When politics trumps basic humanity.
In a bizarre development from the front lines of the culture wars, the Sound of Freedom controversy won’t subside.
Kristen Abrams writes in USA Today that the film does “more harm than good.” “The movie has united religious conservatives and Trump supporters, as well as a small sampling of the chronically paranoid,” writes Elaine Godfrey in the Atlantic. In the Los Angeles Times, Lorraine Ali quips, “Unfortunately, the very mention of pedophilia rings a Pavlovian bell for QAnon subscribers.”
For its analysis, Bloomberg turned to Noah Berlatsky, who previously worked at the advocacy group Protasia, which has lobbied in favor of child-sex toys and against bans on child pornography. Berlatsky has previously complained, “Pedophiles are essentially a stigmatized group,” and “The issue isn’t that people care about victims. The issue is that pedophiles are loathed.” He once proclaimed, “Child Sex Workers’ Biggest Threat: The Police.”
One month after the film’s release, mainstream media outlets renewed attacks with desperate-sounding headlines of a donor’s child-kidnapping charges. (As it turns out, a person who donated an unknown amount to the film’s crowdfunding effort was arrested after renting an apartment to a woman in a messy custody battle.)
Rare is the movie I deem worthy of a two-plus-hour theater visit, but I was determined to find out why a small-budget film about child trafficking and sex slavery stirred up a coastal-elite hornets’ nest.
Jim Caviezel is excellent, as usual, in the lead role. The filmmakers evoke the appropriate emotions on this most troubling of topics without salaciousness. There is some Christian dialogue but no proselytizing; any political message is imagined. For such a controversial film, it is remarkably benign.
Coastal mouthpieces should have been quick to announce that child welfare is not a partisan issue. There even would have been room to jab conservatives for politicizing a topic that doesn’t warrant it. Most would welcome such a sane rhetorical environment. Alas, they went the “QAnon-adjacent” route.
The ethical side of this controversy is thoroughly covered by now. (Brad Miner wrote this excellent piece in The Catholic Thing.) Yet, another aspect has continued to baffle me: child abuse is an idiotic way to establish political brand identity.
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