Are College Students (Finally) Rejecting Wokeness?

The Coddling of the American Mind, a documentary based on the 2018 bestseller, tells a hopeful story about Gen Z, mental health, and campus life. Q&A with filmmakers Courtney Balaker and Ted Balaker.

Courtney Balaker and

Ted Balaker

are the team behind the new documentary The Coddling of the American Mind. Based on the 2018 best-selling book by

After Babel

’s Jonathan Haidt and

theFIREorg

’s

Greg Lukianoff

, the film follows a series of students as they navigate life on today's highly charged college campuses.

I spoke with Courtney and Ted, who started his video career as one of the first two hires at Reason TV, about Gen Z and mental health, free speech, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, the oppressor-victim worldview, and why they chose to host the film on the innovative platform Substack rather than a more traditional venue. Check out their page, where you can not only watch their film, but see all sorts of follow-up posts and videos from their ongoing tour of college and university campuses. It’s a fascinating new interactive way to release creative content and it really erases the line between producer and consumer.

The Balakers' previous projects include the great documentary Can We Take a Joke? (which features Gilbert Gottfried, Lisa Lampanelli, Adam Carolla, and other comedians) and the narrative film Little Pink House (starring Catherine Keener).

Click above to watch the interview on YouTube and scroll down for links to Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple podcasts. Scroll down even further for my interviews with Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt when their Coddling book first came out, plus Q&As with them for their subsequent books, The Canceling of the American Mind (Greg) and The Anxious Generation (Jon).

Here are chapter headings:

0:00- Introduction

0:54- ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’ in documentary form

2:05- Finding student participants

3:22- Lucy

7:15- Kimi

11:17- Aryaan

13:32- International students vs. American students

17:16- Are we past peak woke on campuses?

20:44- Distributing films on Substack

24:30- Korchula Productions’ previous projects

26:20- Are filmmakers sick of censorship yet?

28:30- The Balakers’ non-traditional media backgrounds

32:10- Working with Drew Carey on ReasonTV

33:20- Visual storytelling as powerful conduits for ideas

35:07- Where to see this documentary (Substack, duh)

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Here’s my 2018 Reason interview with Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff about The Coddling of the American Mind:

I talked with Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott last December about their book The Canceling of the American Mind:

And here is my April 2024 interview with Jon Haidt about The Anxious Generation:

Check out all this and more at Reason.