(CBN News)—”Duck Dynasty” stars Willie and Korie Robertson discussed the real-life story behind the movie “The Blind,” a deeply personal journey surrounding Willie’s parents, Phil and Miss Kay Robertson. The movie stunned Hollywood observers over the weekend, opening in the top five at the box office despite being shown in a lower number of theaters than some competitors.
Long before their A&E glory days, the Robertsons struggled in their marriage, with Phil finding himself lost, aloof, disconnected from his wife and children, womanizing, and dependent on alcohol. Phil’s journey of leaving the mess behind and embracing Jesus — and Kay’s quest to forgive — are at the center of “The Blind,” which opened in theaters nationwide Sept. 28.
Willie told CBN Digital the film was difficult to watch at moments, but is an essential story of redemption. And Korie noted the importance of telling their family’s imperfect and redemptive story. “You look in Scripture and over and over again, the people that God uses are not the perfect people, is not the perfect family,” she said. “It’s in our weakness that God’s glory is revealed and that we are made strong … God can use you and your story, even if your past looks like this, even if … there’s things in your story that [were] really horrible.”
Willie and Korie also discussed how Phil and Miss Kay’s early years shaped them and helped craft the story underpinning the film “The Blind.” Forgiveness, love, and the Gospel are other themes explored in the movie and elevated in the conversation. Phil’s story of finding the Lord is the centerpiece of it all, though. “Unfortunately for Phil — or, perhaps fortunately, his life continued to spin out of control, especially then when he was in the loneliness and depths of despair and everything else he was doing that actually pushed him to the Lord,” Willie said. “And sometimes that’s what it takes for a bunch of people, it was just a hit rock bottom … that’s where he was.”
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
