For freedom’s sake, Sony must release ‘The Interview’

There was a time when critics like Pauline Kael, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert struck fear into the hearts of Hollywood.

It’s quite an escalation when the criticism comes from cyber-hackers who can infiltrate your corporate network, reveal your secrets and threaten those who want to see your films.

Sony Pictures’s decision to pull “The Interview” from distribution after threats from cyber-hackers was a matter of fear trumping freedom. Though Sony is expected to lose as much as $100 million on the film, America’s creative community stands to lose a lot more. Sony’s decision sends a clear message that any creative work in this country can be buried with the right leverage and the right threats.

The key to the film’s collapse seems to have been the vague threats of 9/11 violence at movie theaters. Oddly, AMC said it was pulling the film because “confusion and uncertainty in the marketplace” left consumers unsure of what their holiday film options would be. At least Cineplex mentioned free speech, while concluding that patron safety was paramount.

So what’s a creative industry to do when a dangerous group outraged by its art threatens murder and violence and targets retail outlets and customers?

They should take a page from America’s booksellers.

In 1989, the Iranian government issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, condemning the author to death for his book “The Satanic Verses.” Large chains like Barnes and Noble, B. Dalton and Waldenbooks took the book off their shelves, but others stepped up.

Cody’s Books in Berkeley, Calif., prominently featured the book, which led to a pipe bomb being thrown through the front window. They — and independent booksellers across the nation — didn’t back down.

“What happened in the months that followed was something I will never forget. American writers gathered together in a show of almost complete unity to defend freedom of speech,” Rushdie later wrote. “The independent booksellers of America put the book in windows, mounted special displays, and courageously stood up for freedom against censorship, refusing to allow the choices of American readers to be limited by the threats of an angry despotic cleric far away.”

Booksellers continue to demonstrate that courage today, often defying pressure from interest groups trying to cancel in-store signings by authors of controversial books. While those rarely involve violent threats, they often involve economic retaliation, no small issue for a bookseller. Almost universally, they don’t buckle, according to Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

“Booksellers have a deep commitment to making the books available that their customers want to buy and that’s a matter of first principle for them,” Finan said.

“The Interview” is an easy movie to bail on. It’s a satire that reportedly includes a scene of Kim Jong Un’s head blowing up. It’s not exactly high art.

But what if a group of cyber-terrorists had been offended by “Zero Dark Thirty,” the 2013 film about how the U.S. found and killed Osama bin Laden? Would any movie theater have dared say that generalized threats and movie studio anxiety would prevent them from screening what many viewed as a patriotic film?

We live in an extraordinary country where freedom of creative expression is guaranteed. But of what value is free speech if we’re afraid to use it?

Sony continues to stagger through this crisis, but it absolutely must release “The Interview” in some form. If move theaters are leery, Sony should sell it online or through video on demand, or embrace Mitt Romney’s suggestion that it be used as a vehicle to raise funds to fight Ebola.

This movie can’t go unseen. At the heart of creativity is the courage to express yourself freely. Sony needs to summon up that courage right now.

Paulson is the president of the First Amendment Center, dean of the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.