A few nights ago, I decided to watch the film, “Sound of Freedom.” This is supposedly the most controversial film of 2023 and I wanted to understand why people were so up in arms over it, despite my hesitation to watch it.
Now, to be clear, my hesitation comes from spending time with the people in the PACT (People Against the Crime of Trafficking) chapter of my city, speaking/teaching about this issue in my Ethics class and the many books/articles I’ve read over the years about it. Given what I’ve learned, I find it a very difficult subject, even though it’s so important.
As a movie, we can speak about its artistic dimensions including direction, acting, set design, costumes, etc. It was clear there was a limited budget to put this together, but what they did with those funds worked really well. There were moments when the acting really brought you in, but there were also frustrating points where scenes felt like they were dragging on. From a cinematic standpoint, I found it to be decent.
But we are talking about a movie based on a true story and this is where it all goes off the rails.
The core message of the movie is to put an end to child trafficking. It’s disturbing, it happens and it needs to stop.
I would think that’s a message we could all rally around as even prisoners in maximum security facilities consider crimes against children more heinous than anything they could’ve done.
But, nope—the Internet lost its mind.
“This movie misrepresents the data as most child trafficking is done by groomers targeting teenagers. It’s way more nuanced than this sensationalized story.”
Okay… but it’s a movie and you need to sensationalize it. Otherwise, it becomes a boring news report that nobody cares about, which was the whole purpose of why this film was made.
“This is QAnon conspiracy nonsense!”
Children are being trafficked. Not sure what the conspiracy part is.
“This is nothing more than conservative propaganda!”
Hmmmm… not a single mention of politics or political ideals other than working against the crime of trafficking children. As someone whose eyes have rolled to the back of his head at political imaging in films, I didn’t see that here.
“This movie preys on the emotions of the audience to get more people to watch it!”
I’m not even going to validate this argument as legitimate.
“Have you heard the things Caviezel and Ballard have said in interviews?”
This I can understand as I love Woody Allen movies, but can‘t reconcile the allegations. The conversation about separating the art from the artist is a whole other issue.
Anyway, these go on and on and I just can’t wrap my head around it.
Liking or hating the film is one thing, but getting into arguments about child trafficking? Let’s just say as someone who has been online since the mid 90s, I can understand why my generation hates the Internet today.