Why 'Sound of Freedom,' Jim Caviezel's controversial child sex trafficking film, is a hit

Let me give you a few hints:
Fox has been writing lots of stories about it for weeks, blasting the liberal media for any criticism of it.
Steve Bannon has been pushing it, along with other rightwing stalwarts like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson
The lead actor, producer and the guy it's based on have all been making the rounds of Fox, Steve Bannon ... etc.
Trump shared the trailer online and his campaign has announced that he will screen it at his golf club, with Caviezel and Ballard.

So, now, what do think? Has it been embraced by the right?

 

Appears so, and as usual the liberals here ingest way more right wing political media than I do.
(I watch none of it.)

But even so, what does that have to do with the plot and accuracy of the movie?
My assumption is that a majority involved on set are liberal. Including the co star I believe.

Ignoring such an important message because of the media tour stops is nuts to me.

 

It's not "accurate" in the sense that it's not a documentary, and they imagined or changed facts to make the movie more dramatic. That's nothing new for movies of course, where the goal is more to entertain than to educate. My understanding is that there is some statistical information provided in text at the end of the movie. There have been some caveats about the movie by those who don't seem affected by the politics or Qanon aspects. Some of that is addressed in the below article.

As a side note, which may not apply to this movie at all, I've seen some shows and documentaries about child predator stings such as To Catch A Predator. I have wondered whether there's a risk with getting too specific about how the investigations/stings are conducted because that might educate predators about how to be more elusive. For example, the folks who create YouTube videos where they catch predators get the predators to admit what they've done by convincing them they won't call the police if they just own up to it. It's really amazing that anyone agrees to talk to them, but thankfully most of the predators aren't just sick but are apparently also really stupid.

What Anti-Trafficking Experts Think of the Hit Movie ‘Sound of Freedom’

“We’re not taking doors down. We’re not taking people over our shoulder,” Jeff Shaw told CT. Shaw is the chief program officer for Frontline Response, a Christian anti-trafficking organization based in Atlanta that has operations in Georgia and Ohio. Shaw was “blown away” by the movie and is recommending it to people, but has caveats: “Even child trafficking victims that have been ‘taken,’ most of the time, they’re resistant to being rescued, because they’re not in that psychological space, either. So a big part of our trainings is deprogramming our volunteers into what their expectation should be about how people are going to respond to them, and what sex trafficking looks like.”


Rescue operations do happen, experts told CT, but they are often a small part of anti-trafficking work. Anti-trafficking ministries in the US do the less dramatic work of offering hot meals during street outreaches, having safe houses available that involve long-term rehab and recovery, educating and supporting children at risk of exploitation, training employers to recognize trafficking, and collaborating with law enforcement. Sometimes ministries’ work looks like poverty fighting, addiction recovery, or relationship building.


“It’s great that [the film] is raising awareness,” said Suzanne Lewis-Johnson, a former FBI agent and a Christian who worked on child trafficking cases in Ohio for a decade. “But if we become too hyperfocused on what we think trafficking looks like, we miss the real thing. We tend to base our programs and approaches on the anomaly. … We’re going to miss what’s under our noses if we think it’s these people overseas moving through networks.”

***

“We’ve had survivors say to us, ‘I didn’t know I was trafficked because it didn’t look like what it looks like in the movies,’” said Beck Sullivan, the chief program officer at Restore, an anti-trafficking organization that works in New York City. Sullivan, too, thought the movie was good for raising awareness, and she appreciated the closing text in the film that notes that the US is among the largest consumers of child sex, showing that the demand problem is domestic. But: “It’s important for people to get educated on what it looks like in their town.”

 

Not having seen the movie and only hearing about it from friends ( I don’t watch or listen to much msm ) is there an actual Quanon message in the movie or is all of the hand wringing about it purely tangential because of Jim Caviezel?

 

I *think* that some folks may be concerned that this will set off another Comet Pizza situation and that someone will get hurt this time.

I think it’s safe to say that everyone deplores sex trafficking but sometimes crazy conspiracies gain a life of their own on the interwebs.

 

That's a good point. Apparently, the main character in the movie kills one or more people. Maybe the movie could inspire people to go outside the law and take matters into their own hands - to conduct their own investigations and rescue operations. Notably, the site for the movie says this never happened in real life; Tim Ballard never killed anybody.

 

None of us know how accurate the movie is. Not a clue.
And I've seen no one suggest that kidnapped children is an issue that should be ignored.

