Friday 19 December 2014

studio system

Back in 2004, then regime of North Korea made overtures to the Czech Republic to prohibit its cinemas from showing the movie Team America: World Police because of an unflattering depiction of Kim Jung Il in puppet form.
The Czech government rebuffed such demands, saying that those kind of requests have no place in free and democratic countries. Before that, Charlie Chaplain resorted to financing the production of his parody The Little Dictator, entirely with his own funds, because all the Hollywood studios were afraid to touch the subject and be seen as taking sides. Now a studio is in similar straits over a lampoon—and while I can appreciate the difficulty of the decision, with no pretentions of being a profound masterwork of a film, it may be not worth it to pick this fight and instead be accusing of caving to bullies and blackmailers—and is ultimately not releasing the movie to anyone.  What do you think about that? Does the studio merit being foisted on its own freedom of speech and expression?