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Stranger than Fiction: The Interview and U.S. Regime-Change Policy Toward North Korea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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“And if it does start a war, hopefully people will say, ‘You know what? It was worth it. It was a good movie!‘”
–Seth Rogen
“Wacky dictators sell newspapers, and magazines-for example, the 2003 Newsweek cover depicting Kim [Jong Il] in dark sunglasses over a cover line that read ‘Dr. Evil.’ …But demonization, and ridicule, can be dangerous. At its worst, dehumanizing the other side helps to lay the groundwork for war.”
–Donald Macintyre
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.- Copyright
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References
Notes
1 Josh Rottenberg, “Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Like that Kim Jong Un Doesn't Get the Joke,” LA Times 3 December 2014. As Rogen's comments in this interview with the LA Times reveal, the biographical particulars of the North Korean leader did not matter; indeed, one leader was interchangeable for another. Rogen and his fellow filmmaker Evan Goldberg initially envisioned Kim Jong Il as the arch-villain of the film but, with his death in December 2011, simply replaced him with Kim Jong Un.
2 Donald Macintyre, “U.S. Media and the Korean Peninsula,” Korea Witness: 135 Years of War, Crisis and News in the Land of the Morning Calm, ed. Donald Kirk and Choe Sang Hun (Seoul: EunHaeng Namu, 2006), 404.
3 Ibid., 407.
4 As quoted in Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic-Perseus Books, 2001) 60; “North Korea's Heart of Darkness,” Dong-A Ilbo, 23 May 2012, available here.
5 Sandy Schaefer, “‘The Interview’ Red Band Trailer: Rogen and Franco Serve Their Comedy,” Screen Rant, September 2014.
6 David Axe, “North Korea Invades America in Dumbest Movie Ever,” Wired 4 August 2012.
7 Sam Biddle, “Leaked Emails: Sony Execs Scared of ‘Desperately Unfunny’ Interview,” Defamer, 15 December 2014.
8 As reported in The Daily Beast, Obama, in clarifying a new U.S. policy approach to Cuba, stated, “‘I do not believe we can continue doing the same thing for five decades and expect a different result,‘ said Obama in a none-too-subtle allusion to a popular definition of insanity.” See Christopher Dickey, “Obama Realizes What 10 Presidents Didn't: Isolating Cuba Doesn't Work,” The Daily Beast, 18 December 2014.
9 See Amy Chozick, “Obama Says He'll Weigh Returning North Korea to Terror List,” The New York Times, 21 December 2014.
10 State Department, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, DC, 22 December 2014. Noting that a heavy regime of U.S. and international sanctions prevents direct financial dealings with North Korea, AP reporter Matt Lee asked Harf to clarify what she meant by “compensation”: “'How could Sony legally accept compensation from North Korea? Is there an exception?’ Lee asked. ‘Because as far as I know, if you're getting a payment, a direct payment, from the North Korean government, you're breaking the law.’” See “Reporter Dismantles State Dept Suggestion that North Korea Pay Compensation to Sony,” Free Beacon, 22 December 2014. On skepticism from cyber-security experts that North Korea was responsible for the hacking, see Elissa Shevinsky, “In Plain English: Five Reasons Why Security Experts Are Skeptical North Korea Masterminded the Sony Attack,” Business Insider, 22 December 2014 and Marc Rogers, “No, North Korea Didn't Hack Sony,” The Daily Beast, 24 December 2014.
11 Bruce Cumings, “On the Strategy and Morality of American Nuclear Policy in Korea, 1950 to the Present,” Social Science Japan Journal 1:1 (1998): 57.
12 “Remarks by the President in Year-End Press Conference,” The White House, 19 December 2014; The New York Times Editorial Board, “Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses,” The New York Times, 21 December 2014.
13 “Remarks by the President in Year-End Press Conference.”
14 Dave Itzkoff, “James Franco and Seth Rogen Talk about ‘The Interview,‘” The New York Times, 16 December 2014.
15 Although purportedly an expert on the Korean peninsula, Bennett offers an assessment of South Korean receptivity to The Interview that is contradicted by Sony's own internal emails. Fearing controversy, Sony's South Korean division passed on opening the film in South Korea. For an account of how another “axis of evil” film, the Bond thriller, Die Another Day (2002), incited widespread protests in South Korea, see Hye Seung Chung, “From Die Another Day to ‘Another Day’: The South Korean Anti-007 Movement and Regional Nationalism in Post-Cold War Asia,” Hybrid Media, Ambivalent Feelings, ed. Hyung-Sook Lee, special issue of Spectator 27:2 (2007): 64-78.
16 Rottenberg, “Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg Like That Kimg Jong Un Doesn't Get the Joke”; William Boot, “”Exclusive: Sony Emails Say Studio Exec Picked Kim Jong-Un as the Villain of ‘The Interview,‘“ The Daily Beast, 18 December 2014.
17 On this point, William Blum writes: “Allen Weinstein, who helped draft legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.‘” See William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 2000), 180.
18 NED, “Statement of Principles and Objectives: Strengthening Democracy Abroad: The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy,” NED.
19 See Biddle, “Leaked Emails.”
20 Josh Eells, “Seth Rogen's ‘Interview’: Inside the Film North Korea Really Doesn't Want You to See,” Rolling Stone, 17 December 2014; Paul Bond, “Sony Hack: Activists to Drop ‘Interview’ DVDs over North Korea via Balloon,” The Hollywood Reporter, 16 December 2014; Katherine Phillips, “Activists to Send DVDs of ‘The Interview’ to North Korea by Balloon,” Newsweek, 17 December 2014.
21 Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian Parliament,” 17 November 2011.
22 Hillary Clinton, “America's Pacific Century,” Foreign Policy, 11 October 2014.
23 Barbara Starr and Tom Cohen, “U.S. Reducing Rhetoric That Feeds North Korea's Belligerence,” CNN 13 April 2013.
24 Department of Defense, News Release No. 208-13, 3 April 2013.
25 John J. Kruzel, “U.S. Prepares Missile Defense, Continues Shipping Interdictions,” U.S. Department of Defense, 18 June 2009.
26 “Department of Defense Announces Missile Deployment,” Press Release, Department of Defense, 3 April 2014.
27 Lolita Baldor and Matthew Lee, “US and Japan Revamp Defense Alliance to Counter North Korean Threat,” Business Insider, 3 October 2013.
28 Peter Symonds, “Obama's ‘Playbook’ and the Threat of Nuclear War in Asia,” World Socialist Web Site, 5 April 2013.
29 Ibid.
30 Judy Kurtz, “FLASHBACK—Seth Rogen: No Regrets about Making ‘The Interview,‘” the Hill, 17 December 2014.
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