stars, Seth Rogen and James Franco. While I knew it wouldn’t be the best movie ever created, it would be good for a few laughs.
Even though I may never see the movie, what concerns me the most is how this move by Sony will set precedent for future satirical movies.
Will Americans be able to decide what kind of movies we can see? Will we have to pass each idea by a foreign government in order to get their permission, or face a possible hack or threats of violence?
President Barack Obama even made a public statement on Friday concerning how Sony made a mistake in cancelling the movie’s release.
“We can not have a society where some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” Obama said in the statement.
Whether you agree with the president’s work during his time in office or not, he has a point on this topic.
This country was founded on the principles of freedom, including the freedom of speech. Now that an outside force has successfully imposed its will on this country, America is heading down a slippery slope of external censorship.