Thursday, March 21, 2024

The War on Children by Robby and Landon Starbuck: Movie Review

 


The War on Children by Robby and Landon Starbuck
A new documentary takes on too much and offers simplistic solutions

 

The War on Children is a documentary addressing various social trends that damage children. The War on Children premiered on Twitter in February, 2024. War is two hours, twenty minutes long. The War on Children cites the following trends that damage children: child trafficking, trans extremism, online pornography, Marxist domination of public education, greedy corporations, and water pollution. The documentary recommends the following solutions: parents spending more time with their children in outdoor activities, limiting children's internet access, attendance at Christian churches, men reclaiming their masculinity, and voting Republican.

 

War was produced and directed by 36-year-old Robby Starbuck, aka Robert Starbuck Newsome. In 2022, Starbuck ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a Tennessee congressional seat. Before that, he was, according to his Vimeo bio, a video and film director. Interestingly, that bio states his preferred pronouns as "he/him." The bio says he has worked with the celebrities "Akon, Smashing Pumpkins, Sarah Bareilles, Metric, Megadeth, Snoop Dogg, Machine Gun Kelly & Yellowcard." Starbuck identifies as Cuban-American.

 

War also features Starbuck's wife, Landon Starbuck, and their three children. On her website, Landon Starbuck says, "I'm passionate about faith, family, freedom, truth and justice … I speak, write, make music and advocate to protect all children. I left the music industry as a Billboard charting artist to focus on fighting child trafficking … I started my own non-profit combatting child abuse, exploitation and trafficking in 2021 … All glory goes to God. I love Jesus [and] my family." 

 

I follow movie news but I had heard nothing about The War on Children. I also follow Andrew Gutmann. In 2021, Gutmann received national attention when he published a protest against Woke education at Brearley, a private K-12 school for girls in Manhattan that charges $61,500 in annual tuition. Gutmann's letter is here; a 2024 update is here. Gutmann recommended The War on Children, and Gutmann's recommendation made War a must-see film for me.

 

I watched The War on Children on Twitter, straight through, twice. Though I share many of the filmmaker's concerns, the film did not work for me. Both times, after watching it, I felt agitated, depressed, and powerless. War shares much in common with Matt Walsh's 2022 documentary, What Is a Woman? I review What Is a Woman? here. What Is a Woman? worked for me in ways that The War on Children did not.

 

War did satisfy many other viewers. I can't find a Rotten Tomatoes page for War. I'm guessing that the go-to movie review aggregation site is ignoring the film for political reasons. As of this writing, War has fourteen amateur reviews at the Internet Movie Database. Thirteen of those reviews award War a ten out of ten score. One review awards it a nine out of ten score.

 

The War on Children addresses a panoply of topics. It opposes what it calls the Woke agenda. This agenda includes sexual indoctrination in schools, the impact of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, sexual theorist John Money, and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. Scholastic, "the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books," publishes trans books; the Starbucks oppose this. War also opposes Drag Queen Story Hour, the medical transitioning of children, Child Protective Services' trans agenda, and laws around the transing of children. War condemns Pornhub, widespread abandonment of Christianity, and excessive screentime. War raises alarms about a pesticide, atrazine, which is present in tap water. Atrazine has been shown to damage the sexual development and expression of frogs. War opposes men competing against women in athletic competitions. It opposes child sex trafficking.

 

The style of The War on Children reflects Robby Starbuck's career as an award-winning music video director. Ironically, even as Starbuck condemns modern media's negative impact on children's minds, Starbuck uses the techniques that modern media use to appeal to the lizard brain. "Lizard brain" is a pop term. As Dr. Joseph Troncale put it, the lizard brain is in charge of "fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing up, and fornication." War uses multiple filmmaking tools to arouse fear, anger, and disgust.

 

The War on Children moves very quickly. Robby and Landon Starbuck interview multiple subjects. Not only are these interviews not shown in full, many times subjects aren't even allowed to speak an entire sentence before the film cuts to a new image. One poor subject is allowed only to voice one or two word agreements with what Starbuck is saying. "Definitely," she says, before the film cuts away from her.

