An Act of War? The Interview Affair, the Sony Hack, and the Hollywood–Washington Power Nexus Today.

Film has been an integral part of the propaganda war fought between the United States and North Korea over the past decade. The international controversy surrounding the Hollywood comedy The Interview in 2014 vividly demonstrated this and, in the process, drew attention to hidden dimensions of the U...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of American Studies Vol. 53; no. 1; pp. 1 - 28
Main Authors: SHAW, TONY, JENKINS, TRICIA
Format: Article
Published: Cambridge University Press Feb2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Film has been an integral part of the propaganda war fought between the United States and North Korea over the past decade. The international controversy surrounding the Hollywood comedy The Interview in 2014 vividly demonstrated this and, in the process, drew attention to hidden dimensions of the US state security–entertainment complex in the early twenty-first century. Using the emails leaked courtesy of the Sony hack of late 2014, this article explores the Interview affair in detail, on the one hand revealing the close links between Sony executives and US foreign-policy advisers and on the other explaining the difficulties studios face when trying to balance commercial and political imperatives in a global market.