Earlier this month, "Sound of Freedom" was released by Angel studios, shocking audiences with how much money its taken in. As Townhall has highlighted before, its sales have been boosted in part by liberal media outlets taking issue with a film that raises awareness about child sex trafficking because it's easier to downplay the movie and the people involved in it by claiming it's all part of a QAnon conspiracy theory. There's been a whole lot bad takes, but Andy Ngô has highlighted arguably the creepiest one yet, published last Saturday for Bloomberg.
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"QAnon and ‘Sound of Freedom’ Both Rely on Tired Hollywood Tropes," claims the headline. It's not merely that the opinion piece downplays sex trafficking, but that it was authored by Noah Berlatsky, whom Ngô has the receipts to show has complained that "Pedophiles are essentially a stigmatized group."
The person who wrote this Bloomberg opinion piece is leftist activist Noah Berlatsky @nberlat. He was the spokesperson for M.A.P. (minor-attracted person) advocacy group, Prostasia. In 2017, he tweeted that pedophiles are a stigmatized group who get designated as deviants for… https://t.co/SGqZ5CEqbBpic.twitter.com/6yq7LGqfgJ
An August 30, 2021 article from The Post Millennial, where Ngô serves as the senior editor, revealed that Berlatsky was coming on as the communications director for a group known as Prostasia. As Libby Emmons explained in the piece:
Prostasia offers pedophiles a MAP Support Club, which "is a peer support chat for minor attracted people who are fundamentally against child sexual abuse and committed to never harm children, and is a safe space to have peer support in times of trouble." This group is for people who are aged 13 and up.
Prostasiabills itself as "a new kind of child protection organization" that has a different approach to protecting children than the current methods of social work and law enforcement, saying that these approaches "are less effective than they should be, because they are driven by emotion rather than evidence."
Last Saturdays opinion piece for Bloomberg is not the first time that Berlatsky has raised eyebrows when it comes to writing about sex trafficking. As Emmons goes on to write:
Berlatsky promotes the work of UC Berkeley lecturer Alexandra Lutnick, writing "Most young people who trade sex don't see themselves as victims, Lutnick emphasizes. They often see themselves as resourceful individuals who are doing what they need to survive in difficult circumstances."
He has written that fascists "love accusing people of pedophilia" because "it's an explosive accusation linked historically to queer people and Jewish people and sex workers."
Berlatsky writes for Prostasia that there's an issue with the term "trafficking" itself, saying that it "conflates underage people trading sex, consensual sex work, immigration, and all kinds of labor exploitation in all industries." He claims that to use the word trafficking for child sex trafficking is a "deliberately obfuscating term which is basically designed to target sex workers rather than labor exploitation."
A 4W article from Anna Slatz, published just the day before Emmons' article highlights even more disturbing examples on how "Prostasia's Goal is to Normalize Pedophilia," which includes the disturbing views of those affiliated with the organization.
Again, neither the headline nor Berlatsky's former employer bode well here. It doesn't get any better when it comes to the actual text of the op-ed. He points out that he sat through the movie and says the studio has a point it's not directly tied to QAnon, but he still criticizes the film all the same:
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Angel Studios, which created the thriller, insists that, despite these links, the movie itself isn't related to QAnon. And after sitting through the 2-hour movie, I think Angel Studios has a point. The film doesn't explicitly reference QAnon talking points. Instead, in many ways, it echoes and reproduces themes and tropes around trafficking that are common in mainstream Hollywood cinema. Sound of Freedom isn't QAnon propaganda, exactly, but it shows how closely QAnon propaganda mirrors common popular pulp narratives.
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Anti-trafficking experts have also argued that the film's presentation of trafficking is misleading. Data also points to a different picture than what is depicted in the film. The Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative, which collects information from around the world, found that 67% of the children who are sexually trafficked are 15 to 17 years old rather than young children. In 41% of the cases, a family member was involved.
Behind those numbers are often stories of addiction, disowned LGBTQ+ people and trading sex on the street to survive. That's why experts worry that Sound of Freedom's stranger danger narrative, and the way it centers on victims who are as innocent and as sympathetic as possible, may make it more difficult to organize help for less perfect victims when they are targeted by those close to them.
Berlatsky makes it a point to mention "disowned LGBTQ+ people." Elsewhere in his piece he also complains about race of various characters in Hollywood films. "A conspiratorial network (generally run by people of color) kidnaps an innocent child. A (generally white) hero must race to the rescue," he writes.
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His closing references arguments about fascism, too, for good measure:
Scholar Robert Paxton argues that fascism is marked, among other things, by "cults of unity, energy, and purity" and that it pursues goals of "internal cleansing." The far right is motivated by myths of corrupted innocence and corruption avenged. You can see that in QAnon. But you can also see it in Hollywood's own trafficking narratives.
So, is Sound of Freedom a QAnon dog whistle, or is it just another thriller? The answer is that — whatever the filmmaker's intentions — it functions as both. These narratives do little to help victims. But they can create coalitions of feeling, disgust and righteous rage that connect conservative conspiracy theorists with the mainstream. That's why Trump's screening it. And that's why its popularity is ominous.
At the end of "Sound of Freedom," which Berlatsky conveniently left out from his opinion piece, is text explaining that there are more enslaved people in the world today than when slavery is legal. Such a fact is too inconvenient, though, for those taking such issues with the film, who would rather denounce it as a conspiracy theory.
Bloomberg's tweet promoting Berlatsky's take was heavily ratioed, with close to 3,000 replies coming in and 486 of the 552 retweets being quoted retweets taking issue with it. Among the quoted replies including other people besides Ngô highlighting Berlatsky's problematic takes.
Prostasia has continued to do themselves no favors, since they tweeted out another leftist smear against "Sound of Freedom," this one coming from Vox, and retweeted a claim that "Sound of Freedom" is a "QAnon-linked propaganda movie."
Berlatsky's tweets are currently protected as of Thursday afternoon, though what Ngô was able to uncover is nonetheless damning enough. He also recently spoke to Newsmax about Berlatsky, offering "it's no surprise that Mr. Berlatsky has taken the video that he did in the Bloomberg Opinion piece, essentially repeating the smears that we've heard before against supporters of the film, that it's QAnon, based on conspiracies and far-right tropes."
As Ngô also explained about Prostasia, and Berlatsky's past affiliation with them, Berlatsky has "written several of" the problematic posts from Prostasia.
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