Skip to main content

WHO HACKED SONY? AND OTHER ISSUES OF HOLLYWOOD CULPABILITY




Sony was hacked this month. Nobody knows who did it.

It started off with some juicy revelations in the media that Sony’s hack had revealed several interesting conversations with Sony insiders talking about Angelina Jolie. “Spoilt brat” and “minimally talented” were apparently two terms used to describe her. The articles instantly got worldwide attention. Blame was put on North Korea, for purportedly hacking the company’s email system in retaliation for making a film about its President’s assassination.

North Korea denied it had hacked Sony, but said whoever did it had done a “righteous deed.”

Obama stepped in, and said North Korea was responsible. He added it wasn’t an act of war but cyber -vandalism.

The media went crazy, printing article after article showing how North Korea was an odious human rights violating state. They said America had bowed down to North Korea by canceling screenings. It appeared serious military action against North Korea would become likely, if the hawks had their way.

North Korea’s entire Internet network went down. Somebody had clearly hacked it.

North Korea's leader came out and called Obama a “monkey from the tropics.” He also said the America was responsible for the Sony hack.

The film “The Interview” was released online, and in select theatres. It became one of the biggest grossing films that week.

The series of events that occurred leads a connect-the-dots person to conclude that the hack may have been internally engineered by the US national security apparatus, in conjunction with Sony’s insiders, including the director of the film, perhaps the actors, as well as the producers and the marketing department.

This brings up the very serious issue of Hollywood’s collaboration with the US’s national security agencies. How close are these ties? How far do people think they can go with different tactics of false flag and diversion in the US’s obviously no-holds-bar wars against different nation states?

In the case of Hollywood, it is quite clear that the scripts of everything from historical to mythological films have had input from the military-industrial complex. Funding may also be provided by the same agencies—to what extent, this remains unclear. It is also clear that actors, individually, may have relationships or pal-ly friendships with other individuals working within the Deep State. Ben Affleck, for instance, is clearly close to the CIA. His film “Argo” won the Best Film Award, not because it was a good movie, but because the military-industrial complex has infiltrated Hollywood so deeply there is no longer a peer-reviewed, meritocracy at work, but merely the same old shite of propoganda passing for creative works, as in Nazi Germany. Remember Goebbels? Good old Leni? Right, this is the same stuff, people.

There might even be a certain amount of bravado and sense of prestige working for one’s country. This is all very well and good when the cause is good. But when the country has veered off track so vertiginiously, as the US has, and whose internal working are now a matter of deep concern for the rest of the world, working for this apparatus may not be as glamorous as people may think, at first. Witness the 80,000 people who came out in opposition to Ben Affleck’s next role, as Batman. They simply disliked the idea of seeing him as Batman. If Affleck though “Argo” would jump him onto to superstardom, he was about to find out the power of the masses to destroy a career with a simple “refuse and resist” campaign. (Incidentally, I didn’t watch “Gone Girl” because Affleck was in it.)

Imagine if the US had supported a film that showed the assassination of a Western power, and then played out a complicated set of maneuvers to blame the same country for a crime committed within the US, most likely by its own security apparatus? This would violate a lot of international laws. But somehow, it is considered to be okay in the case of North Korea. Sure, North Korea has a lot of prison camps—but so does the USA, if you could the millions of adult men who spend their time in jails which spin a hefty profit for the corporations that run them. Incidentally, the prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex seems to be deeply intertwined.

It also appears a lot of idealistic young actors may get caught in the subtle web of the security apparatus, without realizing it. For instance, Django Unchained. On the surface, a very good film about slavery and freedom. But then, China banned it. Why would China ban Quentin Tarantino? Because if you watch it again, the underlying subtext, in some horrifying way, is still white supremacy, and what happens to people who oppose the entitlement of white people to enslave other people. Anybody who watches this film walks away with a creepy feeling that while this may be about history, perhaps it may be about the present as well. Leonardo Di Caprio, one of my very favorite actors, may have fallen into the liberal trap of agreeing to do a film he saw as anti-slavery—when in fact the subtext runs very much in the opposite direction. Clearly the main character walks away, free. But many others don’t. And the chill you feel watching this film is the chill of knowing that the mentality of slave-holders very much runs contemporary banking, economics, international relations, as well as domestic governance within the USA. Slavery hinges on the notion the slave can have no freedom, and this underlies the very underpinnings of new military research being done in the USA. The Brain Initiative done funded by the White House, in which brain-to-net scientific experiments are being done to download people’s thoughts onto the web, forever destroys the individual’s right to privacy by making his thoughts available to government surveillance.

How deeply does the culpability run? Do filmmakers know when they get approached by a friendly group of men with a funny idea about North Korea, and deep pockets, that they may be working for the military-industrial complex? That the aim may not be just to bring about “freedom” to those who resist it, but that there may be a deeper, more sinister reason that keeps Hollywood churning out one film after another, glorifying the supremacy of the racist, military-industrial state?














Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Bitter Truth: Talat Abbasi's Bitter Gourds

The stories are small, but with a spicy aftertaste that could be from nowhere else but the subcontinent. Talat Abbasi's Bitter Gourd and Other Stories is a collection of nugget sized, delectable tales laid out, in typical desi fashion, amongst the detritus of social stratification, family ennui, economic marginalization and diaspora. Gently dousing her stories with a generous portion of irony and satire, the Karachi born writer brings to the fore the small hypocrisies and the mundane corruptions of everyday life in Pakistan. Whether dealing with a birdman or a poor relation, a rich widow or an immigrant mother, Ms. Abbasi touches the mythic heart that ticks besides all these caricatures. The ghostly narrative influence of Virginia Woolf, with a pinch of Victorian lit thrown in for good measure, is discernable, although most of the voices are centered around the "how kind, how kind" echoes of South Asia. The book starts, appropriately, with a story about a feudal patro...

Milk and rice

Sushma Joshi I am the youngest of seven cousins. When we were little, we used to play lukamari , or hide-and-seek, games in the garden. My eldest cousin sister, taking pity on me, would allow me to be a dudh-bhat (milk and rice) during our games. A dudh-bhat is someone too young to play the game adequately, but the older children allow this young one to tag along and never be “outed” from the game because they might cry if made to leave. So this means you are endlessly in the game, even when in reality you should really be out. Of course, being the youngest means you may always retain the status of a dudh-bhat even when you do grow up. In Nepal, as we know all too well, the hierarchy of age allows the young some privileges, along with the old. It appears to me Madhav Kumar, even though he's lost the game twice in two elections, is being allowed to be the dudh-bhat by his wiser and more tolerant elders. He is allowed to be in the game endlessly even though in reality he should real...

Navaratri and Navagraha

The Annapurna Post asked me to contribute an article this Dashain. And since it was a day or so away from Navami, I decided to write this article.                                                                            *** Navaratri is dedicated to nine forms of Goddess Durga, consort of Lord Shiva. She appears in different forms: as Shailaputri or daughter of the Himalayas on the first day of  ghatasthapana ; as virginal Brahmacharini on the second day; as Chandraghanta, wearing a crown made of the moon in the shape of a bell on her head on the third; as Kusmanda, the one who embodies the universe, on the fourth; as Skandamata, mother of Kartikya who slays demon Tarkasur, on the fifth day; as Katyayani, who slays the demon Mahisasur, on the sixth; as Kaalratri, who reminds us of the ine...