 

Some interview subjects are seated in comfortable looking chairs placed over a Persian carpet. In some interviews, one can see horses grazing or other bucolic scenes out a window. In other interviews, Starbuck darkens the background and shines light on the speaker's face. The combination of surrounding darkness and the bright lights on speakers' faces is reminiscent of interrogation scenes from film noir. One such interview is of a vulnerable girl who underwent a double mastectomy after she had just turned 13. This poor child is clearly sad and has yet to find peace with what doctors did to her. The film's choice to film her face surrounded by blackness struck this viewer as unkind.

 

Starbuck speaks with Brianna Titone, a member of the Colorado House of Representatives. Titone is a man who identifies as a woman. Titone supported a bill that would allow minors from states that ban the medical transing of minors to enter Colorado and to be transed in that state. The transing of children involves double mastectomies, castration, and the administration of drugs. The transing of children can harm the child for life, including through sterility, osteoporosis, and the inability ever to have an orgasm. Children do, sometimes, later regret being medically transed, and, of course, there is no road back. Breasts and wombs, penises and testicles cannot be re-installed once amputated. In other words, Titone supported a law that would facilitate health care providers doing damage to children. This fact alone is enough to cause viewers to oppose Titone. Starbuck is not satisfied with simple opposition. His filmmaking technique works to intensify hatred in the lizard brain.

 

Before Starbuck began his interview with Titone, Starbuck made a very quick reference to Stacie-Marie Laughton. Laughton is a man who identifies as a woman. Laughton was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Laughton is a sex criminal. He was charged with the sexual exploitation of children. Again, Starbuck introduces Laughton's vile crimes very quickly, so quickly it's hard for the viewer to understand how Laughton is associated with Titone. Both Laughton and Titone are men who identify as women but I'm unaware of any allegations that Titone is a sexual abuser of children.

 

Starbuck calls the bill Titone supported a "child trafficking" bill. Child trafficking has a specific meaning – the merchandising of children for sexual exploitation. That's not what Titone supported. Starbuck phones Titone and they speak briefly. As he is speaking to Titone, Starbuck is filmed in a dark room, in silhouette, against a row of dirty windows, looking out at a brick wall. The soundtrack plays ominous music, the kind that would play in a slasher flick just before some cute chick in a miniskirt got whacked by a serial killer.

 

If all of that were not enough, the very next scene is of a hyena with a big, messy glob of pink meat hanging sloppily from its mouth. The camera moves back to Starbuck, who is raging against the transing of children. Then, the scene is intercut with images of vultures circling in the sky. Back to hyenas, back to Robby Starbuck in the darkened, filthy room, back to a hyena in a face off with a lion. We need to be like lions, Starbuck concludes.

 

I disagree with Brianna Titone. I want to see a nationwide ban on the transing of children. Here's the thing. Brianna Titone is a human being, not an animal. Using film to reduce a human being to an animal image has a very bad history. I think immediately of The Eternal Jew, which equated Jews to rats. Dehumanization is a line no one who self-identifies as a Christian should ever cross.

 

In another bad choice, the documentary argues for a return to Christianity, and shows a simple cross lit up against a night sky. A lit up cross against a night sky called to mind, for this viewer, the KKK burning crosses. No, I'm sure the Starbucks are not KKK members, but that image should not have been included in the film.

 

The War on Children is not just fast, it is loud. The soundtrack overwhelmed this viewer. I felt as if I were being pounded over the head with a mallet. I didn't need to be manipulated. The material onscreen was disturbing enough. Sometimes less is more.

 

War, just as in many TV docudramas, intercuts interviews with stock footage that is somehow related to the interview topic. Riley Gaines is a former competitive swimmer who was forced to compete against Lia Thomas, a man who identifies as a woman. Starbuck's interview with Gaines repeatedly cuts away from her face and is interrupted by stock footage of people swimming. In a particularly bizarre touch, when Starbuck mentions that the transing drug Lupron is given to sex offenders to chemically castrate them, stock footage of tough looking men in orange jumpsuits is shown. I really didn't need to view that footage to feel horrible about children being damaged by healthcare professionals. Starbuck's interviews with real people affected by the trends he condemns are powerful in and of themselves. Riley Gaines describing being forced to share a locker room with a naked man pretending to be a woman is powerful enough. The stock footage of people swimming was impersonal and distanced me from the valuable Gaines interview.

