Readers React:  Has the fuss over ‘The Interview’ been good for Sony’s bottom line?

To the editor: Though the digital release of “The Interview” simultaneously with its showing in theaters may be a game changer, the more important question to Sony Pictures is how the accompanying publicity will affect the bottom line. (“More a cause than a must-see, ‘The Interview’ finally arrives in theaters,” Dec. 25)

No matter the merits of “The Interview,” and the reviews have been mixed, the publicity surrounding the initial withdrawal of the movie and then the later decision to release it should give it a status akin to blockbuster.

The objections from North Korea have given financial wings to a movie that probably would have otherwise sunk into obscurity. Sony has hit a gold mine by the attendant publicity.

Nelson Marans, Silver Spring, Md.

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To the editor: If Americans are concerned about freedom of speech, why are they are only rallying to see “The Interview” and not “Citizenfour,” the documentary about Edward Snowden and spying by the National Security Agency?

Why aren’t Americans championing the causes of Snowden and Chelsea Manning?

Katie Shiban, Pasadena

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To the editor: I never intended to see “The Interview,” simply because of its predictable foulness of humor. The movies featuring Seth Rogan that I witnessed, with great regret, were a crash course in debauchery.

Now this movie has become a cause celebre for freedom of speech and noble defiance of oppression. To see this film, the talking heads have said, is to support America.

Considering this carefully, I’ve decided that even in the face of such urgings and the pressure of a nation to resist a mad North Korean dictator, I will not see this movie. I refuse to facilitate cultural degeneration.

We do more damage to this country with this sort of ordure we produce than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or anyone else could ever manage. I thus believe that my most patriotic act is to refrain from financing the further denigration of this nation.

Michael E. White, Burbank

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