Gosnell, free speech, and free markets

image credit: thoughtsonfilm.com

The film about “America's all-time champion serial killer” Kermit Gosnell opens later this week at a few theaters, and its subject matter is outside Cleveland Tea Party’s core mission. But the topic of “free markets” is very much a core Tea Party value.

The film Gosnell has been an uphill battle from the start. It was difficult to produce, and efforts to market it are being thwarted as I type. If this film is emblematic of the closing of free markets and increasing censorship in the mainstream media and on social media, then it is very much on the front burner of the Cleveland Tea Party. How can one have free markets if a legal product is not allowed to be promoted in the marketplace?

Fox News is running paid ads, but NPR and PBS won’t run them, and Facebook has banned any ads promoting this film. It should not matter whether you are Pro Choice, Pro Life, or undecided. The issues of Roe vs Wade and abortion were hot talking points during the entire nomination process of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, so the film has a place in the current and ongoing debate. 

The other day I attended a presentation by the filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer followed by a private screening of Gosnell. Mark Steyn’s must-read blog on the film is here. The website for the film is here and it includes a drop-down which specifies theaters showing this film, listed by state. Only two were located in the greater Cleveland area (Valley View and Solon).

The goal of the two film-makers is to get enough venues and audiences to get this film to be eligible for NetFlix general access/release. If I understood them correctly, if they get enough showings and viewings in theaters this year, they can get a much wider distribution for this film via NetFlix, and they intend to categorize it as a crime drama along the line of, say, Law and Order, to reach an audience that might otherwise not choose to watch a film advertised as being about abortion per se. I thought that was a good marketing strategy. And if you are reading this blog, I hope you will consider seeing the film later this week, even if you don't think you'll like it.

From SteynOnline:

If making the film was hard, breaking through the societal omertà is harder: The Hyatt in Austin, for example, just canceled a screening at the behest of Planned Parenthood. So do be alert both to bookings of Gosnell at your local multiplex and to attempts to get it bounced. As producers and (with Andrew Klavan) screenwriters, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer set out to tell a story none of the big studios would touch, and their doggedness deserves to find an audience.

In a free market, the producers would be free to buy ads. Facebook claims the ad does not meet their “standards.” No, Facebook just doesn’t like the film and doesn’t want any more exposure of the Gosnell case. That’s not what's supposed to happen to free speech in free markets. How can you function in a free market when you are muzzled because you have a different view? No, that’s censorship, and that is why I posted with these links.

Exit question: Who will be censored next?

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