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Rieder: Clooney emerges as hero in Sony mess

Rem Rieder
USA TODAY

In a Hollywood saga that has a severe shortage of heroes, George Clooney has covered himself with distinction.

While theater owners and then Sony Pictures Entertainment cravenly buckled to terrorist threats and some news outlets reveled in the gossipy e-mails made public by the Sony hackers, the superstar actor tried valiantly to rally Hollywood to support the besieged movie company.

Before Sony pulled The Interview last week, Clooney circulated a petition expressing staunch backing for Sony's refusal — soon to become inoperative — to give in to the hackers and scrap the movie. The FBI has said that the government of North Korea was behind the hack.

The response by the studio chiefs was deeply troubling, but hardly shocking.

Actually, more like lack of response. None of the Hollywood players would sign the petition, Clooney told Deadline.com.

Now this was hardly a radical document. It was a basically a declaration of a solidarity with Sony, words of support for a refusal to capitulate to ransom demands.

In the petition, Clooney, well known for his commitment to social justice, underscored what the situation was all about and why the cowardice of the theater owners and Sony sets such a horrible precedent, opening the door for much future mischief

"This is not just an attack on Sony," Clooney wrote. "It involves every studio, every network, every business and every individual in this country."

So true.

The sad fact is that bowing to extortion — the hackers had vowed to attack movie theaters that showed The Interview — sends precisely the wrong message.

President Obama was right to condemn Sony's decision to pull the plug, as he did at his news conference Friday. "I wish they had spoken to me first," the president said.

But where was the ringing declaration of support while Sony twisted in the wind by itself? And Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton told CNN's Fareed Zakaria, "We definitely spoke to a senior adviser in the White House to talk about the situation,"

The Interview, a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco about a plot to assassinate North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un, hardly sounds like the second coming of Citizen Kane. Which matters not at all. Freedom of expression is about all kinds of expression, clunkers and masterpieces, repugnant views and soaring idealism.

That Clooney would mount a bold, lonely foray on behalf of freedom of expression is hardly a surprise. In an industry better known for vanity than redeeming social value, Clooney has long been a champion of important causes.

The son of journalist Nick Clooney, a former TV news anchor in Cincinnati, Clooney has worked tirelessly on behalf of the star-crossed Darfur region. When director Steven Spielberg's foundation honored George Clooney for his humanitarian efforts last year, Spielberg called his fellow member of Hollywood royalty "an unparalleled example of action over apathy."

Both as an actor and director, Clooney has shown a gift for making movies that are serious, yet manage to be entertaining rather than precious (Good Night and Good Luck, Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, etc).

Of course, he also starred in the three Ocean's movies, but that's hardly a surprise for a fun-loving guy who enjoys drinking and pranks as much as Clooney does.

Clooney is also a top-flight news media critic. When the British newspaper the Daily Mail published a story saying that the mother of his then-fiancée, now-wife Amal Alamuddin was telling "half of Beirut" that she was against the impending nuptials, Clooney took to the pages of USA TODAY to eviscerate the story as false. The Daily Mail promptly backed off and apologized.

And in his interview with Deadline.com, Clooney lambasted the news media for wallowing in the juicy gossip of the leaked Sony e-mails rather than pursuing the serious story of who was behind the hack.

While the Hollywood suits ignored Clooney on the hacking issue, here's hoping they'll listen to this comment from his Deadline.com interview.

"The movies we make are the ones with challenging content, and I don't want to see it all just be superhero movies," he said. "Nothing wrong with them, but it's nice for people to have other films out there."

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