The Interview - The Streisand Effect in Motion.

How do you make a picture go from 'not watch' to 'must see'?  Give it global attention.  It's called the Streisand Effect.  Years ago when Barbara Streisand called attention to how Google maps had included her house, she tried in vain to have the information removed from public view.

Sony Pictures (C) 2014

The Streisand Effect is now officially defined as a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information having the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely via the Internet.   

I never planned on seeing "The Interview".  I am not into the stoner buddy movies.  However, it's like being compelled to watch what people thought was worth threatening others over.  This was it?  It was like watching the antics of high school boys who obsess over the usual things of their lives, drugs, sex, success and how to be more successful, get laid the most and then doing it the "American" way.  Weave that in with CIA intrigue, a Leader that people are afraid of because of his access to nuclear weapons laced with emotional daddy issues.  A fantasy assasination plot with bitten off fingers.  I think none of these are really spoilers for the movie, because it's much like "Christmas Vacation", where you know every time you see it; the cat still gets torched and people still laugh.  It's absurd.

In the movie, you see the battle of censorship to have the removal of mythology of the leader.  Absurd myths, such as, President Kim Jong-Un doesn't have an anus.  It's this over-the-top nature that this movie takes that quite possibly is viewed as a personal attack of laughter.  We are laughing at the situation, the means, Sony pictures, fear, nukes, the CIA, the North Korean hackers and ourselves.  I never had any plans of watching this movie.  Yet, thoughout this movie, all I could think of was how "The Marriage of Figaro", a comedy, written by Pierre Beaumarchais helped to fire up the French Revolution.  

It's a dangerous movie in North Korea, because they could see their leader is not a God.  They could see that all they are led into is just 'honey-dicking'.  Because words still hold power and that is why they weren't laughing with the world.  So, why was the movie pulled from theaters?  Quite possibly for one reason.  Perhaps they believe their own caricature of  North Korea's Kim Jong-Un.  If they believed he was as unstable as their fictions version, maybe they were being socially responsible by pulling the movie from theaters, but at the same time, they are validating the insanity of Kim Jong-Un.  

For the west, who is incredibly used to the satirization of EVERYTHING, where there is nothing sacred, and not used to remaining silent, it's a culture shock.  When we don't like something, we joke about it.  Create movies that blow up our governments.  We don't view it as profane.  With our imaginations, we create new worlds to escape from in 120 minute segments.  Dreaming for a moment that the world is either worse or better.  

Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw said, "When you tell people the truth, you have better make them laugh, or they will kill you."  

We were laughing so hard that we couldn't hear the silence of North Korea.  In a world where everything is a form of propaganda for profit or power, not even a comedy is overlooked.  Now that the "Interview" is released into the world, what impact might this have on the people of North Korea?   Perhaps that is the next act in this play.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to Sony Pictures, President Obama, President Kim Jong-Un, Seth Rogan and Pierre Beaumarchais.  I wonder, what is the real revolution?