Hollywood prides itself on telling stories that challenge power, expose injustice and give voice to the silenced.
Yet when it comes to “15 Days: The Real Story of America’s Pandemic School Closures,” the entertainment industry faces an uncomfortable test. Will it champion a documentary that reveals an inconvenient truth, or remain silent because it implicates institutions that the industry supports?
IT’S HERE!
15 Days: The Real Story of America’s Pandemic School Closures is LIVE NOW, streaming FREE exclusively on X!
500+ days of closed schools, isolated kids, and broken trust. The TRUTH is exposed.WATCH NOW! pic.twitter.com/yxhJHtsG1L
— RESTORE CHILDHOOD (@Rstorechildhood) September 24, 2025
“15 Days” examines how America’s school closures lasted longer than almost any other nation, and how dissenting voices—including accomplished scientists like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya—were systematically silenced for questioning the prevailing narrative.
The Censorship Hollywood Claims to Oppose
Hollywood positions itself as a defender of free speech, making films celebrating whistleblowers and scientists who challenge dogma. Yet when Dr. Bhattacharya, Stanford epidemiologist, raised evidence-based concerns about lockdowns and school closures, he wasn’t debated.
He was blacklisted.
Dr. Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, was placed on Twitter’s suppression algorithm. YouTube removed videos of his scientific discussions. Stanford’s Chair of Medicine ordered him to stop giving media interviews.
This was a credentialed professor of medicine and economics at one of the world’s leading universities.
The response to dissent wasn’t engagement but elimination. When scientists can’t debate science, when parents can’t question policies affecting their children, when uncomfortable truths are labeled “misinformation”—that’s not public health.
That’s authoritarianism.
If Hollywood won’t defend the free speech rights of scientists presenting peer-reviewed research, what credibility does it have championing free expression elsewhere?
The Union Problem and Hollywood’s Hypocrisy
Hollywood is a union town. But “15 Days” exposes how teachers’ unions used children and families as bargaining chips during the pandemic.
The documentary reveals how unions lobbied to keep schools closed far longer than necessary, pressured the CDC to rewrite guidelines in their favor, and secured billions in federal funds tied to extended closures. While private schools, parochial schools and charter schools across America safely opened their doors, unionized public schools stayed shut—not because the science demanded it, but because the unions did.
And where was Hollywood? Silent. Worse than silent—complicit.
Jane Fonda, Hollywood royalty and one of the entertainment industry’s most celebrated activists, called COVID-19 “God’s gift to the Left” in October 2020. As children were falling behind, as families were suffering, as mental health crises were mounting, Fonda celebrated the pandemic as a political opportunity.
That was a terrible thing to say. But what’s worse is that Hollywood’s outrage machine—always ready to denounce the slightest transgression—remained silent. No open letters. No social media condemnations. No “accountability” campaigns.
Just crickets.
Now, in 2025, Fonda has relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment, signing ACLU letters and organizing 550+ celebrities to defend free speech—but only for Jimmy Kimmel. Only when it benefits her side.
Jane Fonda has relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment, a McCarthy-era initiative founded in the 1940s by her father, Henry Fonda, to protect against attacks on free speech.
“The McCarthy Era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together… pic.twitter.com/iFtc8qkb8M
— Variety (@Variety) October 1, 2025
Where was this passionate defense of free speech when Dr. Bhattacharya was being censored? Where was it when parents begging to reopen schools were being silenced and smeared? Where was it when scientists presenting peer-reviewed research were blacklisted from social media?
The hypocrisy is staggering.
Fonda now claims this is “the most frightening moment of my life” because a late-night host faced consequences for spreading misinformation about Charlie Kirk’s murder. But when scientists were systematically suppressed for sharing accurate COVID data? When parents were labeled domestic terrorists? When children’s futures were being sacrificed while she celebrated the pandemic as a political gift?
Silence.
Dismantling ‘We Did the Best We Could’
For years, we’ve heard: “We did the best we could with the information we had.” “15 Days” shows that key scientific data was available and deliberately ignored, dissenting experts were censored rather than engaged, and “follow the science” was selectively applied only when it served predetermined political objectives.
As a Soviet immigrant who grew up under authoritarianism, I recognized the tactics: suppression of dissent, demonization of questioners and insistence that only approved voices could speak. When parents raised concerns about extended school closures, they were smeared as extremists, anti-science, even domestic terrorists.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s testimony before Congress documented how federal agencies pressured social media platforms to censor scientific discussion. The “Twitter Files” revealed he was specifically targeted. This happened to a tenured professor at an elite university.
Imagine what happened to parents, teachers and journalists without such credentials who dared to dissent.
The Stakes
The evidence is stark: catastrophic learning loss, spiking mental health crises and widening achievement gaps that disproportionately harmed minority communities. European schools reopened after weeks. American schools in many states stayed closed for more than 500 days.
The difference wasn’t science. It was politics and institutional self-interest.
Every child struggling to read today, every teenager battling depression and isolation, every young adult unprepared for college or work—these are the casualties of policies “15 Days” examines. This documentary gives voice to children whose education was sacrificed, parents who were dismissed and demonized and scientists who were silenced for following the evidence.
In any other context, Hollywood would rush to amplify these voices.
Hollywood’s Choice
Giving “15 Days” the platform it deserves means confronting uncomfortable truths about institutions many in Hollywood support. It means acknowledging that unions can betray the very people they claim to serve. It means admitting that censorship and suppression of scientific debate harmed children on a massive scale.
The film industry has always been at its best when willing to make audiences uncomfortable, when it challenges prevailing narratives and when it speaks truth to power. “15 Days” does exactly that.
This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about children. It’s about truth. It’s about ensuring that when the next crisis comes, we don’t repeat the same catastrophic mistakes.
Dr. Bhattacharya, now leading the NIH, has been vindicated by time and evidence. But vindication doesn’t restore the childhoods lost, the education sacrificed or the mental health destroyed. “15 Days” preserves this history as a warning and a lesson.
Hollywood claims to stand for the powerless against the powerful, for truth against convenient lies, for free expression against censorship. Here’s your chance to prove it. Watch “15 Days.” Reckon with what it reveals. Give it the serious consideration you’d give any documentary exposing institutional failure and the silencing of dissent.
Our children deserved better. They deserved classrooms, not political theater. They deserved science, not scientism. They deserved advocates, not opportunists using them as pawns. Until Hollywood acknowledges this truth and amplifies these voices, it remains complicit in the silence that enabled this tragedy.
Natalya Murakhver is the founder of Restore Childhood and director of “15 DAYS: The Real Story of America’s Pandemic School Closures.”
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