North Korea Blames President Obama for 'The Interview'

Perhaps due to an inherent misunderstanding of how the American film industry works, North Korea is blaming President Barack Obama for the release of The Interview, the super-controversial James Franco/Seth Rogen comedy centered on the fictional assassination of Kim Jong-Un.

North Korea’s National Defence Commission issued a statement regarding The Interview, essentially blaming Obama for encouraging the film's release after expressing his belief that Sony made a "mistake" in pulling the film from theaters:

“U.S. President Obama is the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to ‘indiscriminately distribute’ the movie and took the lead in appeasing and blackmailing cinema houses and theatres in the U.S. mainland to distribute the movie.”

The statement goes on to declare The Interview a "dishonest and reactionary movie hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK [North Korea] and agitating terrorism."

Meanwhile, the state-run Korean Central News Agency added, "If the U.S. persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, the U.S. should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows."

Say what you will about the politics of depicting the assassination of a sitting world leader, but this seems like an awful lot of hullabaloo over nothing. I rented the movie last night, and even if the shoe had been on the other foot, and this had been about the assassination of a Western leader, the film itself is just so ridiculous and utterly absurd that I'm not sure it's even worth anyone's anger beyond the mere principle of its existence. I can understand being offended, but I would also assume a nation would have more important things to worry about than a movie from the guys who did The Pineapple Express.

Via: BBC News

Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck