The uproar over The Interview

    I am a cynic. I seldom see things the way that most people do. It is part of my charm, or lack thereof. I often find myself looking for ways to avoid the groupthink that permeates our society. Having said that, I wanted to offer my observations on the uproar surrounding the movie "The Interview".

    The trailers and advertisements for this movie have been around for several months now. I have to wonder who actually thought that this was ever a good idea for a movie. The concept of a comedy involving spies is nothing new, but to set the story in the real world against an actual world leader seems to have been a lapse in judgement. Kim Jung Un is a total ass, the world knows that, and yet the idea that a real person would be the purported target of these inept assassins fails to make me want to rally to the movie's defense. Movies of a similar vein have been made before, just call the country involved something like Dumbfukistan, and give the leader a goofy name, and none of this would have happened. Or, was the plan all along to produce this PR bombshell?

    The ranting of North Korea over this movie was nothing but unexpected. North Korea is like a child that always demands attention by acting up and causing trouble. Having said that, I still find it a stretch that North Korea could then muster up the technological savvy to hack into Sony Pictures. I doubt that there are many 15-year old pimples adolescent males sitting in their bedrooms in North Korea with the knowledge to do so.

     At any rate, Sony Pictures announces to the world that their network has been hacked. Embarrassing emails that seem to be pure gold for talk shows are released. This is where my suspicion really begins to pick up. A story that is designed to generate even more stories seems too convenient. Then Sony Pictures wants to turn this alleged hack into a National Security event. The last time I checked, Sony was not the US government, nor a US government agency. The release of gossip celebrity infoporn is hardly a national security risk.

    The response to this incident by the US government is the next area where I really find it hard to keep pressing the "I Believe" button hard enough to make this work for me. Since Sony Pictures is a private corporation, why is it necessary to make this a government affair? Is it because North Korea is such as easy target to pick on? Look at what is going on here in this country as this "story" develops. The issues like Police Brutality and the resulting protests are dominating the headlines. These are real-world events that neither the media nor the government have any real control over. Doesn't this whole Sony thing just smell wrong to have happened now?

    I am a cynic. I see the connection where this could very easily be a manufactured crisis that was designed to take the attention of the general public away from real-world issues and divert it to this. The plot needed for this is more believable than the plot for the movie at the center of things!

A crappy picture destined for an early release to home video, that would never recover the investment made in it, now becomes a lightning rod for attention. The uproar causes the movie to be pulled from it's planned release. This causes even more uproar because "we cannot allow the North Koreans to take away our freedom to see this crap!".

     This so-called cyber attack itself cannot be satisfactorily explained because it is too complex and would affect, wait for it, "National Security". "National Security" has become the catchphrase for all sorts of attacks on the very freedoms that we are supposed to cherish. I instantly start to delve deeper whenever this is the excuse for any action, because it is just so convenient to tell people that there are things that they cannot know for their own good. The instincts of a child are more developed than those of the American public when "National Security" is the justification for any action. At least a child will ask questions rather than accept blindly whatever they are told.

    Now, of course, the movie will be released after all. Already the reaction is "I will see this movie because it will show North Korea that they cannot impinge on my freedom to see it". Obviously, the idea that these people are defending the idea that they have to accept everything told to them never enters their minds. The idea that they are going to enjoy exercising their freedom to be separated from their hard-earned money to see a crappy film that they would otherwise have ignored escapes them.