Culture

Obama Accidentally Called James Franco ‘James Flacco’ And The Internet Is All Over It

He also fronted up to North Korea and held the first all-female press conference but whatevs.

by Meg Watson  20 December 2014

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It must be rough being a politician these days. Leaving aside the fact that Tony “sleazy winks” Abbott and Joe “poor people don’t drive” Hockey’s unprompted gaffes and word voms are at this point occurring so frequently I should probably write them a thank you letter for basically paying my salary, the public spotlight can be incredibly harsh. Even politicians who aren’t widely acknowledged as human disasters can struggle to keep their cool.

Take for instance, President Obama. Though his oratory skills are renowned as some of the best in the world, he’s today proven in the last press conference of the year that he too can slip up from time to time. Unfortunately for him, the internet never forgets.

When asked a question about the recent controversy surrounding the Sony hack and the resulting cancellation of The Interview, Obama gave James Franco the full Adele Dazeem treatment and renamed him James Flacco. “I think it says something interesting about North Korea that they decided to have the state mount an all-out assault on a movie studio because of a satirical movie starring Seth Rogen and James Flacco.”

“I love Seth and I love James,” he then continued, fooling absolutely nobody. There’s already a ‘James Flacco Name Generator’ on Slate, and social media accounts set up in the actor’s new name.

flacco

While we love political gaffes as much as — actually more, much much more than — the next person, this one seems a little unfortunate. The question Obama was answering at the time was a very important one about creative sovereignty, digital privacy, and the consequences of Sony’s decision to pull the film. “I think they made a mistake,” he said. “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship in the United States … If someone is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, think of what they can do if they see a documentary they don’t like, or a news report they don’t like.”

Though he sympathised with the fact Sony were a private company with concerns about liability, he lamented the fact that they had not made contact with him before making their decision. In a show of strength in the face of this dangerous precedent he then ominously said the US would take some kind of action against North Korea for their moves against Sony. “We will respond proportionately and in a space, time and manner that we choose.”

As if the fact that Seth Rogen and James Franco now have the ability to seriously affect national politics wasn’t historic enough, the press conference was also the first that only called upon female journalists. Despite the press corps being dominated by male television reporters, nearly all the eight who posed questions today were female print journalists.

It’s probably not a great sign that #JamesFlacco is the only one of these things currently trending on Twitter.

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Have a look through the full press conference here (or skip to around the 13.13 mark to re-live that Flacco goodness):