Sound of Silence

Every now and again there’s a glitch in the matrix where we’re granted a glimpse into the absurdity of our media and pockets of public perception.

After completing the film over five years ago and jumping innumerable obstacles just to get into theaters, Sound of Freedom has amassed $40M at the box office after six days since the film’s release, a figure that doubled even the most generous estimates projected by the production studio. The film that required crowdfunding to meet the $14M production cost managed to beat Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the box office on the fourth of July, a film with a $350MM production cost. 

I knew nothing of the movie nor the story itself until a text I received from a friend this past Friday morning. Upon being introduced, I searched reviews online only to find articles from publications slamming the film, such as The Guardian’s article, “Sound of Freedom: The QAnon-Adjacent Thriller Seducing America.” Jezebel’s article entitled,” Sound of Freedom’ is an anti-child trafficking fantasy fit for QAnon.” Or my personal favorite, put out by Rolling Stone, “Sound of Freedom’ is a Superhero Movie for Dads with Brainworms” going on to say, “The QAnon-tinged thriller about child-trafficking is designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer.” To draw a line from the entertainment outlet, “Deadline” when commenting on the surprising box office success of the film, “Angel Studios is calling the weekend at $18.2M, $40M for six days. Don’t know where that extra magic money is coming from; like the right-wing crowdfunding.” While I am all in favor of the press’s ability to critique as they wish, I couldn’t help but find it odd that the criticisms of the film had very little to do with the production, but instead, it was found in the characterizing of the movie as a “Right-Wing conspiracy theory” with an implied element of white-male extremism despite 58% of ticket sales comprising of women and over 30% from Hispanics. In my anecdotal experience, at what was a packed 10:30pm showing Friday night, the non-mexican half of my ethnic make-up may have been the only non-hispanic representation in the entire theater.

The issue with this unfair characterization, of course, is that this film is based on a true story that follows the career of former Special Agent Tim Ballard who conducts an operation that saved over 120 children from a life of slavery and sexual abuse, even going so far as to show the real-life footage of the raid and the arresting of traffickers. Moreover, the criticisms beg the question, if the story of a man who has rescued thousands of children from a life of hell is considered “Right-Wing,” what exactly does “Left-Wing” represent and what is the motivation for being in opposition to rescuing children?

Banana Hands

Following Graduate School, Tim Ballard was hired in at the C.I.A. for his expertise on matters of terrorism then went on to join the Department of Homeland Security as a special agent. Ballard was assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force where he was sent on operations as an undercover operative for the U.S. Child Sex Terrorism Jump Team. Sound of Freedom follows the real-life operation in which Ballard’s unit raids a trafficker and subsequently rescues a young Hispanic boy. The boys’ sister was also abducted so the special agent sets out to rescue her. While setting up an operation in Columbia to save the life of the boy’s sister as well as fifty other children, government bureaucracy gets in the way preventing his ability to carry out the mission. Despite having only 10 months until retirement and the receipt of his six-figure government pension while providing for a family of eight at the time, he resigns from his post at the Department of Homeland Security and goes on to rescue the girl and an additional 120 children in the set-up that led to the imprisonment of Columbian traffickers. 
Tim Ballard has since gone on to found the “Operation Underground Railroad.” With the help of the organization’s biggest donor and supporter, author and speaker Tony Robbins, the group has been involved in “4000+ Operations, impacted 7000+ lives, and involved in 6500+ arrests.” To quote Ballard in a recent interview with commentator Katie Pavlich, “We’re thrilled that we have an opportunity to shine a light on what is the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world. $150 billion is made every year off the backs of slaves, including millions of children who are enslaved.” In a time where we decide to label everyone “A Hero” and “Brave,” I’d be hard-pressed to think of many people more deserving of the title than Tim Ballard.

Comfort

Our media, with the help of social media, has managed to do an incredible job of politicizing every single issue or event. Anything the government and its professional scribes don’t want to become an accepted narrative amongst the masses, they simply tie some obscure affiliation to QAnon, Trump, the dreaded Republicans, or the “Weird” libertarians so the public compartmentalizes the idea or the claim into the “crazy box” and simply washes their hands of it. Off the top of my head, the statement and belief that Covid-19 originated from the Covid-19 Lab in Wuhan, was portrayed as an “Anti-Asian Right-Wing QAnon Conspiracy Theory.” It was such an effective method of conditioning the subconscious through repetition and affirmation that it led to the passing of Anti-Asian Hate Legislation to combat the “alt-right extremism against Asian Americans” that is statistically non-existent and in decline. Furthermore, the accepted narrative within this country for over 2 years was that the virus originated from a bat or a pangolin in a Wuhan wet market despite this genetically modified covid-19 genomic code having never been in the bat population before, during, or since the outbreak.

When it comes to the matter of QAnon, I studied the ideology and found most of the claims almost intentionally and satirically absurd. However, an idea within the movement involved underground sex trafficking rings which allows the media to tie this film and the message within to an outer fringe political ideology. While neither this essay nor the Sound of Freedom seeks to focus on any allegations or claims made against celebrities and politicians nor promote QAnon, to pretend that trafficking rings involving children do not exist in the world today is to either be completely unaware or to willfully turn on blinders in exchange for comfort from what is an incredibly unpleasant and disturbing reality.

This is not to say that disbelief in sex trafficking networks that have become a multi-billion dollar industry is tantamount to ignorance, or worse, malevolence. This is to say, however, if there is an issue that should remain free from politicization, one that everyone should be in universal support of, it should be the freeing of children from the clutches of slavery.