Activists plan to fly balloons carrying The Interview DVDs into North Korea
The Interview won't be showing up in American movie theaters anytime soon, so it's safe to say that the Sony comedy won't be popping up in any North Korean multiplexes, either. But if The Interview ever makes it onto DVD, a group of South Korean activists plans to use hydrogen balloons to smuggle copies into North Korea.
The South Korea-based activist group Fighters for a Free North Korea has used hydrogen balloons to deliver DVD players, American movies like Braveheart, and TV shows like Battlestar Galactica for two years, in an effort to give North Korean citizens access to media from the outside world. Their work has been supported by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.
"North Koreans risk their lives to watch Hollywood films [...] and The Interview is tremendously threatening to the Kims," said the Human Rights Foundation's Thor Halversson in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "They cannot abide by anything that portrays them as anything other than a god. This movie destroys the narrative."
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Of course, this grand plan requires Sony to make The Interview available first. Your move, guys.
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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
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