This is the new face of "free speech"!

So the Seth Rogen and James Franco film,. Boo-fucking-hoo. The popular, common sense narrative is that this hacking was a DPRK job, but so what? The film is some asinine comedy about two Americans travelling to North Korea to assassinate Kim Jong Un, replete with the requisite "chinaman" racism (as the trailer made it very clear with its yellow peril "ching-chong-strawhat-buckteeth" chauvinism), and what existent nation would ever tolerate a mainstream and international film promoting it dissolution as a nation? Can you imagine a film comedically celebrating the assassination of the US president? You should, because it would be awesome, but the moment you imagine it you would also have to imagine its non-existence, the feds showing up at your door if you were part of such a project, or the country guilty of making such a movie being subjected to sanctions. Which are far worse, by the way, then some hacking campaign that inconvenienced the millionaires who maderather than an entire nation.[Although the FBI is claiming the DPRK is behind this job, and Obama has even delivered a ra-ra-freedom-of-expression-is-the-American-way-of-life speech, it is worth noting that so far there is nothing beyond circumstantial evidence to prove that the DPRK is culpable. Indeed, the DPRK has denied involvement and is demanding a joint investigation . But let's pretend North Korearesponsible, and thus take the Rogens and Francos of the world at their word…]Free speech! Even if it protects hate speech! Even if we think we're being so edgy when in fact we're just repeating the most acceptable narrative of reality in the country in which we live! The people we are insulting, whose government we mock assassinate, prove that they are anti-freedom by resenting our racist depiction of their lives––how dare they support our right to make a movie that argues for our right to subordinate them!Whatever one thinks of the DPRK is beside the point. I don't like the Iranian regime but movies made by Hollywood imperialists, filled with orientalist tropes and designed to be part of regime destabilizationthese imperialists is something that is far worse than a hacking campaign on the part of said regimes. What is more significant, here, is the fact that the US State Department and the RAND corporation were involved in the movie , meaning that this was not just some asinine winter comedy fare. More people seem interested in complaining about the hacking and suppression of a movie they want to see––as if the DPRK is threatening the entire world with a hacking campaign (if they're really behind it) that got a movie designed to destabilize them out of the theatres.And who in the hell really cares about a movie made by Seth Rogen and James Franco. Sure, Franco has been in some pretty interesting roles, such as when he played Allen Ginsberg (though lionizing a poet whose primary political work was to defend pedophilia isn't necessarily something to be proud of, regardless of the importance of Ginsberg's poetry), but Rogen is renowned for taking offensive dude-bro roles, and then getting angry when the misogyny of these roles is challenged . Rogen also showed up inas a US soldier on leave from Afghanistan, valorized as the perfect date for Mindy because of a wonderful and teary speech he delivered about how he liked bringing fresh drinking water to poor Afghan villagers––as if that's what the imperialists in Afghanistan have been doing––and someone with Rogen's star power can pick and choose his cameo roles. More importantly, Rogen and Franco were behind a petition to defend Israel during the most recent assault on Gaza, so it's pretty clear thatis just an extension of their already pro-imperialist and anti-people way of seeing the world.Did anyone really thinkwould be an awesome movie? I mean, even if our standard for "awesomeness" was something as supremely lowdoes anyone think it would be that "good" in the purely aesthetic comedy department? And, until now, were people sitting around and waiting, with bated breath, for? "Out of all the films to see this Holidaywood season, I'm most looking forward to the comedic genius of Rogen and Franco!" We should be thankful that the film isn't going to be released, that we've been saved from being subjected to a truly awful instance of the culture industry––they're actually doing us a favour by eliminating theatrical garbage, it's unintentional cinematic quality control.Except now that it has been "censored" by hackers, all the people who probably wouldn't have cared to watch this film but who care about "free speech" will be up in arms: "how dare the DPRK prevent me from watching a racist film about the destabilization of their nation!" We should be able to predict the fall out, how the film's destiny will play out. A grass-roots campaign will emerge, proving again that simply because something is "grass-roots" does not mean that it is free from ideological management. The release will not be major but it will play in a variety of rep cinemas, to an audience who believe that their assembly in these venues constitutes a blow struck in the war to save free speech. Perhaps Rogen and Franco will tour with these rep cinema showings, as if they are hard-done-by artists who have to struggle to get their films recognized (like so many other independent films that have to tourthe same pre-existing audience, censored properly by the eternal laws of the free market), and it is a sure bet they will emphasize this "struggle"––not one word will be said about imperialist involvement in the film. Perhaps they will cry crocodile tears about the plight of the average North Korean, and I'm pretty sure the film doesn't show much about the average North Korean outside of stereotypes (DPRK drones or wannabe deserters in love with the west) or that Rogen and Franco were ever interested in meeting and knowing an average North Korean in the first place. Their heroic struggle to tell the "truth" in the form of dudebro jokes and a farcical story line will be emphasized. The actual shite content of the film will be mediated by the story of its supposed suppression even though this suppression will be the vehicle in which an otherwise underwhelming film will receive a place in cinematic history. DVD copies will be available in the millions, the sales of these DVDs will be greater than they would have been had this controversy not existed––the defenders of free speech will feel duty-bound to buy the bloody thing. Hell, if I was a conspiracy theorist I would be inclined to think that this hacking campaign was manufactured by's producers in order to canonize cinematic crap: it's the perfect advertising campaign for a film about the evils of the DPRK, am I right?Thus, the DPRK might have completely failed (if it was the DPRK) to prevent a film about its regime destabilization from becoming popular. This is because US (and Canadian) citizens really like bullshit stories about the suppression of free speech, rather than real stories about exclusion and subordination that happen everyday because of their beloved "freedoms". When the dominant discourse can cast itself as the underdog, those who treat this dominant discourse as common sense are extremely happy because it justifies their conflicting desire to root for the underdog and embrace the normative state of affairs. This is the proverbial getting-your-cake-and-eating-it-too scenario.The irony is that when Rogen was critiqued for being part of an industry that promoted misogyny , he and his supporters complained that the woman who had made this accusation was courting "controversy" to bolster her career. I guess it is not a problem when Rogen and his dudebro friends court controversy (which is only controversial for the people they are insulting and not their fans, to be clear), and now will probably profit greatly from said controversy, compared to those they accuse of pursuing the same career tactic. Indeed, regardless of the involvement of the US State Department and the RAND corporation, Rogen was really keen on promoting the film's "controversial" ideology: when Sony representatives asked him to tone down a scene they knew would be deemed offensive by North Korea, Rogen allegedly responded: "This is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy… That is a very damning story." Here he's not even trying to hide his racism: he's not arguing that it is a "story of Americans changing their movie to make Kim Jong Un happy" but that is a story of Americans being asked to change their film to make North Koreanshappy––yeah, screw what an entire people think because we Americans shouldn't have to change shit! How's that for courting controversy… Yankee styles.In any case, we should expect thatwill become a manufactured "underground" blockbuster in the early new year, American freedoms prevailing under the threat of a hacking campaign, cosmetically sutured into a Hollywood canon right next to, and