The Tenth Consideration of The Human Condition In Its Entirety

Radical Conservatism and Fatherhood

Movie Recommendation + Q&A with Director Andrew Callaghan: Dear Kelly

Have you ever contemplated the greater socioeconomic factors that send certain someones down far-right rabbit holes? Have you ever wished for guidance reconnecting with your estranged father? Have you ever wanted to go to a Chico State house party? If you’ve said yes to at least one of these questions, do I have the movie for you.

Dear Kelly is the second feature length documentary from Channel Five’s Andrew Callaghan, and it feels like the logical next step up from 2022’s This Place Rules, his directorial debut, which covered the January 6th Capitol Riot and the rallies that preceded it.

It’s also worth a watch, but in comparison it felt like more of a collection of visceral scene reports than Dear Kelly, an epic fable of a man’s fall from grace. Callaghan’s second take now presents an academic, formalized theory of what leads to the radicalization of an individual, and has the quintessential Channel 5 weirdo to test it against.

The eponymous Kelly is Kelly Johnson, a father and patriot from Southern California, who had his home, and subsequently his family, and his livelihood, stolen from him by an allegedly predatory lender. A decade later and he’s being arrested at a White Lives Matter rally in Huntington Beach. This documentary connects the dots between these two events.

There’s politics in here, but it’s much more human than that. Beyond just telling the story of this downtrodden patriot, there’s a deliberate intention to help him in actionable ways. While he is absolutely kooky enough to merit being the subject of an Andrew Callaghan production, It doesn’t feel like you’re meant to throw your peanuts and laugh at the subject like a lot of other depictions of people who have gotten too heavily dosed by the infamous Red Pill.

From archival footage of the old Johnson family VHS tapes to ghillie suit campouts, heart wrenching daddy-daughter conversations to Planned Parenthood protests, this documentary encompasses a broad range of the emotional spectrum.

Involving Kelly’s children provided another powerful dimension to the documentary, intensely illustrating how someone’s radicalization affects those surrounding them as well as themselves. I won’t spoil anything, but there are certain family scenes that were so intense that you, the viewer, almost feel like some creeper hiding in the bushes and eavesdropping on family dinner.

If you’re not sold yet, there’s still a healthy dose of that good ol’ Channel Five charm: interviewers with self-proclaimed wiggers, white boys rapping, and a whole scene filmed at a Chico State house party. It’s got it all. Rent or buy it here.

Q&A with Andrew Callaghan

After learning about the Bill Joiner fiasco at the White Lives Matter rally, how much further did you go with Kelly before deciding that he deserved his own full-length documentary instead of a YouTube video?

I mean, part of it had to do with the fact that we filmed so much and over such a long period of time. But, I mean, a lot of it just had to do with volume. You know, I felt like I had put so much into it that it was distinctly different from a YouTube video. Plus, you know, with YouTube videos, you have to, unfortunately, because of the nature of audience retention and people's attention spans, you have to cater things to a quicker turnaround. You have to be flashy and jumpy because it's sort of a game to get people to watch. With a film, you can take your time and people kind of settle in and sit down for the whole thing.

Was Dear Kelly ever planned to be released through a distributor, or were you done working with streaming services after This Place Rules?

I mean, the thing is, it wasn't HBO. People need to understand, those are just distributors. HBO was cool as fuck to work. It's the studios that fund the production of the film. So I worked with a number of different studios, and they have their own motivations, their own interests, and most of it is pertaining to intellectual property, developing IP, which is money. And they have their own agendas. And so the studios that I was working with had obviously extremely liberal agendas — and note that I say liberal, not leftist — and they just kind of made me into somebody I wasn't, which is like a misinformation watchdog who catches conservatives slipping. When in reality, I don't even really buy into, like the liberal versus conservative thing. But most importantly is because I only got 10% of residuals from This Place Rules. And so it just became an economic thing where it's like, “Alright, if I'm going to put years of time into this, and for one, I don't even own it. It's owned by someone else who can take it down at any given time. I don't want to do that again.” However, I am planning to pitch it to distributors after a couple months.

So it was more so just the specific studio heads that were difficult to work with as opposed to the industry as a whole?

