Amazon’s track record with conservative art is sketchy, at best.
Censorial may be a better adjective.
The mega-company yanked “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words” four years ago from its digital shelves. No warning. No explanation.
The company did so during Black History Month, making the move all the more confounding.
Amazon Boots Clarence Thomas Doc From Streaming During Black History Month https://t.co/05OE1K5BMl pic.twitter.com/L2yg7MqJlO
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) February 26, 2021
Amazon briefly censored the cover of conservative author Jack Posobiec’s book, “Bulletproof,” last year. It blocked Robby Starbuck’s right-leaning documentary “The War on Children,” restricting the number of potential voters who could see the vital film.
And, most alarmingly, it initially rejected director Eli Steele’s 2020 documentary “What Killed Michael Brown?” Amazon argued the film’s quality didn’t measure up to its standards. The claim was embarrassing given the film’s measured tone and solid craftsmanship.
A crush of media outlets cried foul on the movie’s behalf, and Amazon swiftly backpedaled.
“What Killed Michael Brown?” upends media narratives regarding the late Ferguson, Miss. resident. It suggests race hustlers turned a regrettable incident into a cry for racial justice, leaving the truth in its wake.
Turns out the company may not be done with director Steele’s film after all.
Steele says the film’s Amazon page once boasted nearly 1,500 Amazon Prime reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5. That’s critical for the film’s marketing efforts and branding.
Steele told subscribers to his Substack page that he visited the film’s Amazon page in June and found only 17 reviews.
“Its hard-won credibility had been erased,” Steele wrote. The page now has 24 global user ratings, still a far cry from the original number.
It has been 10 years since Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. Shelby Steele and I made “What Killed Michael Brown?” & I am often asked what the lasting impact has been.
Answer: What happened in Ferguson split America into two & we have not recovered. https://t.co/Lk82D69wWp pic.twitter.com/eFQOqQguAo
— Eli Steele (@Hebro_Steele) August 9, 2024
He immediately reached out to Amazon’s customer service department to find out what happened and, hopefully, restore the reviews. The director supplied Amazon’s team with screen shots to back up his claim.
He was eventually told the reviews were “lost in a merger,” gone for good. Most websites have sizable backup systems to prevent such a loss, he noted. Plus, some of the remaining reviews dated back before 2023, when the merger allegedly took place.
Have other Amazon film pages suffered a similar fate? Steele explained to subscribers why this matters.
In our review-driven world, a five-year-old film with just 17 reviews lacks credibility, doomed by algorithms. Not only that, those missing reviews were my filmmaker’s resume, critical for establishing credibility and for raising funds for future projects. Amazon received 50% of every dollar that film made and it would seem that protecting the integrity of the film’s page would be a given — a trust between corporation and artist, if such a thing exists.
Steele’s films routinely challenge progressive narratives. His 2017 documentary, “How Jack Became Black,” countered Identity Politics dogma to grand effect. Steele is black, Jewish, deaf and part Native American, further confounding the Left’s racial categorizations.
Steele’s quest to challenge the status quo makes him an important filmmaking voice.
That voice, he argues, is dulled by Amazon’s actions.
It’s a battle to keep the film’s voice alive in a culture that still seeks to silence dissent. To lose those reviews is to risk losing the chorus of voices that dared to speak, to question, to stand unbowed.
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