~a column by Colleen O’Brien
The July release of the controversial movie “Sound of Freedom” tells a tough story – children stolen from their lives and put to work as sex slaves. As sickening as the movie is, it is hopeful in that it tells the world that’s willing to watch it that the issue is not something we can ignore, and watching the movie may spur governments and ordinary people to do more about it than we’re doing now, considering there are more enslaved than in any point in human history.
A friend told me she would not watch it. “Why? It only makes me feel bad, and I feel bad about enough things going wrong in this world as it is.”
Well, that’s a legitimate precaution in protecting one’s own psyche from awful things done to human children by human adults.
Years ago, when I read the book, then watched the movie “Twelve Years a Slave,” based on the book by the slave himself, a human adult preyed upon by other human adults, another friend said something similar: “I don’t need to watch horrible things to be informed.”
True.
My take is that if children or free black men are enslaved – stolen, tortured, forced to labor at sex or picking cotton – if they are forced to suffer inhumane treatment, surely I have the fortitude to watch the factual stories and do something about them.
The problem here is the word ‘factual:
“Twelve Years a Slave” is a book written in 1853 by a man stolen off the streets of DC by a couple of conmen and sold south. After more than a decade of horror, he gets out of it with the help of friends he knew in the north.
“The Sound of Freedom” is questioned by critics because of non-factual scenes in the movie, placed for dramatic effect and box office appeal. Also, “The Sound of Freedom” is supported by the far far right Q-Anons, known as a marginal organization when it comes to facts—they say the movie shows how wealthy people on the left finance sexual exploitation of children. This is not necessarily believed by higher-ups out there in right field, but they spout it anyway for political gain of some kind.
So, “The Sound of Freedom” is valuable for its exposure of the sickening underbelly of human civilization, as is “Twelve Years a Slave.” One is acclaimed as historically factual, the other is under increasing suspicion because of warring viewpoints – Is it a true story about a real American hero? Or is it partly fact and partly cinematic hyperbole that portrays misinformation and fosters conspiracy?
We live in trying times not just because awful things are going on – they have throughout the history of humans – but because we are flooded with facts as opinion and opinion as truth. It’s difficult to form our own view on happenings because, at least in my case, I’m often not smart enough to discern truth from fiction. The purveyors of our news, our entertainment and what we see with our own lyin’ eyes are jumbling our brains. My brain. I can’t speak for you, and I probably can’t agree with you – best friend, family member, wise mentor or not. We’re all on our own.
Although we could just give in and find peace from somebody else’s profundities – we could join any number of groups sure of the truth. That number would include a religion (the estimate is that there are roughly 4,000 of them on the planet), a political party (Wikipedia says 51,900 of them), a book club, a witch’s coven, a monkery, a Q-Anon.
We are, after all, a social species. We need each other and find we have to be together, or we go nuts. And we could do that anyway – go nuts – whether by ignoring all of it and just living, or by taking up life as a hermit who plays solitaire or stacks rocks or naps a lot . . . until we sweat to death because of cow and car gas messing with our atmosphere or a sudden miracle that will zap us all into goodness
Life is hard choices and high hopes.
