Paramount Follows Sony, Bans "Team America"

by JASmius



After Sony Pictures allowed North Korea to dictate to them what pictures they can make and release, a few theaters around the country substituted Team America: World Police, a 2004 film that parodied the NoKos, for The Interview, and did so to huge public acclaim and appreciation.

You can see where this is headed, cantcha?:

Three movie theaters say Paramount Pictures has ordered them not to show "Team America: World Police" one day after Sony Pictures surrendered to cyberterrorists and pulled "The Interview". The famous Alamo Drafthouse in Texas, Capitol Theater in Cleveland, and Plaza Atlanta in Atlanta said they would screen the movie instead of "The Interview", but Paramount has ordered them to stop. (No reason was apparently given and Paramount hasn’t spoken.)  "Team America" of course features Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, as a singing marionette.

Does Paramount have to give the reason?  We all know what it is.  Alamo Drafthouse, Capitol Theater, and Plaza Atlanta were going to show a different movie that would piss off the NoKos, and Paramount didn't want to incur any cyberretaliation, so they put the kibosh on Team America as well.  In effect, Pyongyang doesn't have to censor American cinema, because now American cinema is censoring itself to the NoKo's "sensibilities".

If I were the Un-dictator, I'd spread the censorship net as wide as I could, just to see how far Hollywood can be pushed to bend over and grab its ankles.  MGM's remake of Red Dawn, which depicts a North Korean invasion of the U.S., would appear to be next on the chopping block.  I wonder how long this one will take?


UPDATE: George Clooney weighs in the side of right (for once), and is stunned that so many of his Hollywood chums are already in the tall grass:

A good portion of the press abdicated its real duty. They played the fiddle while Rome burned. There was a real story going on. With just a little bit of work, you could have found out that it wasn’t just probably North Korea; it was North Korea. The Guardians of Peace is a phrase that Nixon used when he visited China. When asked why he was helping South Korea, he said it was because we are the Guardians of Peace. Here, we’re talking about an actual country deciding what content we’re going to have. This affects not just movies, this affects every part of business that we have. That’s the truth. What happens if a newsroom decides to go with a story, and a country or an individual or corporation decides they don’t like it? Forget the hacking part of it. You have someone threaten to blow up buildings, and all of a sudden everybody has to bow down. Sony didn’t pull the movie because they were scared; they pulled the movie because all the theaters said they were not going to run it. And they said they were not going to run it because they talked to their lawyers and those lawyers said if somebody dies in one of these, then you’re going to be responsible.

We have a new paradigm, a new reality, and we’re going to have to come to real terms with it all the way down the line. This was a dumb comedy that was about to come out. With the First Amendment, you’re never protecting Jefferson; it’s usually protecting some guy who’s burning a flag or doing something stupid. This is a silly comedy, but the truth is, what it now says about us is a whole lot. We have a responsibility to stand up against this. That’s not just Sony, but all of us, including my good friends in the press who have the responsibility to be asking themselves: What was important? What was the important story to be covering here? The hacking is terrible because of the damage they did to all those people. Their medical records, that is a horrible thing, their Social Security numbers. Then, to turn around and threaten to blow people up and kill people, and just by that threat alone we change what we do for a living, that’s the actual definition of terrorism.

You do realize what this dynamic is, yes?  Hollywood is finding itself on the receiving end of political correctness for a change, and only a few - Rob Lowe, Jimmy Kimmel, Michael Moore, and now George Clooney - are willing to put their "artistic freedom" money where their mouths are, when the censors in question are ideologically sympatico.

I can disagree with somebody but still respect their consistency.  Those with whom I disagree and haven't the courage of their rancid convictions are and ought to be beneath our contempt.

Exit question: How far will the NoKos have to take this cyberterrorism gambit before a majority of Hollywoodies join their handful of colleagues in saying, "Enough is enough!"?  I'd put the over/under in the dozens of movies scotched, except that I'm not aware of that many North Korea parodies.  Maybe they'll expand their dragnet to "any film that depicts Asians in a negative light".  That'd put the over/under in the hundreds, actually.