Media outlets ripped for 'Sound of Freedom' criticism
Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard discusses the significance of the movie 'Sound of Freedom' to bring awareness to child trafficking and calls criticism ‘grotesque.’
"Sound of Freedom" director Alejandro Monteverde and co-writer Rod Barr responded to critics of the film in an opinion piece for the Hollywood Reporter on Monday, arguing that the movie was "not in the least bit political."
Several media outlets have claimed the film is attached to QAnon, a right-wing community that has been accused of buying into fringe conspiracy theories.
"Child trafficking is not a conservative or a liberal issue. It is a fundamental human rights issue, one that strikes at our very core as human beings," they said.
"Everyone who has seen Sound of Freedom knows that the movie itself is not in the least political. It is based on the story of a real person, Tim Ballard, who quit his job at Homeland Security to rescue trafficked children. In the development, research and writing of the story, we don’t recall a single conversation with Tim about politics. Why? Because personal politics should be irrelevant when you are rescuing children from human trafficking," they wrote.
Alejandro Monteverde and Rod Barr attend the premiere of "Sound of Freedom" on June 28, 2023 in Vineyard, Utah. (Photo by Fred Hayes/Getty Images for Angel Studios) ((Photo by Fred Hayes/Getty Images for Angel Studios))
Monteverde and Barr addressed the media's attempt to associate the movie with conspiracy theories and said that they "wrote the movie in 2015 and shot it in 2018."
"It is therefore literally impossible for the movie to reference these theories, and anyone who has seen the movie knows it does not. In fact, NPR, Rolling Stone and just about every other media outlet that has written about the movie, either positively or negatively, has made it clear in their stories that Sound of Freedom itself doesn’t contain any references to conspiracy theories. We took our inspiration from actual events, many of which were reported by major media outlets at the time," they wrote.
The Guardian's piece on the film, published in July, was headlined, "Sound of Freedom: the QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America."
"The trafficking follows no motivation more elaborate than the servicing of rich predators, eliding all talk of body-part black markets and the precious organic biochemical of adrenochrome harvested as a Satanic key to eternal life. The first rule of QAnon: you don’t talk about QAnon where the normals can hear you," the piece read.
‘THE SOUND OF FREEDOM’ EXPOSES BRUTAL FIGHT TO SAVE VICTIMS OF CHILD TRAFFICKING
"We made Sound of Freedom in a sincere effort to unite people around a fundamental human rights issue. No single interest group owns the issue of trafficking. We all own it, because it is happening in the world we all share," Monteverde and Barr continued. "The question is what we will do about it — all of us."
Actor Jim Caviezel pushed back on media criticism of the movie as well.
"They’re scared. Quaking in their boots. And it’s because the public are listening to their hearts, which is what this film tells you to do," he said in a July interview.
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Monteverde and Barr also wrote that Americans shouldn't let politics "prevent us from doing the work necessary in the ongoing fight to end child trafficking."
"We must confront the fact that, according to the Department of Justice, America is among the largest consumers of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), and that American money helps drive both domestic and international trafficking. We must confront and eradicate the sexual exploitation of children. We must confront the underlying societal issues and the criminal enterprises that render children susceptible to trafficking in the first place," they wrote.
Fox News' Gabriel Hayes and Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.
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