By  Real Clear Investigations
A documentary film about an African American lawyer who rose from poverty and oppression in the Deep South to the highest court in the land would seem a natural for Black History Month. Yet, in February, at the very time its Prime Video service was featuring films highlighting black history makers, Amazon without explanation stopped offering digital streams of âCreated Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.â
While the film was pulled despite having at one time reached No. 1 on Amazonâs documentary charts, the worldâs largest online retailer continued to make available streams of less-popular documentaries, including a favorable one on Anita Hill, the former Thomas colleague who nearly derailed his Supreme Court confirmation.
That was frustrating to Michael Pack, writer-director of âCreated Equalâ and a documentary filmmaker for decades. But it was no surprise to him and the small but growing cadre of other conservative documentarians, who say they face obstacles because of their politics and are starting to fight back against the long odds of âcancel culture.â Black conservative scholar Shelby Steele saw Amazon initially refuse to carry his documentary âWhat Killed Michael Brown?â last year because it challenged the liberal narrative about the 2014 shooting in Ferguson, Mo., that helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. Amazon, which relented after a public outcry, did not respond to a request for comment.
Justin Folk, director of âNo Safe Spaces,â which focuses on college-based attacks on free speech and features prominent liberals including Dr. Cornel West and Van Jones, along with conservatives such as Dennis Prager, Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro, said he had a hard time finding a traditional distributor for his documentary because Hollywood saw the film as conservative.
âDespite having big names in our film, a big audience, and a very relevant topic, we were mostly ignored,â said Folk, who said his film, which eventually grossed $1.3 million, was rejected by the prestigious Telluride Film Festival. âIn one case, a major distributor actually admitted to us that they think our film is a winner but they canât get behind it because Dennis Prager is in it.â
Conservative filmmakers faced little discrimination in the past because there were so few of them. That started to change in 2012, when conservative commentator Dinesh DâSouzaâs â2016: Obamaâs Americaâ became the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time ($33 million).
The years since have been a golden age for documentaries. Streaming services such as Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu have created major distribution channels, matching content with massive, algorithmically targeted audiences. This, in turn, has led to explosive growth in filmmaking. Documentaries that in the past might never have seen the light of day â since their economic viability would be tied to packing movie houses â can flourish today, particularly lately with people more homebound due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Typically it was liberal activists, not conservative polemicists like DâSouza, who made documentaries. As Thom Powers, who runs Americaâs largest documentary festival, DOC NYC, told CBS News, the best documentaries try to make a difference. âThere have been films that have gotten people out of prison, like the âParadise Lostâ series, or Errol Morrisâ âThin Blue Line.â âSuper Size Meâ totally changed the conversation around fast food. âInconvenient Truthâ totally changed the conversation around climate change. So all over the world, you can see documentaries having an effect.â
But the idea of âmaking a differenceâ has generally trended in one direction politically, illustrated lately by Barack and Michelle Obamaâs film production deal with Netflix, which has already yielded a best documentary Oscar. Virtually ignored is an underserved niche in the market. âMore than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the November election,â the Hollywood Reporter noted in a March 11 story. âAnd, at the moment, thereâs little Hollywood content that directly appeals to them. That leaves a big opening for those willing to risk ostracization from the rest of the industry.â
Industry support is crucial because it helps in raising money, in earning film festival slots to persuade a distributor to get a film in front of an audience, and enticing journalistic outlets to cover and review it.
âIf youâre on the left, thereâs a whole infrastructure that enables you to make things very easily,â said DâSouza, who illustrated his point by citing what he calls the âcharmed lifeâ of left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore. Each new Moore film is considered a pop-culture moment. They are featured at the top festivals, where they often win prizes â to go along with his Oscar for âBowling for Columbine.â
âHeâs on the âTodayâ show and âThe View.â ⊠Thereâs a whole apparatus of publicity in place,â DâSouza added.
DâSouza has succeeded without enjoying such support. But he said the odds against conservatives have worsened in recent years because of suppression by both Big Tech and woke corporations. His 2020 film, âTrump Card,â scrapped its planned theatrical release for a video-on-demand slate due to COVID-19, but the hurdles didnât stop there.
âThe radioactive connection wasnât me, but Trump,â DâSouza says. âTrump Cardâ hit video-on-demand services several weeks before the 2020 presidential election, by design. DâSouza says Amazon placed a large order of âTrump Cardâ DVDs, which his company met. But some Amazon customers were told the product was âout of stockâ and wouldnât be delivered until after Election Day.
âIâm not used to these kinds of obstacles,â he says. âI never thought of Amazon as a left-wing company.â Heâs changed that view after seeing it take part in a concerted takedown of Twitter alternative Parler as well as it removing books such as âWhen Harry Became Sally,â which criticized elements of the trans movement.
âWhat Killed Michael Brown?,â produced by filmmaker Eli Steele in tandem with father Shelby, faced similar discrimination. Amazon initially rejected the handsomely mounted, jazz-filled work, saying it didnât meet the streaming giantâs quality standards and that no appeal would be heard. That news brought attention from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and other media outlets, and Amazon quickly reversed course. Eli Steele says that opened his eyes to how much sway Amazon holds over the film marketplace.
âThe numbers between Amazon and other platforms are not even comparable,â Steele says of its sizable audience reach. He says most film festivals âlack the backbone to show perspectives outside of their echo chambers,â but he doesnât want ideological diversity to be forced into the current system.