Yeah, because HBO, they just buy movies that have already been funded by other people. Like, my movie was funded by A24 and then before A24, it was Tim and Eric and Jonah Hill. We had three levels of bureaucracy that went into getting the movie made. HBO, we probably came in touch with them two months before the movie released, after working together for like four years. Like, the streaming services are cool, the thing is, you need the studios because you need the funding, but because of Patreon and our YouTube following, we were able to self fund Dear Kelly, which is why I don't want to give the rights over to a distributor.

Is that going to be the plan with any full-length documentaries going forward, to do it all by yourself?

Yeah, basically the goal is that they will pay for a license. So Netflix will say, “Hey, for a year we want to have exclusive screening rights to promote Dear Kelly and distribute on our platform, and we'll ultimately give it back to you.” So that way I own it for the rest of my life. We're just getting exclusive but temporary time-based licensing. They tell you these things are impossible when you bring this up to a studio executive. It's like their blood runs cold because they want to make you think that you have to sign over all your rights to your work if you want a platform. Which is not true.

You mentioned producers on the first movie making you do some corny shit. Were there any fights that you won against the studio?

I mean, I won every fight that I actually wanted to fight. I ultimately had to fight hardest to even get Alex Jones in the movie. But it was more like, I would fight super hard, but that would just slow things down. So if I wanted to fight to get Alex Jones in the movie, it would be two months of me going back with the executive producers, and then fucking finally it's there. Like, I just wanted to get the movie out. It came out two years too late. It was about January 6, and it came out two years later. So, like, I was already fighting time trying to get this shit out. I wanted it to come out July 4, 2021. But every time I would try, every time I would push back because of people's schedules and shit, it would be like two weeks of deliberation. But I always won every fight. It was just so much I didn't want to have to deal with the time, the constant delays.

Now that you’ve released one documentary through HBO Max and one independently, what are some benefits of doing it with the studios?

Yeah, I mean marketing and distribution. For example, right, it's not that they put a bunch of money into advertising, because I probably have a better advertising apparatus than they do, realistically. It's not like everyone is dying to go to netflix.com, or whatever, but it's like a lot of people, when they see something's on Netflix, they're already subscribed to Netflix. Most people have already paid their $5 per month or $10 to HBO, so they're just going to go on there and watch what is to them, essentially free. When you market something by yourself and it's on your own website, they have to make that initial investment, put in their credit card number just for that product alone. So it feels like it's just another step that makes things more difficult, but it also makes the experience of watching it more special, because these people are like, seriously paying five bucks to just watch their shit. They're gonna really digest it and appreciate it, as opposed to just binging it on Netflix and moving on to the next documentary.

You were talking a little bit about some physical releases. Do you have any any plans for those going forward?

Yeah, hell yeah. A bunch of people, they want physical media. I always thought like, “DVDs are done, that's a thing of the past,” but I think we're so digital, and we're so like in that era, that people are almost very nostalgic and they want to revert to physical, so I'm about to drop DVDs in like two weeks.

When covering subjects like Kelly, journalists can be often criticized by the left for platforming conservative ideologies while also being criticized by the right for just questioning those same ideologies. What’s it like toeing that line and opening yourself up to both sides of the aisle?

I just don't care what people think about me. But I mean beyond that, I think it's mostly liberals and not leftists who don't believe in “giving a platform to problematic viewpoints.” The fact is, half the country, or more of the voting population, voted for Donald Trump. Most of the people, a lot of the people that voted for him, are not rich. They are relatively middle class and poor, or sometimes rich, but they're relatively middle class Americans who are basically being tricked and psyop’d into worshiping a new oligarchy of billionaires who don't give a fuck about anything that affects their life, healthcare, they don't care. They don't care about anything. They're just scapegoating culture war issues to get people riled up and move the goalpost to prevent class solidarity.

