I was as outraged and demoralized as everyone else in this country last week when Sony Pictures announced that it was pulling its Christmas Day release of "The Interview", a Seth Rogan comedy that makes fun of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, because of a cyber attack on the company followed by a threat from North Korea that a terror attack would be carried out against any theater that dared to show the film.
Sony's capitulation to North Korea's threats felt like surrender, subservience, and suppression of the one thing that we as Americans, for all our many and deep differences, hold dear to our hearts: our freedom of speech and expression. Half of us may absolutely hate what the other half has to say, but our right to publicly say whatever we want runs deep in the marrow of our bones.
But here we were now cowering in fear and compliance because of the threats of a malevolent dictator 6,300 miles away.
And so when the news broke the day before yesterday that Sony had announced that the owners of 200 independent movie theaters in this country had stepped forward and proclaimed that they would not be shut up or shut down by North Korea, that they in fact would show "the Interview" as scheduled Christmas day, I for one received the news with a rush of gladness and a surge of pride and my heart gave a patriotic cheer.
This morning during our Christmas family brunch I was discoursing on the fact that these 200 theaters thumbing their nose at a tyrannical power that attempted to bully our country was a victory for freedom and justice. I said I believed that this was good news for a Christmas day, or any day. I added that we should be proud that two independent theaters in Columbus, The Gateway Film Center and The Grandview Theatre, are among the venues that would be showing "The Interview."
"Think about it," I said, "today our country is going to win a victory without a war."
My daughter Maria sighed, "And all because of a sh**ty Seth Rogan movie."
Sony's capitulation to North Korea's threats felt like surrender, subservience, and suppression of the one thing that we as Americans, for all our many and deep differences, hold dear to our hearts: our freedom of speech and expression. Half of us may absolutely hate what the other half has to say, but our right to publicly say whatever we want runs deep in the marrow of our bones.
But here we were now cowering in fear and compliance because of the threats of a malevolent dictator 6,300 miles away.
And so when the news broke the day before yesterday that Sony had announced that the owners of 200 independent movie theaters in this country had stepped forward and proclaimed that they would not be shut up or shut down by North Korea, that they in fact would show "the Interview" as scheduled Christmas day, I for one received the news with a rush of gladness and a surge of pride and my heart gave a patriotic cheer.
This morning during our Christmas family brunch I was discoursing on the fact that these 200 theaters thumbing their nose at a tyrannical power that attempted to bully our country was a victory for freedom and justice. I said I believed that this was good news for a Christmas day, or any day. I added that we should be proud that two independent theaters in Columbus, The Gateway Film Center and The Grandview Theatre, are among the venues that would be showing "The Interview."
"Think about it," I said, "today our country is going to win a victory without a war."
My daughter Maria sighed, "And all because of a sh**ty Seth Rogan movie."
| Christmas morning brunch, expanded with left-overs from Our Christmas Eve feast and carol-singing : scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes, sausage, steak fries, Justin's special broccoli, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp, rolls, fruit salad, left-over Christmas Eve desserts |
Tommy setting out the Christmas Eve Feast (see post from 12/23/2014)
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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