âAnyone can start their own film festival and they program it however they wish,â he says. âSo why not plan a prestigious film festival that crosses all sorts of lines and invites healthy dialogue and debate?â
The conservative film sub-genre is attracting some unlikely participants. Radio talk show host Larry Elder made a splash in 2020 with âUncle Tom,â a documentary letting black conservatives like him share their views and discuss how theyâre treated by select liberals. The title captures the latter sentiment.
Elder, a best-selling author and nationally syndicated talk show host, says right-leaning documentaries often turn to private sources, like affluent Republicans, to fund their work. His film got little attention outside of conservative outlets at a time when the media invested heavily in telling black stories by black creators.
âIt was ignored by the Hollywood âwe want diversityâ community, including all the film reviewers of the major newspapers and trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter,â says Elder, who co-wrote, co-produced and appears in the film. âUncle Tomâ boasts only three official reviews at RottenTomatoes.com, and no criticsâ-average âTomatometerâ score, in contrast with a robust 96% âfreshâ rating from users.
Neither The Hollywood Reporter nor Variety would comment on the matter.
Yet none of that stopped Elderâs documentary from turning a tidy profit. The filmâs virtual opening weekend last June grossed $400,000. Elder notes the film quickly recouped its costs and ended up earning multiples of its budget of some $450,000 including post-production. It helped that Elder has a hearty social media presence â 859,000 followers on Twitter alone â along with a syndicated radio show to promote the project.
Its commercial success was also aided by the development of alternative distribution platforms, showing that markets can punish discrimination, and that discrimination may serve as the mother of innovation.
Initially, âUncle Tomâ was sold exclusively through a partnership with SalemNOW, part of the conservative media company that distributes Elderâs radio show. Following that 70-day exclusive with SalemNOW, the filmâs website (UncleTom.com) became the primary sales location, with additional platforms added over the ensuing few months, including iTunes, Amazon and, later, Amazon Prime.
Elder says his team unsuccessfully approached Netflix about carrying âUncle Tom,â a platform that features a crush of original, left-leaning documentaries including â13thâ and âMiss Americana,â a film that honored Taylor Swiftâs progressive awakening.
The team behind the film didnât submit it to most major film festivals, save for the boutique USA Film Festival in Dallas. The documentaryâs conservative bent helped shape that decision, as did restrictions in place from the ongoing pandemic.
RealClearInvestigations reached out to multiple documentary groups for comment on this story, including DOC NYC, the Southern Documentary Fund, the Center for Independent Documentary, Docs in Progress and the International Documentary Association. None responded to those queries. Neither did several major film festivals, including Sundance, Telluride, Slamdance and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Other conservative filmmakers are going outside traditional channels. SalemNOW began streaming Packâs âCreated Equalâ on March 30 in response to Amazonâs decision to pull the film. (Itâs listed on Amazon as a DVD but often out of stock.) Christopher Rufo has used YouTube to distribute his short films, including âChaos by the Bay: The Truth About Homelessness in San Franciscoâ and âMob Rule in Seattle.â
âI can immediately inject it into the bloodstream of the national conversation,â Rufo said. But, he added, coming out as a right-leaning storyteller in the documentary field is âcomplete poison to your career.â
âPeople tell me, âYouâre now conservative. I canât even work with you,ââ says Rufo, who adds documentary organizations that once collaborated with him suddenly stopped returning his calls. âItâs kind of shocking. ⊠They canât even process how anyone would have another opinion.â
Documentary producer Nadia Gill of Encompass Films noted the industryâs allegiance to identity politics in a recent column for Persuasion.com:
First-hand experience of a subject has always been considered helpful in documentary filmmaking. But this has traditionally been a genre in which creators are free to engage with material that lies far beyond the boundaries of their own lives. Now, during the entire process â from access to financing and distribution â the filmmakerâs identity is at least as closely scrutinized as that personâs filmmaking aptitude.
Gill, who describes her political philosophy as âcenter left,â says modern documentaries can be broken down into two categories â classic and commercial, the latter fueled in part by Netflixâs robust documentary lineup. The former, Gill says, isnât just liberal in nature but âfringe left,â while the commercial market offers some room for right-of-center storytelling. Either way, conservative documentaries rarely grace the film festival circuit.
âThe vast majority of submissions [to film festivals] are, in fact, going to be from the left perspective,â she says. âIt would be good for our industry to hear those voices [from the right] ⊠and have an honest conversation.â
That wonât happen unless more independent funders show up to support this brand of art. Left-of-center storytellers can lean on a variety sources, including the Ford Foundation (2017âs âWhose Streets?â) and the MacArthur Foundation (2010âs âHow Democracy Works Nowâ) to finance their work, Gill says.
âProgressive institutions have set themselves up for years to make these films,â she says. So far, few non-left groups have copied that approach.
Amanda Milius agrees. âThe donor class of the right has to start acting like the donor class of the left,â says Milius, director of the 2020 documentary âThe Plot Against the President,â based on the book of the same title by Lee Smith, a freelance contributor to RealClearInvestigations. âPut that money into issue-based culture ⊠and creators that hold the same values you do. Make something that lives forever.â
âYouâre probably gonna make your money back and more,â she adds, âplus, youâre investing in actual change of the culture.â