The Angel Studios thriller Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, continues to draw crowds at the theater. The film was made on a relatively low budget of $14.5 million when the industry spent $60-$100 million on movies in a comparable genre. Sound of Freedom, an apolitical film opposing something civilization should be against, that is, the sexual trafficking of children, has turned out to be a Rorschach test for where people, particularly the media, actually stand on the subject.
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Some of the criticism is easily brushed aside. For instance, this review by Bloomberg.com is easy to comprehend once you know the reviewer.
So, is Sound of Freedom a QAnon dog whistle, or is it just another thriller? The answer is that — whatever the filmmaker’s intentions — it functions as both. These narratives do little to help victims. But they can create coalitions of feeling, disgust and righteous rage that connect conservative conspiracy theorists with the mainstream. That’s why Trump’s screening it. And that’s why its popularity is ominous.
They post the review without ever noting that the reviewer, Noah Berlatsky, is the spokesperson for a pro-pedophilia — but without sexual contact (I’m not making that up) — or “minor attracted person” group called Prostasia. It would seem to me that kind of disclosure would be critical information for the audience, but I guess journalism has moved on even if I haven’t.
The person who wrote this Bloomberg opinion piece is leftist activist Noah Berlatsky @nberlat. He was the spokesperson for M.A.P. (minor-attracted person) advocacy group, Prostasia. In 2017, he tweeted that pedophiles are a stigmatized group who get designated as deviants for… https://t.co/SGqZ5CEqbB pic.twitter.com/6yq7LGqfgJ
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 17, 2023
The creep who wrote that article also wrote this https://t.co/BudU4eUA2s pic.twitter.com/t5DiBFPRkJ
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) July 18, 2023
Rolling Stone has been particularly vitriolic in its treatment of the film (see ‘Sound of Freedom’ Sends a Rolling Stone Writer Into Fits of Rage). Some have attributed this bias to the fact that Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Schachtman had intervened in the past to whitewash a story on someone he was “friendly” with that involved kiddie porn. The presumption is that Schachtman is soft on the subject. I have no way of knowing if this Twitter theory is correct.
Spoiler alert: Meek, toward whom Rolling Stone top editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman was "friendly", is accused of transporting CP. 🤡🥴 https://t.co/3HUqDyXDg8 pic.twitter.com/hoYKmPUd3W
— Salazar (@MikeSalazar777) March 22, 2023
Some others, like Jeff Goldstein, think the attack on Sound of Freedom is a precursor of a full-blown drive to normalize pedophilia.
It’s weird how the legacy press — the Praetorian Guard of the ruling elite — is so damn upset about a movie, based on a true story, about the sex and slave trafficking of children.
I wonder if the concomitant move by ruling elites to suggest children have the appropriate… pic.twitter.com/2Dv7r26ygI
— Mulder’s Long Fight for Account Reinstatement (@proteinwisdom) July 23, 2023
My colleague Jeff Charles has written on what might motivate the left to come to the defense of child sex traffickers. Jeff sees tying the movie to QAnon as a way of discrediting the people flocking to the theaters; see Why Is the Movie ‘Sound of Freedom’ Political? Because the Left Wants It to Be and Sound of Freedom: Why Are Progressives Targeting a Film Exposing Child Trafficking?
I think Jeff is correct, as far as it goes, but we need to look a bit deeper into this to see what is going on and to understand the political imperative to marginalize a single film.
Developed cultures develop strata. At the top is the cultural elite. They set trends for the lower classes. Who comprises the elite changes over time. In monarchial Europe, the elite was determined by proximity to the Royal Family. No amount of money could help you cross that chasm created at birth. Our culture has several different types of elites, but I’d contend that the closest analogs we have to the European aristocracy of the 18th century are the superwealthy.
Below that top strata are the strap-hangers, those who want to be seen with the elites and try to emulate them.
Most of society lives out their lives without thinking a lot about the elite or their catchfarts.
