OSAKA –

The movie "The Interview," featuring the supposed blowing up of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Un, is a sad commentary on the idiocies of our troubled times. It should not have been made. It should disappear into oblivion for its poor quality and wretched taste. Yet, it must be defended on grounds of freedom of speech and expression, especially against a humorless, insecure tin-pot dictator.

Too many people have too many difficult questions to answer over the silly saga. In order of their appearance on the silver screen, should Sony Corporation be disbanded, since a modern electronics company that cannot protect its privacy against hacking can hardly survive?

Or shouldn't Sony Pictures' Hollywood studios be spun off and handed over to managers who have a clue about what the motion picture business is about (probably not the present Sony lot in Hollywood, who have hardly distinguished themselves)?

Should U.S. President Barack Obama have gotten involved, even if what he said was correct? "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," said Obama.

Are American major cinema chains so scared of terror threats made by anonymous groups, for which we are told there is "no credible evidence," that they turn down what was supposed to be a major film by a major studio at the holiday season?

Can't anyone do anything to calm down North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to get a grip on life, or will he risk having a heart attack if he is not bumped off by someone who is really fed up with the way that he is ruining the country?

Not for the first time, we have to ask what is China's role in shielding or even helping North Korea?

Is this the beginning of the end of Hollywood that it could even imagine that such a childish film could become a Christmas blockbuster?

How did the film make it to review and New York billboards, and suffer hacking, before the Sony bosses realized the issues and in panic decided not to show the film, a decision that they have now partially reversed?

Should some humorless journalists' union sue Sony Entertainment because the film is a travesty of what journalists do (even if the CIA dare not sue on the grounds that The Interview is a dangerous caricature of what it does)?

Who are the Guardians of Peace who hacked and distributed the secrets of the Sony empire for the world to see?

Official Washington is convinced that the hackers are North Koreans, but in South Korea there is less certainty, with the view expressed that they may be a couple of bright disgruntled youths in a garage. Maybe we should forget "The Interview" and make a fresh film about the incredible shenanigans about the movie. After all, truth isn't truth stranger than fiction?

For anyone who has been living on another planet, or is a hermit in North Korea, "The Interview" purports to tell how Kim Jong Un invites an American talk show host to interview him, and the CIA enlists him and his producer to assassinate the North Korean dictator. Somehow, after a series of amateur James Bond mishaps — though without bedding beautiful girls — they succeed, and indeed the film shows Kim's face blown apart by a missile.

By all accounts the film is crass juvenile slapstick with plot and jokes that a 9-year-old boy might have written.

The reliable film rating site Rotten Tomatoes rated The Interview at 52 percent, nowhere near the 85-plus for potential Oscar winners. "Middling laughs bolstered by its two likable leads," it commented.

The film's trailer showed the CIA briefing the assassins, telling them that Kim claims to talk to dolphins and does not urinate or defecate. "Everyone has to pee and poo," responded the brave heroes, demonstrating the adult level of the dialogue.

The top 50 films of 2014, according to Rotten Tomatoes, all scored 88 to 100 percent, and the lowest score among the top 100 films was 84 percent.

But there is clearly no accounting for taste since the December box office leader, "Exodus: Gods and Kings," starring Christian Bale and Ben Kingsley, was rated a mere 28 percent. That was before the final Hobbit film burst on the scene (rated 50 percent).

For Kim, it was bad enough to see his country portrayed as an impoverished dictatorship, but for a humorless man to see himself blown apart is clearly a joke too far.

In cinematic history, sensible filmmakers have set their controversial political commentaries in imaginary countries, and most have steered away from killing living figures, though Tony Blair and Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth might protest about character assassination in the Oscar-winning "The Queen." The famous Charlie Chaplin movie "The Great Dictator" was a devastating attack on Adolf Hitler without bothering to breathe his name.

On the other hand, there are new series in the works that portray actual problems in actual countries today. The fourth season of the U.S. Showtime's Emmy-winning "Homeland" series is set in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has been described as an "inaccurate, godforsaken hellscape."

Meanwhile, HBO is planning a comedy series starring Jack Black as a U.S. foreign service officer who confronts a rogue general who has seized Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Americans seem to have a dangerously mistaken messianic view of themselves as saviors of the world. We should all worry about that.

But behind the hilarity at a childish spoof that went badly wrong, there are serious questions, especially for Sony and for the U.S. itself.

Sony stands to lose up to $200 million if the film goes completely down the tubes. The management was clearly out to a long lunch.

Some defenders try to excuse Sony, claiming the problems, including the hacking, were the fault of the U.S. film-making offshoot. This will not wash. The Tokyo company has a string of problems of its own, including hacking, and has not taken sensible precautions.

After the 2011 attack on its PlayStation platform, the whole company should have tightened its systems against intruders, but failed lamentably.

Kazuo Hirai, Sony's chief executive, was strangely silent after "The Interview" hacking broke, and left communications to Sony Pictures.

Some Sony insiders say that the Japanese headquarters is about to take a tighter grip and Kenichiro Yoshida, recently appointed as chief financial officer, will be in charge.

But there is a real question whether Japanese managers understand the culture of their U.S. empire.

On the other hand, there are questions about the behavior of the Hollywood moguls and their understanding of the world.

The dithering of Sony Pictures in the face of pressures from the hackers and the subsequent blowback from Obama and defenders of free expression hardly inspire confidence.

For the United States, the whole issue is also serious. Who will be next to disrupt American life? Where is the social and cultural glue that binds the U.S. together as a community where freedom of speech is protected (as in the U.S. Constitution)? Who will be next to make outrageous demands?

Giving in to blackmail and accepting censorship is a slippery slope to hell. What does it say about the security state with its vast resources that U.S. Big Brother Obama has to ask for China's help? Or are the hackers based in China?

Kevin Rafferty, a professor at the Institute for Academic Initiatives, Osaka University, previously worked at the World Bank.