So only liberals would say, “Why are you giving a platform to someone like Kelly?” Because real leftists, people in labor, people on the genuine left who aren't fucking blaming this two party back-and-forth shit, they understand that someone like Kelly is mostly just a victim of engineered propaganda. So his his voice matters, and that's why I went to such lengths to help him. Unfortunately, the conclusion was not what I'd hoped for. But I mean, a lot of liberals, they want to pretend these people don't exist, and they're in such a bubble that they feel like it's such a small minority, they almost feel like they're being attacked when they have to hear a separate viewpoint. But if you go to any small town, anywhere out there, there’s a lot of Kellys.

I thought the the family intervention scene in particular was fucking insane to watch, it almost felt voyeuristic. Did you have any reservations about documenting and releasing such intimate family moments like that?

No, mostly because they wanted it to be documented. Kyle and Kaylee wanted it to be documented because they wanted to set a model for future families. They felt like their story is relatable across the country, especially right now, intergenerationally with people's parents and uncles, a lot of people have lost their family members to sort of this brainwashing. And they, yeah, they were on board with it.

I mean, there were like six cameras in there. A lot of people, when you're watching something you're forgetting that they also see the cameras. You know what I mean, there's seven cameras. If you were to be in the room, if it were to break the fourth wall, everyone's wearing a lav microphone, you know what I’m saying. With the editing, when we're cropping the cameras out, you might feel like you're like, snooping on someone's moment, but it was very deliberate on their part too.

I saw that you mentioned on Instagram that there a ton of footage from that scene that was cut. How do you decide which parts to show?

Well, I had a very emotional part of it where I was talking about, you know, just being really depressed and going through a lot of shit, and how Kelly was there for me. And then there was a Variety reporter, who came to one of my Boston screenings, and, you know, the media hates us, they're against us. I was showing different screenings on tour, and they were sending reporters to individual screenings, trying to get something, enough to run a smear. And I opened up just a little bit emotionally and Variety wrote an article called “inside Andrew Callaghan's new film about how the MAGA-Right saved his life.” So like they're obsessed with this angle of me becoming a conservative grifter. I don't know how the fuck they even think that, because conservatives think I'm like a leftist grifter, like you're saying, I'm just in the cross hairs. So it's kind of a nightmare. But I don't like to show too much weakness on camera, because if you show weakness, then people will eat you alive.

That's something else I wanted to ask about. What was the thought process behind showing different versions or different cuts at the different screenings?

I mean, I was just trying to figure out what people liked, you know, what people reacted to. I call it micro-timing, like, literally stuff as small as like, “should I let after someone says, ‘This shit’s for fucking Kyle bruh!’ should I let that breathe for four seconds or cut?” like, random stuff that you might not even notice as a viewer. There was some where we showed scenes like Kyle's lacrosse party, we showed extended cuts of the America Fest in Phoenix at the end, we made different soundtrack changes. And each venue, there was like 30 venues, had like, maybe 500 people, so in each one we can literally listen to the crowd and see how they're reacting. And so I just took notes on tour and took them to the editing booth for the final cut.

At the end of the documentary, you expressed some disappointment in Kelly's recovery process and his rehabs focus on cannabis addiction. Have you ever mentioned that to him directly?

Yeah, I mean, I just thought it was weird, because if you listen to the phone calls that we recorded at the beginning of his treatment, which was 30 days, he's having some serious breakthroughs. He's like, “I need to apologize to Bill Joiner, after Bill Joiner I have these traumatic events that I've yet to work through.” And then I don't know if it was, you know, his his medical professional or psychiatrist who was working with him, I'm not sure if people at rehabs are incentivized to, like, find a solution to the problem so they can, like, mark someone as “fixed” if they reach sobriety, but he just pivoted so quickly to like, “it's about the weed. Weed is my addiction. Everything I did is about the weed, like, you know, it's hijacked my dopamine reward systems. And now, you know, now that I'm done with the weed, I can prioritize my life,” I think that it gave him an out where he didn't have to confront the actually painful things that he'd get to work through.

And so you see him now he's like, and now he's smoking weed again. I didn't want to shit on the treatment facility —which was called the Caron Institute, I never put that in the documentary but you could put it in yours — because, like, they did give him a free 30 day treatment, like they gave it on scholarship because they wanted to look good in the documentary. So I felt like I didn't want to dig into them, I'm also, like, not allowed to because for HIPAA reasons. But yeah, I think that the cannabis thing was really weird. I don't know if he was tricking his psychiatrist or handler or behavioral therapist into not having to talk about other shit, but cannabis I'm sure is not good for him. It probably increases the paranoia, leads to more magical thinking. But I don't think that was his main problem.

