Ted and Courtney Balaker: College Students Are Rejecting Wokeness

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Ted and Courtney Balaker are the team behind the new documentary The Coddling of the American Mind. Based on the 2018 best-selling book by Jonathan Haidt and 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 hires at Reason TV, about the Gen Z mental health crisis, 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.

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 Reason TV

33:20— Visual storytelling as powerful conduits for ideas

35:07— Where to see this documentary

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• Video Editor: Ian Keyser
• Assistant Video Editor: César Báez

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