“Jolie a
‘Spoiled Brat’ From ‘Crazyland,’ ” says The
New York Post.
“Shocking New Reveals From Sony Hack,” says The
Daily Beast.
“Sony’s Hacked Emails Highlight Hollywood’s
Problems With Diversity,” says The
Huffington Post.
“You’re Giving Material Aid to Criminals,” say the
rest of us.
LOS ANGELES — THREE weeks ago Sony Pictures
Entertainment was the victim of a massive cyberattack
by an outlaw group calling itself the Guardians of Peace. They breached
Sony’s security and stole
tens of thousands of internal documents and emails.
Then they left a threat. The Guardians said they were
going to make these private documents public if the studio went ahead with its
planned release of “The Interview,” a comedy with Seth Rogen and James Franco
in which the two are tasked by the Central Intelligence Agency to whack the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
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Then they left another threat, this one accompanied
by violent and disturbing imagery. “Not only you but your family will be in
danger,” read a message to all Sony employees. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation won’t
say much, but it says the hack is sophisticated and backed by a lot of
money.
The Guardians just had to lob the ball; they knew our
media would crash the boards and slam it in. First, salaries were published.
Not by the hackers, but by American news outlets.
Then came the emails. A squabble
between the Sony executive Amy Pascal and the producer Scott Rudin, an
inappropriate and racially charged exchange,
an insulting critique
of recent Adam Sandler movies, a new
idea for the “Spider-Man” franchise. Published. Everywhere.
Finally the media got serious. Not because no one
gets more use out of the First Amendment than they do, and here was a group
threatening to kill people for exercising it. Not because hackers had released Social
Security numbers, home addresses, computer passwords, bank account details,
performance reviews, phone numbers, the aliases used when high-profile actors
check into hotels (a safety measure to keep stalkers away), and even the medical
records of employees and their children. But because a stolen email
revealed that Jennifer Lawrence was being undervalued.
And because I and two movies of mine get a little
dinged up, I feel I have the credibility to say this: I don’t care. Because the
minor insults that were revealed are such small potatoes compared to the fact
that they were revealed. Not by the hackers, but by American journalists
helping them.
It’s not a proud day for Hollywood either. This is a town of
powerful people — leaders and risk-takers who create things that have the power
to start and change conversations. So why has it been so awfully
quiet out here?
We create movie moments. Wouldn’t it be a movie moment if the
other studios invoked the NATO rule and denounced the attack on Sony as an
attack on all of us, and our bedrock belief in free expression? If the Writers
Guild and Directors Guild stood by their members? If the Motion Picture
Association of America, which represents the movie industry in Washington,
knocked on the door of Congress and said we’re in the middle of an ongoing
attack on one of America’s largest exports? We’re coming to the end of the
first reel; it’s time to introduce our heroes.
I understand that news outlets routinely use stolen
information. That’s how we got the Pentagon Papers, to use an oft-used
argument. But there is nothing in these documents remotely rising to the level
of public interest of the information found in the Pentagon Papers.
Do the emails contain any information about Sony
breaking the law? No. Misleading the public? No. Acting in direct harm to
customers, the way the tobacco companies or Enron did? No. Is there even one
sentence in one private email that was stolen that even hints at wrongdoing of
any kind? Anything that can help, inform or protect anyone?
The co-editor in chief of Variety tells
us he decided that the leaks were — to use his word — “newsworthy.” I’m dying to ask
him what part of the studio’s post-production notes on Cameron Crowe’s new
project is newsworthy. So newsworthy that it’s worth carrying out the wishes of
people who’ve said they’re going to murder families and who have so far done
everything they’ve threatened to do. [He doesn’t fucking see it. Mentality of a
low-life journalist.] Newsworthy. As the character Inigo Montoya said
in “The
Princess Bride,” I do not think it means what you think it means.
So much for ever getting a good review from Variety
again. And so much for our national outrage over the National Security Agency
reading our stuff. It turns out some of us have no problem with it at all. We
just vacated that argument.
As a screenwriter in Hollywood who’s only two
generations removed from probably being blacklisted, I’m not crazy about
Americans calling other Americans un-American, so let’s just say that every
news outlet that did the bidding of the Guardians of Peace is morally
treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.
If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers
sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will
draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the
same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing
it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.
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