North Korea’s seeming victory over James Franco and Seth Rogen’s hit comedy was very short-lived. Not only has the film become a sensation after being released online but now The Associated Press, via USA Today, reports that an activist in South Korea plans to airdrop DVDs of The Interview into North Korea in the hopes that North Koreans will get a chance to see the film for themselves.
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“Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January,” the AP writes. “Park, a North Korean defector, said he’s partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.”
Of course, there may be a big snag in the plan: Even if the North Korean government fails to shoot these balloons down, will the average North Korean have access to a DVD player or computer with a USB port? We know that access to the web in North Korea is heavily restricted to high-level government officials and the AP says that citizens need to get permission from the government to own a computer.
In other words, while this plan sounds like a clever idea, the chances of it having an earth-shaking impact on the regime are questionable at best.
