© The Post MillennialJim Jim Caviezel; promotional poster for the Cuties movie
The Washington Post and Rolling Stone both came out criticizing the anti-child sex trafficking film, Sound of Freedom after its release. Both also praised another movie, Cuties, which depicts a twerking dance crew made up of little girls.
The articles that both the Washington Post and Rolling Stone released about Sound of Freedom accuse the film of being associated with QAnon conspiracy theories. The film is based on a portion of Tim Ballard's life and the beginnings of him forming the organization, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR).
Rolling Stone said that actor Jim Caviezel, who depicts Ballard in the film, has given "speeches and interviews" about "evildoers who are harvesting the blood of children."
The Post pointed out that the film has been "promoted on QAnon message boards" and plays into the theory that "global elites are kidnapping children, having sex with them and harvesting their blood."
Ballard and Caviezel recently went on an interview with Jordan Peterson. Ballard also addressed this and explained that blood and organ harvesting is "very real." He has posted a video showing a raid where this occurred in Western Africa.
He continued and said, "So, I might say something like that and then they connect it to something a QAnon person says about a celebrity who must be doing this too. But there's no evidence to back that. They make a false connection there." Other reports detail the practice.
Another report from the Guardian also made similar claims about Sound of Freedom, yet it also has a report from 2015 about a charity that was formed to prevent child sacrifice and blood rituals in Uganda. The report said, "10,317 youth in Uganda, representing every district in the country, confirmed they have heard of a child being sacrificed."
The Post and Rolling Stone, aside from attempting to link Sound of Freedom to QAnon, praised the movie Cuties, in which little girls are sexualized in a twerk-dancing crew.
One statement from Rolling Stone said the backlash at Cuties was just part of a "tactic [that] has its roots in conspiracy theorist circles, such as the QAnon community."
The article alleges the backlash to the film was part of the "far right's obsession with pedophilia."
Another piece from Rolling Stone called it a "coming-of-age movie" that was caught in a culture war. The piece says it was not "a salacious bit of pedo-bait" but instead said it was its "polar opposite" that points out what happens when children get too involved with sexuality.
The Post called Cuties "an unflinching look at what it means to be a preteen girl."
It is the "kind of story that isn't told well very often, and deserves to be told more." The Post's article continued. "Whose gaze does the camera represent? How is this scene supposed to make us feel? These are the kind of nuanced discussions that art is meant to encourage," the article went on while discussing explicit scenes in the film.
The article says that the point of the camera angle in the scene is to show how "unhealthy adults could perceive what's happening on the screen" while healthy adults will be shocked.
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