 

The War on Children takes on many topics. Pesticides that ruin the sex of male frogs, retreat from organized religion, the state preventing parents from having contact with their own children, the impact of Playboy: all of these topics are appropriate fodder for documentaries all by themselves. Jamming them into one documentary, even one that is over two hours long, does not achieve a positive end. This overloaded documentary scares and saddens the viewer, but doesn't offer any hope or actionable plan for most people.

 

I wasn't familiar with many of the interview subjects in War, and only very brief introductions are provided. I had to supplement my viewing with internet searches. Sometimes these searches immediately turned up hostile websites. War did not provide me with enough information to counter the hostile material I found, so I had to keep digging.

 

In War, Justin Danhof provides a capsule view of how corporations manipulate society to serve the Woke agenda. His explanation was intriguing and I wish it had been given more time, and been presented more slowly. I searched Danhof on the web because I wanted to know more about his work. Google immediately turned up a hostile site, here. Ironically enough, even this hostile site made Danhof sound intriguing.

 

Kara Frederick's bio at the Heritage Foundation website makes her sound like a powerhouse. Unfortunately War allows her to do little more than agree with statements made by Robby Starbuck. YouTube offers a ninety minute interview with Frederick entitled "Big Tech's Totalitarianism" here.

 

I searched "Layla Jane," a young lady featured in War. She is still very young and had only just turned 13 when doctors submitted her to a double mastectomy. She told Starbuck that social media brainwashed her into choosing trans extremism. Google took me to a webpage devoted to a court case. Layla Jane, I learned, is suing Kaiser Hospital Foundation. I wish her every success.

 

Layla Jane's case's webpage states, "Kaiser’s doctors failed to provide Layla Jane with the kind of counseling and treatment that would have helped address her underlying conditions. Instead, Kaiser’s doctors betrayed their oath to do no wrong" and pushed trans extremism on a 12-year-old child. Had they not done so, "Layla Jane would likely be one of many thriving women who experienced emotional troubles during adolescence. Instead, Layla Jane will spend the rest of her life dealing with lingering side effects."

 

In War, Layla Jane described excruciating pain she experienced in her chest after the mastectomies. Professionals used distorted language to steer her into surgery. They said, "You won't be able to chest feed," using a misogynist euphemism for breast feeding. They also referred to the double mastectomy as "top surgery," again, a misogynist term designed to diminish the complexity, power, and centrality of the human female breast. Layla Jane must live with pain, with unwanted facial and body hair, an Adam's apple, and with a permanently deepened voice.

 

Victoria Kult is a former porn performer and current exercise and nutrition marketer. I tried learning more about her through an internet search and I found her old porn and her current exercise videos.

 

Chaya Raichik is the woman behind Libs of TikTok. She mentions how rapidly TikTok introduces trans extremist material to any new user. War contrasts what TikTok looks like in China – it features educational videos – with the perverse videos marketed in the US.

 

Jessica Tapia is the subject of an all-too-brief interview. She recounts, very briefly, having been sexually molested as a child. She immediately informed her mother of the attack and the criminal was apprehended, thus saving his own children, whom he was also violating. When Tapia, a schoolteacher, was told that she would have to hide the transing of her students from their parents, she balked, and was fired. Tapia is suing; you can read more about her court case here; a Daily Mail article is here.

 

Seth Gruber, a handsome and charming interview subject, is founder of the White Rose Resistance, a pro-life group. Gruber goes into detail on the impact of Alfred Kinsey, George Brock Chisholm – who said, "We have to eradicate the concept of right and wrong" – Frank Calderon, a burlesque producer, and his wife Mary Calderone, who pushed sex ed in schools, and Hugh Hefner.

