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Prior Restraint in Film

The issue of prior restraint in regards to film has been a long contested battle between filmmakers and public lawmakers. In the early parts of the 1900's film was subject to governance by local and state authorities. It wasn't until 1952 when the Supreme Court rejected the attempt to ban the movie The Miracle that we began to see change occur in the freedom of speech in film (Tedford and Herbeck 251). In modern times films are rated before they can be shown in theaters and in order to be banned they must be proven to be illegal after they are released.

There was a unique case of prior restraint in 2014 surrounding the movie The Interview. The Interview was a movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco and the plot was that those two worked for a television program and secured an interview with dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. After getting the interview the CIA approaches them about assassinating Un. As you can imagine North Korea did not respond well to the idea of this film being released. They claimed that the movie was a direct act of provocation and endorsement of terrorism against the people of North Korea and urged the United States to ban the film (Beaumont-Thomas). The question that was raised was should the movie be banned because of its possible national security concerns? There was no order by the government to censor the film however the producers did do minor censoring to the death of Kim Jong Un and the film was ultimately released.

This is impactful to me because it shows just how far our government is willing to go to protect the freedom of speech. Even with immense pressure from the outside world and internally the film was still allowed to be released to the general public. Fortunately there were no ramifications that occurred because of it but it shows how far we have come in our freedom of expression.

Sources:

Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. “North Korea Complains to UN about Seth Rogen Comedy The Interview.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 July 2014, www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/10/north-korea-un-the-interview-seth-rogen-james-franco.

Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of Speech in the United States. 8th ed., Strata
Publishing, Inc., 2017.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 30, 2017 at 10:22 PM

    With how much we have been talking about the vagueness of the First Amendment, specifically Freedom of Speech, how difficult it is to claim certain situations as protected under it, and how involved the government is and should be, I think this is a really great example to bring a positive perspective to it all. This is one of the few examples, I believe, that has shown our rights and our government's actions in a positive manner. I think this movie (The Interview) very well could have been subject to prior restraint or even defamation, because it did show Kim Jong Un in a negative light and the actions in the movie could be perceived as real-life security and government tactics of both the U.S. and North Korea. The reality is that none of it was real, it was a comedy meant to produce solely humorous content, so it could fall under something like satire, which is protected under the Freedom of Speech. The government clearly took this into account and ruled in favor of the film, and there were no ramifications. Although I do think this is a positive example of the government protecting our rights, I do still ponder the level of power they have. Furthermore, if the government would have agreed with North Korea's concerns about the film, would they have been able to censor or ban the movie, because of majority and power, even if the movie is technically protected under rights?

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