On Thursday’s Hugh Hewitt radio show, conservative commentator Mark Steyn, author of “The Undocumented Mark Steyn,” said the actions by Sony Corporation not to face down apparent threats from North Koreans was a bad sign for the so-called power of American pop culture in its current state.
“I think it’s actually a pretty serious story,” Steyn said. “We’re told all the time that American pop culture is the most influential force on the planet and that basically everyone around the world wants to be an American teenager. And this stuff is more influential than armies or that kind of thing. The fact is, American pop culture went up against some nickel-and-dime dictator on the other side of the planet and he won and they caved in nothing-flat.”
Steyn went on to compare Sony to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who faced retaliation for to drawing the prophet Muhammad for his paper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, which he was said was a “depressing” comparison.
“If reward people for violence, you’re going to get a lot more of it,” he added. “That’s the lesson of our time – for novels, for movies, for plays, for art exhibitions, for cartoons – at some point, somebody has to stand up to them. And the idea that Sony has less guts than a vulnerable Danish cartoonish who has less thugs going to his daughter’s grade school and wait for her after school – the idea that the Sony Corporation has less guts than a Danish cartoon artist is very depressing.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor