Just where does that animosity come from?
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Just when did assassination become a subject for American humor?This is a nation that still mourns Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King — all assassinated. It is living through a period of renewed racial violence in which young black men have been killed by police and two New York City officers were assassinated in the past week. But on Christmas Day no less, the big new movie release — “The Interview” — is a lampoon built around a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.Kim is a real live person, mind you, portrayed as actually being the assassination subject in the movie. Nothing like “The Day of the Jackal,” the famous 1973 thriller that portrayed a failed assassination attempt against French President Charles de Gaulle — after de Gaulle had already died peacefully three years before. Nothing like the 1940 films of Charlie Chaplin or the Three Stooges mocking Adolf Hitler prior to the United States entering World War II.This is a distinction not lost on North Korea. The Pyongyang government is alleged by the U.S. to have mounted an unprecedented cyberattack that exposed hundreds of corporate documents within Sony Pictures, the maker of the movie. Unlike the real Korean War, no one is killed in this counteroffensive. Instead, the big revelations are: North Korea is more Internet-savvy than many thought and Hollywood more back-stabbing and even racist.President Barack Obama says Kim should lighten up and remember that the actors Seth Rogen and James Franco in “The Interview” pose no real danger. Respected critics cast the movie as one more about two aging American adolescent characters — the same Rogen and Franco — trapped in their own world just as the Korean dictator, played by Randall Park, is trapped in his.The pathos is really all about us Americans then, not Kim Jong Un after all? What a relief.But how about the killing?Suppose North Korea made a comedy about white racists plotting to assassinate Obama? They jump the fence and break into the White House only to find Obama drinking bourbon and listening to country music — whiter than they ever imagined. But they still kill him before the movie ends. Would America find that funny?No, killing makes a difference. All the more so in this period of madness where the U.S. faces enemies who slaughter children in Pakistan and then teach 8-year-olds in Syria how to behead their enemies. All the more so because this is North Korea, whose brutal record on human rights is so terrifying that even the United Nations is beginning to take notice.If America is to be a moral force, doesn’t it have to look inside itself as to what killing really is? Has it become so disconnected that it doesn’t understand how the rest of world might see our own penchant for violence?Killing is not a video game. Those killed are dead for a long time. Those who do the killing are never the same again.Just look at modern history.It used to be that there was a military draft in which American boys were regularly sent off to fight and kill for their country. World War II in the 1940s was followed by Korea in the 1950s and then Vietnam in the 1960s. By that point many young draftees in Vietnam, who had uncles or fathers in the earlier wars, felt this was almost part of growing up, becoming a man.This reporter lived through this period as an infantry medic in Vietnam in 1969. I had agreed to be drafted as a conscientious objector and carried no weapon. But there were no right answers in that war. I couldn’t escape being part of the fighting and killing any more than the rest of my platoon, boys like me whom I deeply loved.It’s a shadow on your soul that you carry forever. And one that came home again for many combat veterans in the debate in Congress over outlawing torture after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took the lead in opposing torture as someone who had been a prisoner of war himself. For all their past tensions with McCain, veterans like Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) helped drive the bill through the House and Senate. A big part of this was an unstated code: You can ask me to kill for my country, but don’t ask me to be part of torture.In the years after Vietnam, the U.S. ended the draft and moved to a more professional, volunteer military. This worked well enough in the first Gulf War, the 1991 Desert Storm operation that was over in a matter of months. But the strain showed in prolonged engagements like Iraq and Afghanistan.The casualty rate never approached the losses in Vietnam. But the everyday American became more and more isolated from the killing, even as Army and Marine infantry were forced into repeated tours — something most draftees were spared during Vietnam.As if to punctuate this point, Clint Eastwood’s new film, “American Sniper,” about the late Navy SEAL veteran Chris Kyle, was released this past week almost alongside “The Interview.”Kyle, who served four tours in Iraq and was credited with 160 confirmed kills, was killed himself in February 2013, allegedly by a Marine veteran who is to go on trial this winter.Makes you wonder how Kyle would react to a Christmas Day comedy about assassination. Would Kyle think it was funny?
Killing is not a video game. Those killed are dead for a long time.
"I need to see this play like I need a hole in the head!"
It really is an unfunny movie tho.
Nothing like the 1940 films of Charlie Chaplin or the Three Stooges mocking Adolf Hitler
I just watched this movie. It's alright. Randall Park steals it.
