Confirming the long-held suspicion that our civilization’s end will one day be directly traced to James Franco, a spokesman for the North Korean regime has preemptively condemned The Interview, the upcoming film in which James Franco and Seth Rogen attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un. “There is a special irony in this storyline as it shows the desperation of the U.S. government and American society,” said Kim Myong-chol, executive director of the surely very busy Centre for North Korea-U.S. Peace, in a statement quoted by The Telegraph. He was speaking not about our desperate national need for a Seth Rogen comedy every six months, but rather of America’s couching of its own, actual political coups in layers of meta humor. Like most meta projects involving James Franco, few are amused.
“A film about the assassination of a foreign leader mirrors what the US has done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine,” Kim Myong-chol said. “And let us not forget who killed [President John F.] Kennedy—Americans.” (It’s true; we’re so lame.) He also added, “In fact, President [Barack] Obama should be careful in case the US military wants to kill him as well,” because all official statements from North Korea are required to sound totally insane before being approved for release.
With that in mind, Kim Myong-chol further claimed Hollywood movies are “full of assassinations and executions,” which raises the question of what, exactly, happens to them when they’re edited for theatrical distribution over there. (For example, does the Pyongyang board insert ending title cards explaining that all of the characters in Think Like A Man Too were fed to wild dogs?) He also added, apropos of nothing, that “James Bond is a good character and those films are much more enjoyable”—at least, when they aren’t casting North Koreans as the villains.
As of press time, international tensions continued to rise, as Seth Rogen steadfastly refused to be James Bond.
The Telegraph did note, however, that Kim Jong-un would still “probably” watch The Interview anyway, suggesting that the dictator maybe has a bit of an ego.