Vox goes off on a valid movie exposing Human Trafficking
Sound of Freedom wants to raise awareness about child trafficking. Here’s what it’s really doing.
Is a movie still just a movie if it becomes a culture war battleground?
Aja RomanoJul 14, 2023,
Usually when the culture war comes to the movies, it’s in the form of conservative backlash to films they perceive as too liberal. Increasingly, however, conservative filmmakers, often working outside of Hollywood’s studio system, are grabbing the spotlight with unexpected hits, some packed with ideology and tinged with hallmarks of the modern right-wing worldview: moral panic, hints of vast leftist conspiracies, and a sense of persecution.
The latest surprise right-wing hit to tick these bingo squares is Sound of Freedom. The film stars Jim Caviezel inthe very (very) loosely true story of Tim Ballard, who founded the controversial anti-trafficking organizationOperation Underground Railroad, or OUR. Coasting on word of mouth and a mountain of free publicity from influential supporters like Elon Musk and Mel Gibson, Sound of Freedomwent head to head against Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in its July 4 opening weekend and wound up reportedly out-earning the Harrison Ford-led sequel by several million on opening day (if its maker Angel Studios’ on-site accounting is to be believed). It’s since gone on to earn nearly $50 million. Not bad for an indie outsider.
But Sound of Freedom has also generated a considerable amount of scathing left-wing backlash, aimed at both the movie itself, with its QAnon-adjacent rhetoric, and the film’s target audience. Multiple left-wing critics have spent parts of their reviews of the film itself denigrating the way its fans are watching it, with one critic seemingly appalled that audiences “acted like they were at Top Gun.” For their part, those audiences have flocked to the theater with the zeal of parishioners. Some fans have described attending the movie as a “duty,” while others have spun conspiracy theories that movie theaters are trying to prevent them from seeing the film — which, of course, just generates more determination to watch the film to spite the libs.
Clearly, there’s a lot happening around this film — and while Sound of Freedom ostensibly wants to create awareness about child trafficking, that theme has mostly gotten lost in all the noise.
Sound of Freedom is its own, highly effective, hype machine….
With all that indie outsider energy combined with the long delay in release, Sound of Freedom was primed to feed a meta-narrative about the right’s sense of oppression at the hands of the left. Still, while most mainstream media reviewers have either been dismissiveof the film or ignored it altogether, Sound of Freedom has its unexpected champions. Variety called it a “solid,” “disquieting” thriller and praised Caviezel’s performance as his finest since The Passion of the Christ.
At the root of the film’s power seems to be its “urgency” toward its subject matter; fans apparently leave the theater galvanized to proselytize on its behalf, spreading the word about the dangers and rampant devastation of child trafficking — and, most of all, about OUR and its all-important rescue missions.
It’s a hype machine that’s not just a hype machine, but a patriotic, perhaps even divinely mandated, responsibility…
But Sound of Freedom has also generated a considerable amount of scathing left-wing backlash, aimed at both the movie itself, with its QAnon-adjacent rhetoric, and the film’s target audience. Multiple left-wing critics have spent parts of their reviews of the film itself denigrating the way its fans are watching it, with one critic seemingly appalled that audiences “acted like they were at Top Gun.” For their part, those audiences have flocked to the theater with the zeal of parishioners. Some fans have described attending the movie as a “duty,” while others have spun conspiracy theories that movie theaters are trying to prevent them from seeing the film — which, of course, just generates more determination to watch the film to spite the libs.
Clearly, there’s a lot happening around this film — and while Sound of Freedom ostensibly wants to create awareness about child trafficking, that theme has mostly gotten lost in all the noise.
Sound of Freedom is its own, highly effective, hype machine
https://www.vox.com/culture/23794355/sound-of-freedom-controversy-true-story-qanon