( CNN ) -- There 's a sad irony in the fact that one of the great tests of America 's freedom of speech should involve a movie that , according to some reviewers , utterly sucks . Variety calls `` The Interview '' an `` alleged satire that 's about as funny as a communist food shortage , and just as protracted . '' Yet this `` comedy '' about two TV guys tasked with assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has sparked a cyberterror campaign that amounts to extortion . What is being threatened ? Well , it started with the leaking of Sony emails by online hackers , which has caused tremendous embarrassment to the company and a little humor for the rest of us . But now hackers claiming to be the `` Guardians of Peace '' -- the group that said it was behind the Sony hack -- seem to have quashed not only the New York premier planned for Thursday , but caused Sony today to announce that it would cancel the film 's December 25 theatrical release . The hackers had threatened the lives of cinema-goers and those within the vicinity of theaters , and actively invoked memories of 9/11 . Is this assault on artistic license coming directly from the North Korean regime ? We do n't know . But it should never be forgotten that North Korea has financed terrorism in the past , including the bombing of passenger jets . Why would they take such offense at `` The Interview '' ? Probably because it goes directly after the image of Kim . North Korea is n't your typical atheist communist dictatorship . It 's far more like the religious-nationalist regime of Japan during the Second World War , in which the leader is elevated to the status of a living god . Put it all together and it 's understandable why theaters chose to take the hackers seriously and pull the movie . Of course , it would be nice if they could take a stand for freedom of speech , but they have a wider responsibility to the physical safety of the public . The tragedy is that all this fuss is n't about something approaching a serious work of art . But aside from being trashily commercial , modern Hollywood also has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to making movies about bad people overseas . We often see evidence of greedy capitalists on Wall Street , or nasty homegrown Christians attacking gays and lesbians . But serious films about the shocking homophobia of the African continent , anti-religious persecution in China or the obvious evil of North Korea are strangely few and far between . This may well be because the marketing people calculate that something so depressing wo n't exactly be box office gold . Thus totalitarianism crops up in U.S. cinema either as fantasy ( the Empire in `` Star Wars '' ) or as something to laugh at ( `` Team America '' also tackled North Korea , albeit with genuine wit ) . Proof positive of the essentially cowardly nature of Hollywood is that executives reportedly screened the ending of `` The Interview '' for the State Department -- and won official blessing . Perhaps this cyberterrorism will convince Hollywood that there are wicked people beyond their shores and that it is worth making far more intelligent movies about them -- movies that go beyond cartoon stereotypes of East and West and deal with the realities of authoritarianism . Until then , there are so many questions about the consequences of the recent threats : What happens if someone advertises a private screening of `` The Interview '' ? If Netflix decides to make it available for home users , what would the terrorists threaten to do ? If the threats are the offspring of the regime 's fetid imagination , perhaps it reveals something about their limited understanding of how the modern world works . In the age of the Internet , you ca n't easily censor a movie or withdraw it from the public domain . And do they really expect U.S./North Korean relations to hinge on the willingness of Washington to try ? There is something depressingly farcical about this whole story . Hopefully , it wo n't turn violent .
Timothy Stanley : Ironic that test of free speech centers around lousy movie ` ` The Korean '' He says hackers that may be linked to N. Korea kill millions of people -- it 's extortion . He says it makes sense that theaters chose to pull movie for patrons ' safety . Stanley : He points up that Hollywood should make serious statements about Korea .