- 15 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05Rick Esther Bienstock is one of Canada's most accomplished investigative
00:10documentarians. She's exposed trafficking rings in Eastern Europe and been at ground
00:15zero of an Ebola outbreak. She has won multiple Emmy Awards and was made an
00:21officer of the Order of Canada for her work in raising awareness of global
00:25events and conflicts through film. She joins me now.
00:32Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Thank you.
00:36It's great to have you with us Rick. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for
00:39having me. You've been a longtime filmmaker. You've tackled some very
00:44difficult subjects over the years but I have to say that this one feels more
00:48personal. What was the genesis for this film? It's interesting you say that it's
00:53personal because it didn't initially start off as entirely personal. I read an
00:57article in Atlantic Magazine, The Coddling of the American Mind, and it talked about
01:02how in universities now people were seeing words and ideas as harmful. Certain ideas
01:09were just no-go zones and I was curious. I did have kids going heading into
01:15university and I was wondering what is the environment that they're heading into. So
01:19I was very curious about it both as a parent but even as a just as a citizen. When I
01:25went
01:26to university we fought and argued about everything. There weren't really no-go
01:31zones. People were characterizing words and ideas and certain historical facts as harmful
01:39to students. That was a very new concept for me. So that was your starting point in 2015.
01:44So a decade on, are you thinking about the same kinds of things? How did the story evolve?
01:49Well it's funny because the film that I started making was not the film that I ended up completing.
01:57In the 80s and 90s people talked a lot about political correctness on campus and at the time
02:01people were questioning the western canon and looking at everything through a white lens and there
02:07were lots of reasons to bring more diverse voices into the academy, more diverse readings into the
02:13academy. So while it was, you know, there was a moment of characterizing it as political
02:18correctness run amok, there were good reasons to be challenging what was happening in in universities.
02:24But in the 2015, 16, 17 it wasn't about the canon. It was all about identity. What I saw were
02:31professors
02:31being afraid of their own students reporting them for ideas that students found offensive. And it was,
02:38I was trying to make sense of how is this playing out in, in the arena of higher education where
02:43it's
02:43supposed to be where students are challenging their assumptions, encountering ideas they don't like.
02:49Schools were starting to try and protect students from ideas they didn't like. Many universities,
02:54I think here as well, had bias response lines. You can report somebody for bias anonymously. Now that's not
03:00like a sexual harassment line. That is bias response. What is bias, Pia? So I just thought this is a
03:07really
03:07interesting environment to be, to be educating the next generation of citizenry and leaders.
03:15For me, university was a place where you wrestled with new ideas. The collision of views and ideologies is in
03:22the DNA of the academic
03:24enterprise. Sex, politics, religion, war. We argued about all of it. But somewhere along the way,
03:32the climate changed. Students didn't just disagree with ideas, they felt harmed by them. And the only
03:38way to feel safe was to silence the people expressing them. And now I want your job to be taken
03:44from you.
03:45All in the name of social justice. Maybe it was, but it felt different.
03:50I am disgusted knowing that you work at Yale University. Like you had to watch every word.
03:56My kids were heading to university and I wanted to understand the world they were stepping into.
04:02I didn't know it then, but this was the start of a journey that would last nearly a decade
04:06and reveal how clashes over speech and identity put universities in the crosshairs of a political backlash.
04:14The term free speech is one that I feel a little bit nervous about using sometimes because
04:20different people use it in different ways and people weaponize it in different ways.
04:25So Rick, what does free speech mean to you? What was your approach in this documentary?
04:29I'm glad you asked that because I'm not looking at free speech as an American, a first amendment or a
04:35legal concept. I'm talking about free speech in more colloquial terms. I feel comfortable
04:40speaking to people about things. I'm a regular person. I'm not want to spew racist hatred or,
04:46you know, but what's our ability to speak to each other and have conversations and disagree and have
04:52arguments at the dinner table, which is my favorite thing to do. And I mean, that's the whole, you know,
04:57we used to get speakers on campus. I'm not saying you shouldn't protest speakers. That's what students
05:02do. We protest. I'm not a student anymore, but students protest. But I wouldn't want to shut
05:08someone down. If we disagreed with someone, we want to go in and challenge them. We don't want
05:12to silence them. We don't want to stop other people from having to hear those views. I'm not looking at
05:17what are the extremes of what we're allowed to say? You know, what is hate speech? I wasn't trying to
05:22define that. I was looking at what's the Overton window? What is the allowable conversation? What's the
05:27conversation that we can have now and feel comfortable having and not be in fear of being
05:34accused of being someone that you're not? Coming up, more of my conversation with filmmaker
05:42Rick Esther Bienstock. We're talking about her documentary, Speechless. You can watch part two
05:48tomorrow night at 8pm and you can see the entire film on CBC Gem. If you want to join the
05:55conversation,
05:56scan this QR code or go to cbc.ca slash documentaries slash speechless.
06:14Let me ask you this because every filmmaker has to make many choices, but among them is how much of
06:21myself am I going to put into this? Whether through point of view, which you do in this documentary,
06:25whether it's being seen on camera and so on and so forth, with this documentary, with Speechless,
06:31the issues are so polarizing and you could have chosen to be a quote-unquote neutral observer,
06:39but you didn't. You said that would be intellectually dishonest. What do you mean by that?
06:44I mean that we all know now that the filmmaker, the writer, the author is under the microscope as well.
06:51Identity has become so central to the way people see the material that they're taking in.
06:56So I realized that I'm a white woman of a certain age. I mean I disclose all this in the
07:04film because
07:04it's like you cannot now accuse me of these things. I'm seeing it through that lens. I'm unabashed about it.
