Miles+R’s+2015+OpEd+Article

To most of the US population North Korea is a distant threat, a closed off country with a bizarre and awful government, but lately its also become a joke. Because of how secluded the country is and because of how outlandish the countries dictator, Kim Jong Un appears to be, its easy to make light  of the country and its totalitarian regime. Satire and mockery can often be effective tools in fighting political systems but these recent jokes on the oddities of the North Korean government do not actually help the people of the country who are constantly being oppressed. From the humor I've seen online we've made a cruel dictator into a wacky character. Yes, Kim Jong Un, the regimes propaganda, the dynasty, they all look ridiculous from the outside, and we can make these jokes, but don't point North Korea's wacky behavior without also talking about its labor camps, the starvation of its people, and the over all oppression. It seems like Americans just don't know about the extent of the abuse the citizens of North Korea have suffered and we only see the country on the global scale as that secluded, short-tempered ally of China. This has been on my mind because recently a movie came out  called, " //The Interview"// written and starring Seth Rogan that was a comedy about North Korea. Now I'm not bashing on Seth Rogan because the movie itself isn't such a big deal but it became such a big news  story because of threats by N K and because of censoring that almost all Americans knew about it. This could have been a time raise awareness on the horrors that were happening in the country, like "starvation, forced labor, executions, torture, rape, and infanticide... often in forced labor camps" ( Human Rights Watch  http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/18/north-korea-un-condemns-crimes-against-humanity) but instead we quickly made this event about ourselves and how our rights of free speech are being impeded because we couldn't see a  comedy movie  that focused on the absurdity of the North Korean government instead of sending a positive message on stopping its oppression. Our right of free speech was being restricted and I've always been against censoring, but the free speech we were fighting for was not to support the horribly oppressed victims but to simply laugh at their tormentors and move on.