14 minute read
ART & CULTURE
Ojai fi lmmaker Mikki Willis’ 26-minute viral fi lm, “Plandemic,” put him in the crosshairs of America’s culture wars last May. He gained notoriety Jan. 6 as video of him at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection was replayed on CNN and social media.
At a rally stage near the Capitol that day, he said: “I’m a little out of breath because I was just part of this situation that just happened where, as Charlene mentioned, our proud patriots just pushed through a line of riot police — peacefully, as peacefully as that could happen — and are now at the stairs of the doors of the Capitol, and it was a beautiful thing to see….” Eight months before, Willis had interviewed former Ventura resident and research scientist Judy Mikovits about her book, “Plague of Corruption,” in which she launched attacks on vaccines and defended her controversial claims. “Plandemic” is drawn primarily from that interview in Ojai. In “Plandemic,” Willis mostly ignored Mikovits’ vaccine concerns and instead
Mr.Willis
GOES TO WASHINGTON
From Shangri-La to Capitol insurrection: Ojai filmmaker Mikki Willis sets fire to the bridge between Ojai’s left and spiritual-wellness community, becoming a lightning rod in a national culture crisis.
focused on allegations not found in the book, such as her claim that wearing masks against COVID-19 “activates” the virus.
This directorial choice brought “Plandemic” and Willis immediate and enormous fame — and scrutiny. Because “Plandemic” now has been banned from social media and excluded from streaming platforms, Willis said he has had to move his new work to other media outlets and has turned his focus to new controversies far from Ojai and even California.
Willis said he now works with his fi lmmaking team as a “forensic fi lmmaker” on public footage for the defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old charged with two counts of homicide in a Black Lives Matter protest that took place Aug. 25 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In a videotaped appearance at a Red Pill Expo in Jekyll, Georgia, in October 2020, Willis said that he also worked on footage of the Covington Catholic School student Nicholas Sandmann, accused of taunting a Native American veteran in a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 18, 2019. From other footage of the scene, Willis’s team made a longer video that told Sandmann’s side of the story and helped turn the tide of public opinion in Sandmann’s favor.
“We made the video that won the lawsuit against CNN and the Washington Post, and I was no longer the darling of the Left,” Willis said in his talk at the Red Pill Expo.
In interviews, Willis said that he rejects partisanship and extremism on both sides of the political spectrum, but complained of “the incredible volume of people (in Ojai) who became hateful and unwilling to have a dialogue after ‘Plandemic’.
For himself, Willis continues to speak reverently of “sacred” Ojai, but last year moved with his family to Corpus Christi, Texas.
MIKOVITS AND ‘PLANDEMIC’ In “Plandemic,” Mikovits claimed that “wearing the mask literally activates your own virus.” Last May, she alleged in a YouTube interview with entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David of Valuetainment — still available on Facebook — that public health authority, Dr. Anthony Fauci, “basically let this disease spread around the world so he could get glory, fame, and money.” She called for health authorities to lift lockdowns, and in August, published a best-selling book against masking.
Despite — or perhaps because of — its falsehoods, duplicity and lack of verifi cation, the alarming “Plandemic” fi lm shot to overnight fame. “Plandemic” was released to the internet on May 4, 2020, and went viral, recording nearly 1.8 million views within three days, according to the Digital Trends online publication. This far outranked other popular web videos released to the web that week, and went on to rack up an estimated 7 million views, according to Facebook’s Crowd Tangle research tool.
Facebook soon took down “Plandemic.” “Suggesting that wearing a mask can make you sick can lead to imminent harm, so we’re removing the video,”
When Mikovits met Willis: Based on her controversial book ‘Plague of Corruption,’ ‘Plandemic’ racked up an estimated 7 million views and caused a storm of controversy around the nation.
Facebook said in a statement to news outlets on May 7, three days after “Plandemic” achieved millions of views.
After “Plandemic” was removed from Facebook, where it was most often shared, other social-media sites followed suit, including YouTube and Vimeo. It is not readily found on the internet today.
“Plandemic” made Willis nationally famous, but with prominence has come intense scrutiny and a great deal of criticism from former allies in Ojai. Willis continues to defend the fi lm, and maintains an active personal presence on some social media, but in interviews and appearances in recent weeks, he expressed anger toward the so-called mainstream media and mixed feelings about fame.
