“Sound of Freedom”: how to make a fortune with a mediocre movie

Twenty years ago Barbra Streisand sued a photographer who had taken an aerial shot of her home. Her effort to suppress the photo brought it to the attention of millions. Hence the “Streisand effect”: try to censor something and you risk making it bigger. Today a new name is needed for a related phenomenon: claiming to be repressed to generate hype. “Sound of Freedom”, a new film about Tim Ballard, an anti-sex-trafficking activist, is a case study in how the culture war can be turned into profit.