Rolling Stone calls 'Sound of Freedom' a 'superhero movie for dads with brainworms'

Rolling Stone was the one outlet brave enough to blow the lid off of a problem not talked about enough: gang rape on college campuses. The story was so important to Rolling Stone that it didn't matter that the writer made it all up. It wasn't factually true, but it was morally true.

There's another story that's not talked about enough: child sex trafficking. That's changing with the release of "Sound of Freedom," which is a box office hit. It's gotten good reviews, although some outlets are trying to outdo each other being snarky. There's a screenshot of some of the worst headlines going around, but Rolling Stone's is probably the worst. It's a vigilante fever dream for dads with brainworms.

"To know thousands of adults will absorb Sound of Freedom, this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis… well, it’s profoundly depressing. Worse still, they’ll want to spread the word." https://t.co/rVGgXtXMWM
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 10, 2023

Thousands of adults? More like tens of thousands of adults. Is child sex trafficking "a hidden civilizational crisis"? Or does it happen so infrequently that we can overlook it?

Miles Klee writes:

… it will surely do no good to point out Sound of Freedom‘s hackneyed white savior narrative. Or its wildly immature assumption that abused and traumatized children go right back to normal once the bad guys are in handcuffs. Or that it enforces stereotypes about trafficking that Angel Studios itself says are less than accurate. To the film’s intended viewers, these cannot be flaws — they’re the whole appeal.
There is visible suffering all around us in America. There are poor and unhoused, and people brutalized or killed by police. There are mass shootings, lack of healthcare, climate disasters. And yet, over and over, the far right turns to these sordid fantasies about godless monsters hurting children. Now, as in the 1980s Satanic panic, they won’t even face the fact that most kids who suffer sexual abuse are harmed not by a shadowy cabal of strangers, but at the hands of a family member. To know thousands of adults will absorb Sound of Freedom, this vigilante fever dream, and come away thinking themselves better informed on a hidden civilizational crisis… well, it’s profoundly depressing. Worse still, they’ll want to spread the word.