 

Pastor John K. Amanchukwu opposes critical race theory and abortion. According to the book's description on Amazon, Amanchukwu's Eraced [sic]: Uncovering the Lies of Critical Race Theory and Abortion "dispels the myths surrounding abortion and CRT, and uncovers the Left's sinister plot to destroy the black community and divide the church."

 

Starbuck shows Amanchukwu illustrations from a comic book used in schools. The comic book graphically depicts children engaging in sex acts. Amanchukwu condemns the material. He says that men have abdicated their role as fathers, and they need to step up and protect children.

 

Lisa Logan identifies as a "Wife, mother, patriot. Exposing the sinister agenda behind Social Emotional Learning Programs." She discusses how what was originally a good idea, social emotional learning, designed to help schools address bullying, was hijacked by the Woke agenda. You can learn more about Lisa Logan's work here and here.

 

On his webpage, Alvin Lui describes himself thus. "I collaborate with pro-American organizations in navigating the culture war. With a focus on predicting emerging issues, crafting impactful narratives, and outmaneuvering woke opponents, I provide strategic insights that is valuable to your mission." He developed "Courage is a Habit," which provides, he says, "Actionable tools & strategies for parents to defend their children from indoctrination in K-12." In his appearance in War, Lui uses the language of Communist China, where his grandfather was persecuted by Maoist college students. For example he refers to "struggle sessions" and "cultural revolutions."

 

Aurora Regino is a mother whose child was transed by the school without the mother's knowledge. The child's father died and her mother had cancer. The distraught child sought counseling. Instead of helping the child, school personnel transed her. She wanted her mother to know what school personnel were doing to her, but the school refused. Once away from the school, the child resumed her natural identity as a girl. You can read more about her experience here.

 

Starbuck occasionally chats with teenagers. No information is given about these teenagers. We don't know why these particular teens were chosen. Most are white girls. There is one black boy. While the white girls are interviewed in a group, the black boy is interviewed by himself. That felt odd. The teens all agreed with Starbuck, saying that it's hard to find a "Godly" manly man these days, and that they would never allow their own children to access social media. The teens report that in schools, students who identify as trans receive preferential treatment from teachers and administrators, and that that special treatment is motivation for identifying as trans.

 

The Starbucks also cite research studies that support their point of view. They mention Lisa Littman's 2018 study, "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports." Littman documented several trends. Recent years have seen an astronomical increase in adolescent girls insisting that they are trans. Many of these girls had never previously identified as boys or shown masculine qualities. These girls have other friends who identify as trans. They have been groomed by internet groups that push trans extremism. Littman relates girls who choose to identify as trans to girls who, in previous years, had become anorexic. Just as in anorexic subcultures anorexics mock girls who are not anorexic, girls experiencing rapid onset gender dysphoria mock girls who do not identify as trans. As in anorexia, girls who identified as trans isolated themselves from non-trans affirming people and sources of information.

 

The Starbucks also cite the 1991 article, "Mothers of boys with gender identity disorder: a comparison of matched controls." This article found that 53% of the mothers researchers studied whose sons suffer from gender confusion suffer from borderline personality disorder. Six percent of mothers in a control group, that is mothers of sons who do not have gender confusion, met the criteria for BPD. The study concludes "Results of the Summers and Walsh Symbiosis Scale suggested that mothers of probands had child-rearing attitudes and practices that encouraged symbiosis and discouraged the development of autonomy." It would be helpful if this study could be repeated, as most important scientific studies are. The problem is, of course, that trans extremists suppress science. Witness the fate of Lisa Littman. Her study on rapid onset gender dysphoria has been relentlessly attacked, while never being disproven. 

 

The Starbucks also mention a Swedish study that concludes that post-surgery trans-identified persons have a higher risk for suicide and other forms of mortality than people who do not identify as trans. The 2011 article, "Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden," concludes that "Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

 

Senator Rand Paul and his wife Kelley Ashby Paul are interviewed separately. In their case, the approach used with Layla Jane is not used. That is, the Pauls are not surrounded by darkness. They sit in a comfortable sun room with wicker furniture, a floral carpet, and, outside the room's glass doors, brightly lit trees. They calmly discuss trans extremism.

