My colleague Jeff Charles has written on what might motivate the left to come to the defense of child sex traffickers. Jeff sees tying the movie to QAnon as a way of discrediting the people flocking to the theaters; see Why Is the Movie ‘Sound of Freedom’ Political? Because the Left Wants It to Be and Sound of Freedom: Why Are Progressives Targeting a Film Exposing Child Trafficking?
I think Jeff is correct, as far as it goes, but we need to look a bit deeper into this to see what is going on and to understand the political imperative to marginalize a single film.
I think when you view the attacks on Sound of Freedom as a reaction to the lower social orders stigmatizing something the elites believe to be perfectly fine, much of the media reporting starts to make sense. After all, who are these unwashed cretins to tell the Masters of the Universe what is right and wrong. Once you stir into that the non-trivial number of people in the media who use child pornography and who think “intergenerational love” is natural, it is easy to see the trashing of a film as being less an exercise in journalism than an attack on what is perceived as an outmoded sexual ethic.
What we should learn from this movie and the reaction to it is that child sex trafficking is a big deal. It is bigger than Chester the Molester in the pedo-van or the little Honduran boy being rented online. It is an activity favored by the upper crust of Western society, such as one might find on the passenger list of the Lolita Express. The QAnon focus is a smokescreen. It is a way of discrediting the film without defending child sex trafficking and pedophilia. By extension, that discredits any investigation into child sex trafficking. Most of America has never heard of QAnon, and the fact that so many media outlets grabbed the same angle shows there was some coordination on the theme. While law enforcement is not looking at this entertainment for the superwealthy right now, with enough of a public outcry, they might. That would be bad for a lot of very wealthy men.