QAnon and ‘Sound of Freedom’ Both Rely on Tired Hollywood Tropes
Sex trafficking movies routinely skip over some very important questions, which gives the conspiratorial right room to run wild.
Critics have linked the Jim Caviezel film to the QAnon conspiracy cult. Photographer: Dave Kotinsky
Photographer: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images North AmericaDonald Trump plans to screen the film Sound of Freedom at his New Jersey golf club next week. The film, about agents fighting a child sex trafficking ring, has been embraced by the far right and Christians, who have helped boost it to more than $50 million in receipts at the box office.
Many critics have linked Sound of Freedom to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy cult. They've also been startled by its mainstream success. But the truth is that the conspiratorial right and the Hollywood default aren't that different — which is why, perhaps, our polity has had such difficulty rejecting QAnon, Trump and fascism.
The film is controversial because the man the movie is about, former Homeland Security operative Tim Ballard, and the actor who plays him, Jim Caviezel, both have links to QAnon. Ballard has promoted the baseless claim that furniture retailer Wayfair was involved in child trafficking. Caviezel has spoken at multiple QAnon events. In an interview with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he promoted one of the cult's most outrageous conspiracy theories, claiming that child traffickers drain their victim's blood to create a serum to prevent aging.