According to Rolling Stone, the worldwide severity of child trafficking is a mere fantasy of the right, developed to distract people from “mass shootings, lack of healthcare, [and] climate disasters.”
Reporter Miles Klee released his review of Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom” on Friday. The film stars “The Passion of the Christ” actor Jim Caviezel as Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, and details how the former DHS agent saves children from human trafficking worldwide.
But as we’ve seen time and time again, the mainstream media doesn’t want to expose the dangers children face from predators on all sides. Instead, they cover it up.
Klee’s review, littered with rageful bias, is only the latest manifestation of that practice. His comments about the content of the film makes one who has seen it think that Klee only watched the trailer and not the full movie:
Ballard, Caviezel, and others of their ilk had primed the public to accept Sound of Freedom as a documentary rather than delusion by fomenting moral panic for years over this grossly exaggerated ‘epidemic’ of child sex-trafficking, much of it funneling people into conspiracist rabbit holes and QAnon communities. In short, I was at the movies with people who were there to see their worst fears confirmed.
It’s a stomach-turning experience, fetishizing the torture of its child victims and lingering over lush preludes to their sexual abuse. At times I had the uncomfortable sense that I might be arrested myself just for sitting through it. Nonetheless, the mostly white-haired audience around me could be relied on to gasp, moan in pity, mutter condemnations, applaud, and bellow ‘Amen!’ at moments of righteous fury, as when Ballard declares that ‘God’s children are not for sale.’
Related: No-Spoiler Review: 'Sound of Freedom' is a Must-See Film Worth Supporting
Klee woefully ignores the fact that 25% of all human trafficking victims today are children, or that there are more slaves today than there ever has been in the history of the earth. It lacks genuine compassion for affected children, though it incorrectly blasts the film for suggesting “that abused and traumatized children go right back to normal once the bad guys are in handcuffs.”
Instead, Klee believes that those on the right are making up the worldwide reach of human trafficking and turning people away from “real” problems. “There are poor and unhoused, and people brutalized or killed by police….And yet, over and over, the far right turns to these sordid fantasies about godless monsters hurting children.”
He also criticizes the film for portraying a white man as a force for good. “...[I]t will surely do no good to point out “Sound of Freedom’s” hackneyed white savior narrative.”
Meanwhile, the film intentionally and artfully dodges graphic presentations of child trafficking, only showing scenes before and after and trusting that the audience will understand what happened in the middle.
After the film’s conclusion, Caviezel shares a special message, saying that the bravery of the victims makes them the real heroes. It’s a difficult movie to watch, not because we have a “fetish,” but because we wish we could do more. And we wish we had opened our eyes earlier.
But these very qualities that make the film so wonderfully impactful are what make the film so dangerous, according to Rolling Stone and Klee.
“To know thousands of adults will absorb Sound of Freedom, this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis…well, it’s profoundly depressing,” Klee wrote concluding his review. “Worse still, they’ll want to spread the word.”
What Klee did not realize is that his review feeds into the reality – or “conspiracy theory”, as he would have it – that many media outlets lack compassion for children. Instead, they’re complicit in promoting child abuse. “Sound of Freedom” is an outstanding rallying cry for us to rise up and fight for our future.
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— MRCTV (@mrctv) July 7, 2023