WILLIS IN THE CAPITOL RIOT On Jan. 6, Willis spoke at a “MAGA Health Freedom Event” on the east side of the U.S. Capitol, and joined — with a small fi lm crew in tow — the crowds of Trump partisans from around the country who gathered at the Capitol. In the aftermath, a fi ve-second cellphone video image of Willis at the Capitol, surrounded by a crowd of protesters chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” was widely circulated on social media and CNN. Some commentators called on the FBI to arrest Willis.
After news of Willis’ attendance at the Capitol riots spread on social media around the country, the Kiss the Ground nonprofi t organization (a Los Angeles-based 501c3), severed connections with him in a statement released to Instagram:
“This past weekend, Kiss the Ground was made aware that a member of its extensive advisory council was present at the insurrection at the Nation’s Capitol,” the Jan. 12 statement read. “Upon learning this, we immediately terminated Mikki Willis’ position at the advisory council. Without equivocation, Kiss the Ground stands fi rmly on the side of American democracy and condemns the hatred and violence that ensued.”
Despite the furor on Twitter, Willis has not been arrested or charged. In the aftermath, on Facebook and in interviews, Willis insists that he went “as a journalist” to the Capitol, but never went inside the building. He condemns the violence that took place, and argues in a seven-minute unreleased fi lm that the mob assault took place largely
January 6: Willis speaks at the Capitol. “Our proud patriots just pushed through a line of riot police.... it was a beautiful thing to see”
on the front side of the Capitol, where the Inauguration was held, and not on the back side of the Capitol, which is where Willis joined another large crowd that was marching on the building. In his speech at the “MAGA Health Freedom Event of the Century,” outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, Willis spoke warmly of protesters pushing “through a line of riot police,” describing it as “the human organism rising up” and “a beautiful thing to see.” He added that he “had done a 180” from his past as “part of the far left.” For some of his critics, such as holistic foods entrepreneur John Roulac, a former Ojai resident and founder of the health food company Nutiva, who worked on a 2008 fi lm about hemp with Willis, “Plandemic” is a part of the problem that the spirituality and wellness movement now has with rightwing conspiracism. “Millions of Americans and many people I know were ‘red-pilled’ by this conspiracy theory that moved very strongly into the wellness/alternative/ New Age world,” he said. “Last spring, I saw this happening and started asking: What is going on? If you talk to these people, you will hear that very powerful people are controlling the fi nancial destiny of the world and we need to push back. Okay, that’s not crazy — until they say the answer is Donald Trump.” To be “red-pilled” is a reference to a pivotal moment in the hugely popular 1999 movie “The Matrix.” The idea is that an individual is presented with a choice in life: He can take a blue pill and stay in a pleasantly false fantasyland, or take a red pill, and go down the rabbit hole to see the dark truth of a conspiratorial, and often right-wing, perspective. Roulac wrote an essay on the social media site, Medium, in September critical of Willis and the QAnon movement called “Is the Wellness Movement Being Tainted by QAnon and the New Age Right?” In the essay, Roulac challenged Willis on the subject of “Plandemic” and its anti-masking message.
“He recently released ‘Plandemic 1’ (tens of millions of views), which claims that masks can actually harm you,” Roulac wrote. “It’s like he shouted fi re in thousands of crowded theaters across the world. Convincing people to see masks as ine ective and dangerous could contribute to the illness and death of tens of thousands.”
Willis admitted that he does wear a mask on occasion. “I wear a mask primarily for the protection of other people,” he said, but added that researchers have pointed out issues with mask-wearing and proper fi t and cleansing. “I don’t think I’ve seen a single person in this yearlong experience not fumbling with their mask in a way that makes it useless and in some cases potentially dangerous,” he said. For Roulac, the question is bigger than masks or Willis. “To me, this is really an example of a society in disarray. People are unsure of their own fi nancial future, they’re concerned about the climate crisis, and it’s as if, in response, they’re grasping at bizarre conspiracies,” he said. “Look at Christiane Northrup, a well-known M.D. who has gone full QAnon. This is rampant in the Ojai Valley. And I’m like — really? And so I wrote this article telling people that this is not a good thing and to watch out. A lot of people got upset with me for saying it, but a lot of friends in Ojai wrote to thank me for speaking up.”
OJAI NEW AGE COMMUNITY DIVIDED Willis and his Elevate fi lmmaking collective have a long history in Ojai. Willis rented a large hilltop mansion in Ojai called Glen Muse from retired software engineer Darakshan Farber in the fall of 2010. Impressed by Willis’ “magnetic” personality and his creative spirit, Farber lived for nearly two years at the estate with Willis and up to 15 people at a time from the Elevate collective, he said.
