In October 1940, Americans flocked to movie theaters to see Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, mocking the most powerful tyrant on the globe. In December 2014, movie theaters and then the production company cancelled the release of The Interview because of threats of terror from a tinpot, though totalitarian and evil, tyrant who rules a weak and decrepit nation.
It’s not that there is (unfortunately) no precedent for this: consider the Mohammed cartoons. It’s not that movie theaters don’t have to be attentive to the well-being of those who attend their movies. It’s not that there isn’t something ridiculous about the lack of Western interest in a totalitarian dictatorship’s starving millions of its people, while its attempt to prevent an American movie from being shown makes the front pages.
