One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture

In this extended essay, film critic Payton McCarty-Simas explores the surprisingly tangled relationship between the thriving ecosystem of American conspiracy theory online and the National Treasure franchise. Beginning with a critical analysis of the films’ own dense narrative relationships to several famous conspiracy theories, McCarty-Simas then turns to the way the films have themselves become a part of the framework for a range of conspiracies online, on the History Channel, and in our culture more broadly. This investigation is a trip down the rabbit hole, from QAnon forums, to millenarian podcasts, to “9/11 Truth” Twitter, to New Age YouTube channels, to, of course, stealing the Declaration of Independence and storming the Capitol.

In this context, then, National Treasure becomes a part of the same set of conspiracies it references in its plot. Understanding the different ways Americans talk about National Treasure, it seems, can help clarify how Americans understand our own homegrown brand of conspiratorial thinking, from its most ironic to its most dangerous.

“Only Payton McCarty-Simas could turn the Disney kitsch of National Treasure into a portal for such a shrewd, witty, and wide-ranging analysis of both the dangers and pleasures of American conspiracy culture. ” — Nico Baumbach, film studies, Columbia University