BTW, the subject is whether the film has been championed by the right. So if by "ingest way more right wing political media" you mean "reading stuff to see if it has" ... you're right.

 

Not sure, probably just tangential. But stuff like this will raise some eyebrows, don't you think?

Box Office Hit ‘Sound Of Freedom’ Controversy—Including QAnon Ties And False Claims Theaters Are Sabotaging Screenings—Explained

 

Nah, no Hillary picking kids up in the AdrenoVan. No overt Q stuff, and I am sure to keep up with those menaces.

However, all the Q Nuts believe it is that whole “right in front of your eyes” thing they believe Hollywood does, but this time it’s “white hats” flipping the script. JC supports this idea by going on adrenochrome “explainers” during press junkets.

Again, at this moment, roughly one of every three threads on the nuttiest of the Q sites (it is the one of the sites that sprung up after their infamous Reddit forum was closed) is about this movie. They see it as a mainstream endorsement of the complex web that Pizzagate has morphed into.

If not for JC and his relentless Q adjacent (at least) touring, this is another movie about trafficking, although it is obviously more singularly focused on that idea. Taken is about the same thing, but what perseveres from that is Liam Neeson’s “very particular set of skills” and is essentially a group of action set pieces with trafficking as the plot device.

The Q population finds that to be a “tell.” Taken is snickering in your face about the trafficking, not highlighting the abhorrence. I would suggest that the writers could have chosen a hundred other motivations for the abduction and chose that one precisely because it IS universally abhorrent. I also see no way a consumer of that product could get a glib satisfaction from the depiction. But I’m a normie, so I am just perpetually hoodwinked by The Cabal.

It is beyond debate that the Q community views this movie as a direct endorsement of their worldviews. True or not is debatable although JC certainly has latched onto at least some of it. My guess is that the vast majority of the people involved in the making the movie would find Q as gross as most other people. But that is also baked into the product. They believe they are part of an enlightened tiny minority and that each one is expertly guiding the rest of their immediate circle to the light. That is JC in this case, to them.

 

If Q Anon is the movement unflinchingly attempting armed rescue of sex-trafficked children from the basements of the local pizza parlors worldwide with no basements, then Republicans are the unhinged minds banging pots and pans in the background, making tons of heat and light, but accomplishing nothing other than pushing conspiracy theories, which it turns out, only apply to them.

The best way to cover your own crimes is apparently to point your finger at other people and say "Rabbit!".

We know better thankfully because they tend to accuse others of acts they could not possibly have any evidence for unless they were doing it themselves. The we see them months later, another MAGA youth pastor, Catholic priest, or Republican state congressperson arrested for molesting or sexually abusing kids.

When they actually achieve the power they believe rightfully belongs to them, what do they do?

Try to overthrow the government, sell fellow citizens to the Saudis so they can take a chainsaw to them to pay off their bad investments, steal the government's secrets for the highest bidder, and generally shit the bed.

The tragedy is not that they will die knowing they were basically traitors to their country, but that they are somehow heroes and patriots in their hopelessly muddled minds where over a million fellow citizens died in a worldwide pandemic because their flawless leader didn't believe in basic science and pushed bleach and horse dewormers on stupid people who believed him. "What an exceptional mind" they think, "no one else figured out the cure but our Dear Leader!"

The rest of us won't be shedding any tears when these folks end up in prison, pushing up daisies, or on the side of a milk carton.

 

Holy Moly. Clearly, I’m not elite. My liberal friends talk about dogs, children, hiking, tennis, golf, fishing, each other and travel - unless that is all a subterfuge and they are talking in code about baby blood. If only I knew more I might understand.

 

The real problem with it imo is that it is celebrating a guy who used child sex trafficking to make himself famous while doing little to actually combat human trafficking or help the victims. I posted a couple articles in another thread on this point.

 

Why would AMC sabotage their own screenings when they could just choose not to show that movie?

 

You’ll have to ask Soros about that

 

the Right is currently trying to connect sex trafficking and pedophilia to the Left through support of Trans people, to gin up future votes..hence the right wing echo chamber heavily pushing a B movie in unison..

 

Actually, the subject was the actual movie.
The "championed by the right" tripe was an off topic side street.

 

4D Chess

 

Why do you think the thread title specifically lists the lead actor and not say, the director, Mira Sorvino, or perhaps nobody?