 

In February, 2021, Senator Paul courageously questioned appointee Dr. Rachel Levine about Levine's support for the transing of children. Levine, rather than answering Paul's important question, simply stonewalled and repeated empty phrases. You can see that here.

 

Riley Gaines is interviewed next to an indoor pool. She talks about being forced to share a locker room with Lia Thomas, a naked male exposing his genitalia. Gaines mentions Payton McNabb. McNabb's website provides a summary of what a man competing in women's sports did to her. "McNabb was knocked unconscious and exhibited a fencing response following a forceful blow to the head from a volleyball spike by a biological male playing on the opponent’s team. The sheer impact of the ball has left McNabb with significant long-term physical and mental effects, including impaired vision, partial paralysis on her right side, and anxiety and depression."

 

Harrison Tinsley is a California father. Tinsley fathered his son by a girlfriend, not a wife. Tinsley and his girlfriend broke up. Tinsley's former girlfriend erected many obstacles to Tinsley having any contact with his son. She identifies the boy as "non-binary" and Tinsley has seen photos of the boy in dresses. You can read more about Tinsley's case here.

 

Other people the Starbucks interview include William Lamberth, who serves in the Tennessee House of Representatives and opposes trans extremism; the receptionist for Dr. Marci Bowers, a man who identifies as a woman and performs plastic surgery on men to provide them with pseudo vaginas; Jolene Vargas, who criticizes parents who exploit their transed children through online videos with the goal of becoming influencers and earning cash; Keelin Washington, who was sexually trafficked as a minor; and Laurie Betito, a sex therapist who works at Pornhub.

 

Veronika Electronika is a man who performs misogynist drag minstrelsy. The Starbucks are courteous in the questions they ask this grotesquely costumed man; he responds with hostility and does not address a single point they raise. The interview is a waste of time except as a demonstration of trans extremists' resistance to substantive discourse. According to his website, this man who mocks women through performance "has been very active in Tennessee politics and local political organizations like Tennessee Equality Project, the ACLU, Drag Out the Vote as well as one of her favorite partnerships, Drag Story Hour." That a man who can't respond to the most basic questions about his worldview is politically active is unfortunate.

 

One of the longest interviews is with Abigail Martinez. This interview takes place in a building that looks like a church. The room is dimly lit. Martinez is an immigrant from El Salvador. Like many from Central America, her face has strong Maya features. She speaks with reserve but one can sense the pain she feels. Her daughter, Yaeli, was transed at school. Child Protective Services removed Yaeli from the home. Eventually, Yaeli placed herself in front of an oncoming train. Martinez begged the morgue worker to be allowed to have contact with her daughters' body. The morgue worker denied her access, saying that seeing her daughter's body would traumatize her for life. You can read more about this case here.

 

The Starbucks end their film with happy scenes of their family cavorting on their extensive property in Tennessee. The children learn shooting, they interact with horses and dogs, and they play outside.

 

Again, I agree with many of the Starbucks' concerns and positions. I oppose water pollution and Drag Queen Story Hour, for example. Even so, this documentary did not work for me.

 

I think of Dr. Jordan Peterson's January, 2023 interview with Chloe Cole. Cole is a California teenager. She began transing at 12 and rejected the process at 17. She deeply regrets the harm that transing did to her body and her mind. Dr. Peterson's interview with Chloe Cole took place over the internet. Both Peterson and Cole were in pleasant settings with normal lighting. The interview was over two hours long. Cole reported deeply disturbing details revealing the transing of children as heartbreaking and as criminal. Peterson is fully professional throughout. He does not become histrionic. He does not insert images of hyenas or vultures. He doesn't have to. What adults did to Chloe Cole is tantamount to child sacrifice. Cole's lovely  young face is all you need to see to understand.

 

I think, also, of Matt Walsh's What Is a Woman? Walsh's doc is tightly focused on one question. He asks that question over and over, of feminists in a march, of men on the street in San Francisco, and of Masai in Kenya. That tight focus clarifies his ultimate message.

