The Interview is a controversial film starring actors James Franco, Seth Rogen, and an artful portrayal of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The movie is about a talk show host, Dave Skylark, who manages to book an interview with Kim Jong-un. After hearing this, the FBI incorporates Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapoport, into a plan to assassinate the North Korea dictator.

Before the film could be released though, someone allegedly linked to North Korea hacked into Sony’s database and uncovered The Interview. Upon learning of the assassination of Kim Jong-un in the film, they made threats to bomb any movie theaters that chose to show the movie.

Upon hearing this, Sony announced that they would not be releasing The Interview anytime soon. Obama responded to Sony, telling them that they couldn’t let a North Korean dictator essentially censor what we show in American movie theaters, and after this, Sony agreed to release the film.

Some members of the public, however, believe that the entire hacking was a publicity stunt by Sony. Senior Stephan Sutter explains his beliefs that, “Sony did this either because they thought the movie might not interest enough viewers, or because they wanted to have some kind of controversy around it.”

No matter what you believe happened with the release of this movie, it raises the question of censorship and political freedom. History teacher Mr. Bass stated, “It was unfortunate that they initially gave into the threats because your freedom of speech is paramount and if people are not going to release movies because of a threat what is next? Not releasing articles that portray people in a bad light? There is enough censorship in this country already. Freedom of the press is paramount to democracy and that is why we are losing our democracy.”