The last time we saw him in the documentary was in Arizona, but that footage is a few years old by now. What's he up to these days?

He’s doing the same shit. He’s not in Arizona, he's still in California, which is a good thing, but he showed up to the Huntington Beach premiere a couple days ago with a bunch of Trumpsters. You know what I mean, he's sort of doing the same shit. Definitely doesn't care about Bill. I mean, like I said, people always look for these really hard line Hollywood conclusions, but him not caring about Bill is a fucking huge blessing. Dude, that was his number one boogeyman for like six years. I don't know if time healed it, but I think us, just like all the shit that we did helped him forget about Bill.

So on the topic of Bill, has he been in touch with you guys since the public release?

No, it's so annoying. I don't understand, we tried to tell him, we tried to tell his lawyer, like, 100 times, like, “dude, this is not a hit piece about you. This is about Kelly.” And, like, I think that Bill is just so over Kelly's shit. I'm pretty sure Bill had, like, a restraining order against Kelly, and they had a whole back and forth legal battle. And I just think that Bill, I don't know if Bill's a predatory lender or if he's a great lender, I really have no idea, but like, I was telling him, I was like, “Dude, you know, we're not out to get you,” but he didn't want to hear it. He's just pressing with, there's some claims on the lawsuit that are just not even true, like violation of the Federal Wiretap Act. If you read the lawsuit, that's what it says. It's just like he thinks we're tapping his phone lines, like weird shit.

Do you guys anticipate that lawsuit to actually come to your door?

It’s already come to our door, we're already fighting it. I'm going to talk about it publicly probably next week, because I'm waiting until we finish the second round of marketing before publicizing the lawsuit. But I think marketing-wise, getting sued is a great thing, because we can make a video called “We're Being Sued” and explain it.

Now that Trump is back in office, how do you think that'll affect the other Kellys of the world who've just started to dip their toe in radical conservatism?

I mean, I think it both emboldens them, but it also takes away their like, underdog mentality, and it takes away this David and Goliath thing that's justified their heinous behavior in the streets and outside Planned Parenthood and at the Capitol. So like, Trump supporters have won, and they're going to be winning for the next four years. I hope that it enables him to them to be more critical of Trump and his actions and others now that he's actually won the presidency, but I'm not sure. But Kelly definitely, like, you can see the battery is out of their back a little bit. They're just like, “Okay, yay, we did it. Everything's great.” And so what happens next remains to be seen.

How do you think that Kelly's life would have been different if, say, Trump lost in 2016 and all the QAnon, MAGA Patriot guys didn't exist? Would he have just fallen down a different rabbit hole?

No, I don't think so. I think that he would have been able to recover much faster. I think this elongated his, you know, process and kept him stuck in the grief cycle. His anger, you know, before he even got past that and got acceptance, he was able to find a community that lets him harvest that anger and doesn't question him, so long as he serves a greater purpose.

So now that, like you said, that they're not the underdogs anymore, do you think that this whole allure of being a Righteous Right Wing Patriot might fade for Kelly eventually?

100%. I think that Trump winning sucks right now, but in the long term, if he does a bad job, then MAGA shit will end.

With This Place Rules and Dear Kelly under your belt, are you still interested in producing documentaries on radical politics?

No, I don’t give a fuck, man. I don’t give a shit. I didn't give a shit. I mean, I don’t wanna say I don't give a shit, I do give a shit, obviously, I made two movies about it. But at this point, I'm not sure how much there is that I can conclude. Like, I've seen it up close, I've seen it from far away, I've done the macro and the micro coverage of it. It's cool and everything, it's interesting as a journalist, but there's only so much. There's things I care about more. Like, I'm doing a project on endangered languages soon, trying to help, like, spearhead efforts to raise money to keep some languages live that are in danger in the U.S. Like, actually, I could spend my time doing a lot more productive things than diagnosing the psychology of QAnon.