Drop Comedy Bombs, Not Real Bombs: Why Not "Drop" The Interview on North Korea?
The Wall Street Journal, not usually in favor of government support for the arts, argues that the United States government should buy the rights to Sony's The Interview and then release it into the public doman. It would surely find itself to North Korea via any number of bit torrent sites and the like. As the Journal notes, Chinese love to mock Kim Jong-un and his whole family line, and there's a bustling trade in pirated merchandise between North Korea and China.
And there's an old-school way to get the flick into North Korean hands:
Park Sang Hak, a North Korean defector now living in the South, has an idea. Mr. Park, whom we profiled last year, puts information about the outside world along with movies and television programs on USB drives, which he floats into the North on balloons. The Kim Jong Un regime has labeled him "enemy zero" and sent an assassin to kill him with a poison-tipped pen. For real.
Mr. Park wants to include "The Interview" on future balloon launches.
Sure, why the hell not? The reported budget for The Interview was about $45 million. And while The Interview has received some scathing reviews—Variety said "it's about as funny as a communist food shortage"—it wouldn't be the worst art ever purchased with tax dollars.
Related: "Please DO NOT Watch OUR North Korea Videos Because We Are Afraid, Said No One at Reason EVER!"
