As I noted yesterday, I'm somewhere between ambivalent and opposed to all the reporting on the hacked—hacked as in "stolen," not "leaked," as some have described them (words matter!)—Sony emails. On the one hand, Aaron Sorkin comes across as kind of a pompous doof here. On the other hand, he's right: A group of hackers working for an unknown power (likely North Korea) stole the docs; the hackers then tried to use them to blackmail Sony into not releasing their upcoming comedy about the assassination of Kim Jong Un, The Interview; and, after their blackmail threat failed, they've leaked gigabytes upon gigabytes of emails with the intent of embarrassing Sony employees.
Now, the hackers are threatening our very way of life. Our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at the multiplex. Buzzfeed's Matthew Zeitlin reports the "Guardians of Peace," as the hackers call themselves, are threatening movie theaters showing the film:
The "GOP" also said that "Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear." and "We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time."
"Remember the 11th of September 2001," the group said in the message.
Wait, what? I'm sorry North Korea. I may have misunderstood. You're going to threaten Americans going to movie theaters on Christmas Day (when The Interview is being released)?
It was all fun and games when the North Koreans were idly harassing our celebrities; in the grand scheme of things, they're just upping the TMZ trolling ante. But threatening Americans with violence for engaging in the age-old tradition of retiring to a movie theater so you can sit in the dark and ignore your family for two precious hours during the holiday season? That's a bridge too far.
To protest this cowardly and craven act, I call upon all right-thinking Americans to ignore the North Korean threat and make haste to a movie theater on December 25th. Take the whole family; I'm sure little kids are the perfect audience for Seth Rogen and James Franco's latest R-rated comedy. (Plus, they have to learn about "pervasive language, crude and sexual humor, nudity, some drug use and bloody violence" at some point.) This will not stand, this aggression against our theaters. This aggression will not stand.
Update: The terrorists have won.