2
IT is hard to say whether Kim Jong-un will to any extent be placated by nominations for the Golden Raspberry Awards, which feature The Interview — the comedy that has played a central role in stirring up an almighty row between Pyongyang and Washington — in four categories.
Unlike the Oscars, which are ostensibly intended to recognise the best elements in cinematic culture, the so-called Razzies celebrate the worst. And The Interview features in the Worst Picture, Worst Actor (where it scores two nominations, for both Seth Rogen and James Franco) and Worst Screen Combo shortlists.
The reviews have been mixed, with some critics celebrating its crass scatological humour and others wishing it had stayed in the vaults. Which it almost did, after Sony Pictures declared late last month that it would never see the light of day, following the unprecedented hacking of the corporation’s website, alongside threats from North Korea that the movie’s release would provoke unspecified forms of retaliation.
Three generations of Kims have longed to be taken seriously.
North Korea is a nuclear power of sorts (at least to some extent as a consequence of Pakistan’s cooperation), which may partly explain why cinema chains in the US developed an allergy to The Interview as the Christmas release date approached, and Sony announced that it had no plans of releasing the film in any form.
This announcement inspired a backlash not only within Hollywood but from the White House, with Barack Obama declaring that Sony Pictures had erred by giving in to intimidation. When the Japanese-owned corporation did a U-turn, Pyongyang concluded that the US president was to blame for the film’s release and subsequently denigrated him (not for the first time) in racist terms.
Having been informed by the FBI that the Sony hack was decidedly North Korea’s doing, Obama vowed the US would retaliate, and the Hermit Kingdom’s limited internet has been on the blink ever since. The US has also reinforced sanctions against Pyongyang.
The latter, meanwhile, has hailed the cyber-attack on Sony as a “righteous act” but has denied being behind it, calling for a joint investigation. Various independent IT experts are inclined to the view that the FBI was much too hasty in naming a culprit.
It isn’t difficult to empathise with critics of Sony’s initial decision to cave in to censorship from abroad. It is equally easy to ridicule the notion advanced by Pyongyang that The Interview, which not only subjects Kim Jong-un to mockery but grotesquely depicts his CIA-sponsored assassination by American interviewers, is part of a subversive plot thought up by the US government.
There is evidence, though, that Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton ran the project by the Rand Corporation, and was informed by defence analyst Bruce Bennett that the movie could indeed be expected to undermine the Kim regime. Lynton subsequently informed Bennett that he had spoken to “someone very senior” in the State Department, who “agreed with everything you have been saying”.
Pyongyang’s paranoia suddenly begins to seem a lot less absurd. There has lately been talk of air-dropping DVDs of The Interview across North Korea. Its potential value as propaganda is clearly not just an afterthought.
None of the foregoing is intended to suggest that the totalitarian Kimdom of North Korea is in any way defensible, let alone worth sustaining in its existing form. However, although its rhetoric often suggests otherwise, there have been plenty of indications over the decades that its family leadership may well be susceptible to a charm offensive. Three generations of Kims have longed to be taken seriously at the international level.
If the aim is to reduce and eventually end the suffering of ordinary North Koreans, a phone call from the White House to the palace in Pyongyang would be far more likely to produce desirable results than a resort to coarse propaganda.
In a speech on New Year’s Day, Kim Jong-un made an overture to South Korea, indicating the desire for “a high-level summit” with Park Geun-hye, “depending on the mood and circumstances”, during the course of 2015. The fact that Park has in the past been subjected to vile abuse by official outlets in Pyongyang only adds to the significance of the gesture, although it’s only natural for the South Korean president to be wary of the North’s intentions.
The idea that hostile actions, such as sanctions and censure, are the best means of shifting North Korea out of the rut it has occupied for more than 60 years has proved to be something less than a spectacular success. And, as Obama noted in the context of Cuba, endlessly repeating failed tactics is not wise policy. Engagement with Pyongyang could prove to be a harder — and certainly considerably less pleasant — task than in the case of Havana. However, it would decidedly offer better scope for progress than wishful thinking about explosive remedies.
Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