“I was intrigued by his vision and his spiritual approach,” Farber said. “He was a very spiritual guy, no doubt about it. But from what I saw, it was very di cult for them to focus on the
business side with all the people and the transition; they were trying to live in this grand place for the sake of the collective.”
Farber said that, over time, he became disillusioned with Willis and asked him to leave. He later sold the estate and traveled overseas. He watched “Plandemic” in Thailand last year and was once again reminded of his time with Willis and the collective. He called the fi lm “hogwash.” “I have so many spiritual friends who were drawn to Mikki’s personality and his false authenticity,” he said, looking back. “It makes me very sad.” For Nora Herold, a well-known channeler based in Meiners Oaks, who, like Farber, knew Willis personally, the conspiracism of “Plandemic” threatens the health of the spiritual community of Ojai. “I think ‘Plandemic’ is disinformation,” she said. “That’s not the same as misinformation, which implies a mistake, and a willingness to own that mistake. Disinformation involves an underlying agenda to promote theories or ideas that run counter to the traditional narrative. These ideas are there for an underlying reason, and that’s often because there’s a fi nancial gain involved.” Many in Ojai charge that Willis has been motivated in his choices primarily by money, but Herold and a few others said they see the potential for an even darker agenda. Herold said that she saw QAnon references crop up in Ojai in 2017.
“QAnon and COVID denial and anti-mask statements and extreme beliefs about sovereign identity create a split in the spirituality/wellness community,” she said. “The split in our community is refl ected in a split in the larger world. I think it’s an ancient wound — a form of unhealed trauma.”
Jack Adam Weber, an author and climate activist in Ojai, said he also sees a connection between the conspiratorial rhetoric of “Plandemic” and the conspiratorial rhetoric of the mysterious and cultic group known as QAnon. “For New Agers, conspiratorial thinking is spiritual bypassing,” he wrote in an essay, invoking the idea that among the spiritually minded, in particular, the pandemic evokes pain, and it’s easier to deny COVID-19 than to deal with that deeply rooted pain. “Part of the reason for discrediting the pandemic is because the pandemic incites fear,” he said. “If I can’t get rid of the pandemic, let me try to attack the fear.”
In fact, the follow-up to “Plandemic,” called “Plandemic: Indoctrination,” which was released last fall and is still available online, ends with a fi erce rejection of the emotion of fear.
June 2011. A Ventura County magazine calls Willis a “Progressive Thinker” and a “local on the leading edge.”
Although Farber said he now distrusts Willis and hasn’t seen him in years, he doesn’t know how intentional Willis is in his choices. “I wonder if Mikki almost unconsciously shifted from a purely spiritual world to this world where he gets more of an audience, more adulation, and more money, but I don’t know,” he said.
WILLIS DEFENDED Willis still has defenders in Ojai. Among them is Reno Rolle, a longtime resident, who said he has known Willis since 2003 as a fi lmmaker, neighbor and family man, and continues to support him and his work. He sco ed at the idea that “Plandemic” could damage Ojai’s spirituality/wellness community. “If the spirituality of the Ojai community is that fragile, then perhaps there’s a bigger question that needs to be expressed,” he said, adding that he knows Willis did not produce “Plandemic” to make money. “On the heels of his ‘Plandemic’ project, I was approached by people who specialize in monetizing data because they thought I might be able to get to Mikki,” he said. “They suggested emphatically that if they had access to Mikki’s database, they would market to that database, and they guaranteed seven fi gures over the course of one week. I know it sounds incredible, but I’ve been in direct-response community marketing and these people are very credible and legitimate. Mikki fl atly refused, because he was concerned people would think he had made ‘Plandemic’ for the money.” Willis said he has not taken any opportunity to profi t o the success of “Plandemic.” Looking back on his tumultuous year since making the viral fi lm, Willis now says that his appearance at the Capitol riot was a mistake, perhaps his biggest mistake. However, he denies any involvement with QAnon. He blames the media for confl ating his appearance at a rally on health and vaccination issues with support for former President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, and rejects the idea that he made “Plandemic” to become rich and famous.
“Consider this — for 30 years I’ve been doing good business in and around Hollywood,” he said. “I had collected a community of supportive investors and established solid connections with all the major distribution platforms, including Netfl ix and Amazon. Every one of these has gone away. I will never again have a fi lm on a major distribution platform. You don’t make these choices for fi nancial or political gain — I think fame is a curse, particularly in an age where one tweet can leave your entire career ruined.”
Impressed
