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Sony’s decision to cancel the December 25th release of the movie “The Interview” is the latest twist in a saga which has captured the public imagination. The decision comes hot on the heels of an unprecedented move by top movie theatres to pull out from screening the movie citing terror threats.

The movie has aroused the ire of the North Korean state because of its storyline which depicts a fictional plot to assassinate current leader Kim Jong Un. The secretive communist state initially declared the movie “an act of war” and threatened retaliatory action if plans to make it proceeded. When the threats were not heeded, Sony suffered a massive hack attack which saw documents, emails, contracts and movie scripts (including a script of the next James Bond movie) getting stolen.

The hack did not dissuade Sony Pictures from its plans to release the movie. However, the game changer was when a terror threat was made against movie theaters which screened the movie. Given the backdrop of the 2012 theatre shooting at a premiere of The Dark Knight which left 12 dead and over 70 injured, movie theatres decided not to take a risk. Despite assurances by the FBI that there are no credible terror threats, they pulled out of screening the movie. Sony Pictures had no option but to follow suit.

The Interview is by no means the first movie to spark controversy. Many movies from the past have sparked fury, ire and anger from different categories of people. They have elicited a series of retaliatory attacks from cancellations and bans to arrests or even death threats to their producers. Seven of these controversial movies from the past are the following:

 

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This story of this movie centered around a documentary crew which vanished in the Amazon. The movie is the supposed reel of the actual footage shot by the ill-fated crew. Its usage of native actors and documentary-style footage got people convinced that it was real. Its depiction of beheadings, amputation and actual cannibalism aroused suspicions.

Just 10 days after release, the movie was confiscated, and the producer Ruggero Deodato was arrested and charged with murder. He was accused of killing his actors to capture the graphic footage. The charges were only dropped when he produced the actual actors in court – alive and well. Even then, he was still charged for obscenity and animal cruelty, found guilty and given a suspended four month sentence.

The charges aside, Cannibal Holocaust was banned in several countries for being obscene, brutal, grotesque and distasteful. Among the countries which banned the movie include Italy, UK, Finland and Australia.

 

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

This movie by celebrated producer Martin Scorsese was an adaptation of a controversial Nikos Kazantzakis novel. The movie is a fictional portrayal of Jesus – not as the divine Biblical figure – but as a human being beset by human passions and desires. The movie aroused the ire of conservative Christians especially because of a scene which depicted Jesus making love and having a family.

Despite the fact that the movie producers stated clearly that the movie wasn’t an accurate portrayal of Jesus, the sense of outrage was not diminished in anyway. The anger boiled to fever-pitch especially among a group of French Christian fundamentalists. These fanatics stormed a movie theatre which was screening the movie and hurled Molotov cocktails into the crowd, injuring several moviegoers.

 

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

This movie was an adaptation of the 1962 novella, A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Adapted by the celebrated producer, Stanley Kubrick, the movie gained notoriety for its graphic portrayals of violence and rape. It was slapped with an X rating in the US, and condemned by the Catholic Church for being “morally offensive”.

A Clockwork Orange is credited with inspiring a number of copycat crimes. One of the most infamous was a rape of a woman in which the rapists sang “Singin’ in the Rain” which is a copycat of an actual scene in the movie. There were also two murders in which the murderers claimed to have been inspired by the movie.

Media reports of such copycat crimes aroused stern condemnations from the public. Kubrick’s wife reported receiving death threats. There were numerous protests in front of Kubrick’s house. In the end, the producer called for the movie to be banned in the UK. The ban lasted for 27 years, and was only lifted upon Kubrick’s death in 1999.

 

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

This movie aroused even much more controversy than the book on which it was based – Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown’s novel had already stirred up fury in the Christian community given its claims that Jesus got married and may have had children. When the news of the movie’s impending release hit the airwaves, the condemnations began long before its trailers were even released.

The movie was branded as “blasphemous”, “misleading”, “provocative” and “anti-Christian” by the Catholic Church. The condemnations were by no means limited to the Catholic Church. Many other Christian denominations organized protests, and called for boycotts of any movie theatre which screened it.

The condemnations only made the movie popular, and upon its release, thousands flocked to see it. However, lobbying by some Christian groups certainly succeeded in getting the movie banned in certain countries. Such countries included Sri Lanka, Samoa, Lebanon and Pakistan.

 

The Exorcist (1973)

The controversy stirred by this movie is actually quite unique in that many groups had different (often contradictory) condemnations of the movie. Some people condemned the movie’s plot (which was about a demon possessed girl) as being superstitious, backward and archaic. Many movie theatres banned the movie’s first teaser trailers for being “too disturbing” to audiences. And certain Christian groups accused the movie of glorifying Satan.

There are some people who actually believed that there was something inherently evil about the movie. The international televangelist, Billy Graham, famously claimed that an actual demon resided in the reel of the movie. Mr. Billy Graham wasn’t the only one to make such an outlandish claim.

Numerous stories circulated about certain bizarre and macabre occurrences happening at the movie set. There were mysterious accidents and unexplained deaths which caused some people to give credence to the movie’s demonic aura. Such speculations only caused the movie’s popularity to soar. The Exorcist winded up being a box-office success, receiving numerous Oscar nominations and etching itself among the most popular horror movies of all time.

 

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the last few days of Christ’s life received lots of condemnations especially from Jewish organizations. There are those who branded the movie as “Anti-Semetic”, pointing to the fact that it seemed to blame Jews for killing Jesus Christ. There are those who also condemned the movie’s brutal portrayal of Christ’s suffering claiming that it masked the real message behind the suffering i.e. God’s grace and love for mankind.

However, it was those who made “anti-Semitic” claims who ended up receiving credence – from none other than Mel Gibson himself. After getting busted for drunken driving, the actor/producer was captured releasing a barrage of anti-Semitic expletives. He later apologized for his actions, but the condemnations for the movie did not go away. In the end, the condemnations only caused the movie to become more popular. It ended up grossing an estimated USD 600 million.

 

Innocence of Muslims

This yet unreleased low budget film caused an outrage in the Muslim world when its trailer was released on YouTube in 2012. The trailer – which depicted Mohammed as a philanderer, fraud and psychotic madman – caused violent riots in many Arab countries. The caricature in the movie aside, Islam bans the portrayal of Muhammad in any graphic or visual form, artistic or otherwise. But in this case it was the “insulting” portrayal of Muhammad which got many Muslims up in arms.

There were violent riots in numerous countries including Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. In Egypt and Libya, US embassies were attacked. In the latter country, the embassy based in Benghazi was stormed by armed men, and the US Ambassador Chris Stevens murdered. There were death threats issued against the movie producer, as well as the actors who appeared in the film.

In the aftermath of the riots, several world leaders – including Barrack Obama – urged YouTube to remove the trailer. YouTube refused, claiming that it would amount to censorship. An actor who was voice was used in the trailer later sued, asking Court to order the removal of the trailer from YouTube. The decision was ruled in her favor, but Google appealed, and the matter is yet to be resolved.

 

The bottom line is that movie controversies are nothing new. The controversy caused by The Interview is just the latest case of a movie causing unforeseen reactions from certain categories of people. However, this is the first time that a specific country has been so infuriated by a movie that it has sponsored actions which have led to the cancellation of the movie in another country. The precedence this sets, as well as the wider ramifications of this Sony’s decision are yet to be seen.