If we look at France on the eve of the Revolution, we have a good explanation for the reception of Sound of Freedom.
Marquis de Sade did not exist in a vacuum. If you think of his more lurid writings as a DIY manual for deviant sexual practices, I think you are missing the point. He chronicled in literary form a debauched world nearly schizophrenic in its contradictions. On the one hand, France was the seat of Catholicism, and the Church had immense influence in society and government. In the governing Estates of Pre-Revolutionary France, the First Estate was Catholic clergy. Yet, existing parallel to this overt piety was a demimonde where men like de Sade lived. To be clear, I’m not asserting de Sade was an elite member. He wasn’t. But he was that second category who ingratiated himself with the elite and was rewarded by their tolerance.
This parallel society was possible because the upper crust was immensely rich, untouchable by the law, and bored because their roles in governing and war-making had been farmed out to social inferiors. With nearly unlimited power and wealth at their disposal but with nothing useful to do, the elites searched for ways to amuse themselves. But they weren’t in search of just any amusement. They wanted amusements that the commoners couldn’t enjoy. In the case of de Sade, this was a kind of sexual acting-out that might have resulted in a commoner getting a one-way trip to the Mediterranean galleys or a tumbril ride to the guillotine.
Power, as they say, corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The corruption that comes with absolute power is not confined to the public acts of government; it become a part of man’s nature.
The lifestyle lived by the elite could have been what Charles Baudelaire described as “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.” The desert is the monotony and boredom of everyday life, while the oasis is that rare moment of excitement or pleasure. But the excitement and pleasure quickly become boring, and that leads to the search for new stimulation.
I would argue that while the visible excesses of the ancien régime were held in check by public morality, we have advanced beyond that stage. We are at the stage that Friedrich Nietzsche called the “transvaluation of values” and “the will to power.” Christian morality is dead as a restrictive force. Freed of that restriction, you can pursue whatever pleases you. There’s a catch, though. When commoners are engaged in activities that would have drawn stiff prison sentences only a decade ago, you have to find something else to scratch that itch. Enter child sex trafficking.
Child sex trafficking is despised in most of the civilized world, so our elites tart it up with private islands and resorts only reachable by private jets. The clothing, food, and setting give the tawdry purpose a patina of elegance.
From the whole Jeffrey Epstein saga, we know there is a market for child sex trafficking. I think Epstein is only the tip of the iceberg. If commoners can take a trip to Thailand or Cambodia, then there are more Lolita Expresses and “recruiters” like Ghislaine Maxwell catering to the needs of the superwealthy and the politically powerful. Around that elite core are the strap-hangers, the remora fish for the superwealthy. These people get an entre into a world where they will never belong by insinuating themselves into the presence of the truly powerful, the Übermenschen that immense wealth creates. They can partake in the pleasures using the protective umbrella of the elites; in return, they defend the elite when under attack.
I think when you view the attacks on Sound of Freedom as a reaction to the lower social orders stigmatizing something the elites believe to be perfectly fine, much of the media reporting starts to make sense. After all, who are these unwashed cretins to tell the Masters of the Universe what is right and wrong. Once you stir into that the non-trivial number of people in the media who use child pornography and who think “intergenerational love” is natural, it is easy to see the trashing of a film as being less an exercise in journalism than an attack on what is perceived as an outmoded sexual ethic.
What we should learn from this movie and the reaction to it is that child sex trafficking is a big deal. It is bigger than Chester the Molester in the pedo-van or the little Honduran boy being rented online. It is an activity favored by the upper crust of Western society, such as one might find on the passenger list of the Lolita Express. The QAnon focus is a smokescreen. It is a way of discrediting the film without defending child sex trafficking and pedophilia. By extension, that discredits any investigation into child sex trafficking. Most of America has never heard of QAnon, and the fact that so many media outlets grabbed the same angle shows there was some coordination on the theme. While law enforcement is not looking at this entertainment for the superwealthy right now, with enough of a public outcry, they might. That would be bad for a lot of very wealthy men.
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