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Podcasts Take Two
Sony cyber-attack brings out Hollywood Schadenfreude
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Dec 22, 2014
Listen • 7:09
Sony cyber-attack brings out Hollywood Schadenfreude
Though the FBI takes the Sony hack seriously, much of the media coverage has focused on the distasteful and downright offensive emails of Hollywood's elite.
Workers remove a poster-banner for "The Interview" from a billboard in Hollywood, California, December 18, 2014 a day after Sony announced was cancelling the movie's Christmas release due to a terrorist threat. Sony defended itself Thursday against a flood of criticism for canceling the movie which angered North Korea and triggered a massive cyber-attack, as the crisis took a wider diplomatic turn. AFP PHOTO / MICHAEL THURSTON (Photo credit should read Michael THURSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
Workers remove a poster-banner for "The Interview" from a billboard in Hollywood, California, December 18, 2014 a day after Sony announced was cancelling the movie's Christmas release due to a terrorist threat. Sony defended itself Thursday against a flood of criticism for canceling the movie which angered North Korea and triggered a massive cyber-attack, as the crisis took a wider diplomatic turn. AFP PHOTO / MICHAEL THURSTON (Photo credit should read Michael THURSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
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MICHAEL THURSTON/AFP/Getty Images
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Though the FBI takes the Sony hack seriously, much of the media coverage has focused on the distasteful and downright offensive emails of Hollywood's elite.

November's massive Sony hack exposed the social security numbers, personal bank information, and salary histories of over 100,000 employees. But it also revealed unsavory commentary from some of Hollywood's top players -- and that's what's garnering the most attention.

The emails leaked run the gamut from snarky and distasteful to downright offensive. Just a sampling of them exposes Channing Tatum gloating over the success of "22 Jumpstreet" (let's just say he sure does like the word HA!), Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin ranting about Angelina Jolie, (calling her a "minimally talented spoiled brat"), and gender pay disparities among Hollywood's top actors. 

President Obama and the FBI have taken the Sony hack seriously, and some in the media have suggested that the focus should be on how vulnerable companies are to such attacks. Yet, much of the coverage has focused on the name calling and private pandering in the emails of Hollywood's elite. Has the mainstream media lost sight of the significance of this attack?

Tom Carson writes about this in "Black Christmas: Scandal, Schadenfreude, and the Spectacle of the Sony Hack" for Grantland.  He joins Take Two to talk about the hack and why it pleases us to observe, as he writes, "the destruction of more working relationships between fundamentally unpleasant rich people than you could shake an Oscar at."