One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture by Payton McCarty-Simas

“There’s a lot of crazy stuff on the internet, but that’s what I heard.” — Andrew, Lyft driver“One step short of crazy, what do you get?” — Benjamin Franklin Gates, National Treasure 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 s