 

One of the most devastating interviews in What Is a Woman? takes place with Michelle Forcier, a transer of children. In October of 2023, Daily Mail reported that two former patients were suing the team who transed them. Michelle Forcier participated in the transing of both of these litigants (here and here).

 

In the interview, Walsh and Forcier sit face to face in a pleasant setting. It is a brightly lit room with a large houseplant and a chair with a pillow. There's no dramatic lighting, no heavy-handed music. The pleasant setting and Walsh's low-key, poker-faced persona do nothing to interfere with the demented horror of Forcier's statements, famously including "Does a chicken cry?" Popular responses to this interview on YouTube include, "Frightening," "scary," and "terrifying."

 

You might say that few viewers are going to devote time to Peterson's two-hour interview with Chloe Cole, and that many viewers are too dense to pick up on the truths expressed in Walsh's deadpan approach. I'd respond that that may be true, but I'm concerned about the message that viewers do pick up from Starbuck's fast-paced, disjointed, loud, heavy-handed approach. The serious scholarly research that the Starbucks cite deserves more than the mere seconds that the Starbucks devotes to it. Shoving a bunch of facts under the viewer's nose and pulling the camera away to another intense stimuli confuses and agitates rather than educates.

 

Those of us who oppose trans extremism are accused of hating all gender non-conforming persons. Not true. I am a gender non-conforming person myself. I'm a feminist and a grown-up tomboy. I actively support equal rights for LGBT people, and I actively resist bullying and hate. In fact not a few LGBT persons have come out against trans extremism. These include Buck Angel, Blair White, and Caitlyn Jenner, who, in March, 2024, argued against males competing against females in sports. "Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX, and causing physical harm," Jenner said. In 2022, Blair White, a man who identifies as a woman, tweeted that "A transgender 4 year old is like a vegan cat. We all know who's making the lifestyle choices." In other words, adults steer children to choose trans identities.

 

If someone asked me if the Starbuck film were anti-extremism or simply anti-GLBT, I'd have to confess that I suspect that the filmmakers don't like GLBT people. I could be wrong but I wish their film had made things more clear.

 

I don't agree with the Starbucks' diagnosis of the core problem. I don't think that those who dump pesticides into water supplies, those who trans kids, Hugh Hefner, falling church attendance, kids' addiction to media and their not playing outside, and the management of TikTok are all part of some vast, coordinated conspiracy. I think that some of the phenomena they address are related, and others are not.

 

Most importantly, I think that the source of all these problems is us, not them. We are the ones not going to church. We are the ones patronizing porn. We are the ones who are not volunteering to lead scout troops or mentor fatherless youth. We are the ones having sex outside of marriage or not maintaining close and self-sacrificial family ties. We are the parents who plop kids down in front of screens to buy ourselves some quiet time. We are the ones who spray destructive chemicals on our lawns, chemicals that flow into the river and sink into the water supply.  It's not Republicans or Democrats or Christians or Atheists. It's not them. It's us.

 

Capitalism made all these choices possible for us. Yes, centuries ago, our ancestors lived in villages where people had to conform and multiple choices for questionable recreational activities were not available to us. Now we can access the most vile porn with the mere slide of a computer mouse.

 

I'm a vocal proponent of the benefit of religious observance in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Alas, religiosity is no cure for child abuse. Every religious denomination, Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism has had its sexual abuse scandals. In any case many Americans, unlike the Starbucks, are not Christian.

 

Nor is the vote for a Republican a cure-all. I've been in educational institutions in the US for decades. These institutions have been dominated by Marxism-light and sometimes full on Marxism under Republican presidents and Democratic presidents. No matter who is in the White House, corporations and billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are going to use their clout to manipulate the gullible and the vulnerable. If corporations decide to stop doing business in a given state because of its policies, very few politicians from any party will stand up to them. Check the statistics. Divorce, abortion, and porn are all found in red states and blue states, and they are all evident under Republican and Democratic presidencies.

 

When it comes to porn or pesticides, trans extremism or empty church pews and kids with no adults willing to take time to show them the way, the solution is not outside us. The solutions are within each of us, in our day to day choices.

 

Danusha Goska is the author of God Through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery

 

 


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