07:11I think that my point of view is still valid. At the same time, at Evergreen, it was the first
07:16time
07:18where, you know, I asked a woman who I spent a lot of time with and I said like,
07:22what do you want me to say to the world? And she said, send more reporters of color.
07:28And I put that in the film because I thought, I hadn't thought about that, but that is something
07:33that's kind of quite present in the way people think now. And I just think it's fair to show these
07:38things as they are and that my identity was a player somehow. So initially I didn't plan on
07:45being in the film and there's very little of me initially. You hear my voice. It's my point of view.
07:50Also, there's no way to be a hundred percent. It's like journalistically unbiased. We know that.
07:57And in this story, when we're talking about ideas that affect all of us, I just felt, let me just
08:04be
08:04plain and simple and talk about how I feel about it. But I tried to be fair and not, you
08:09know,
08:10I didn't do a kind of, I didn't go in with an attitude that I'm trying to tell this particular
08:16story. I wanted to hear all sides, but through my own lens. What is the message you want to put
08:22out?
08:22Yeah. Send more reporters of color. That's the message that I want to put out.
08:27Fair enough. I could see where she was coming from.
08:30And then a student called me a white supremacist. Not in anger, just as a kind of friendly heads
08:35up. And one thing you can do is hold yourself accountable to that and embrace that, you know,
08:41you're racist. I felt like I stepped into a parallel universe with its own vocabulary.
08:48I just didn't speak the language yet.
08:53You don't focus, you're Canadian, you don't focus on Canadian campuses, though why not?
08:58I actually looked at Canadian campuses and there are Canadian stories. But once we started
09:04moving into production, I need to go where the story is. So I was just looking for stories that
09:10had visual aspects that either had secret recordings or film footage or documentary evidence,
09:18stories that could be told in a filmic way. And those stories happened to take place in the States.
09:25And then the backlash against the kind of what the right wing calls the illiberal left,
09:33the backlash started happening on American campuses. And Trump was kind of fomenting that kind of
09:40backlash against universities. And so the story just took me there. But it's just as present on
09:45Canadian campuses. And it's just as present in Canadian institutions. And when I say just as present,
09:50I mean the kind of ideas that I talk about in the film and that we represent in the film
09:58are very much
09:58present on campuses here.
10:00Let's talk about being cancelled, as we call it nowadays, being ostracized, being vilified,
10:06losing your job. This happens to several people whom you profile in Speechless. In an environment where
10:12so many of these people had been cancelled, or risk of being further cancelled, that fear lives large.
10:19How did you get them to talk honestly, openly, to even show up?
10:22We spoke to hundreds of people, hundreds of people. And I will say that I heard from my own colleagues
10:30and friends, a lot of who are in media, why are you making this film? And I thought,
10:35that's really interesting. I thought it was a really important story. And I don't think we
10:41shouldn't tell an important story because someone might use it as ammunition. But hundreds of people
10:48were scared to talk to us. And we would do these Zoom off-the-record meetings so people would feel
10:52comfortable. And we were like therapists. We had people crying on these Zoom meetings. People,
10:59professors who had no tenure, who were petrified of their students, who cleansed their curriculum of
11:04anything that might be offensive to somebody, because they ran the risk of being reported.
11:09And if they were reported, the administration wasn't saying, don't be silly. This, you know,
11:14what he, the reading he presented is okay. They were investigated. And they were oftentimes not
11:20rehired back. And they had no recourse because they had no tenure. So I was, we were seeing those effects.
11:27Those that spoke to us, they trusted that we were not doing a hit piece, that we were going to
11:33tell
11:33their story honestly. And I feel for all the people in the film, whatever their politics were, I felt my
11:41job was representing them properly, regardless of if I agreed with them or not. That's not relevant.
11:46I just wanted people to understand where they were coming from and what their headspace was.
11:51As you said at the beginning of our conversation, these issues extend beyond post-secondary institutions,
11:56campuses, whether they be in the United States or in Canada or in the UK. But there is an environment
12:03of which this exists on campuses. So I know every story is individual and everyone has their own
12:09reaction to it. But how would you say this idea of social death, that ostracization, that vilification,
12:16that cancelling? What does that look like on campus?
12:21I think it's worse than people think it is. People always say that I'm cherry-picking.
12:30And of course, you're always cherry-picking to make a film. You're picking the stories that you think
12:35represent ideas that you want to convey. But what's impossible for me to represent is kind of the
12:42self-censorship that is going on on campuses, because you can't film something that isn't,
12:47that is the absence of something. And I spoke to many, many students who just said,
12:52I'm here, particularly those at Ivy League universities. I don't want to challenge my
12:56professors. I don't want to challenge my students. I want to keep my head down because I need to
13:00graduate. And hearing that from students who are really smart, really engaged socially, and really
13:09care about issues, hearing many, many students and professors say that, I thought was really
13:17devastating. So the stories you're hearing are the more dramatic stories. And also, it's a certain
13:23kind of person who's going to sue Penn State for racial discrimination. So, you know, it's a certain
13:30kind of person who decides, I'm going to do this. I'm just not, I'm not going to just move on
13:34or keep my
13:34mouth shut. I'm going to, I'm going to take them to task. And that kind of person was open to
13:38being
13:39in the film. You know what I found so interesting about your film, for some people may not have
13:43watched it yet. But oftentimes, the people that end up being cancelled or lose their job, ended up on
13:49the same side. In other words, they're progressives. And then they end up being vilified by the progressive
13:54side of the ledger. Did that surprise you? Completely. But now I'm not surprised. But at the time,
13:59I kept saying, but Brett Weinstein's a perfect example, if you haven't seen the film, right? He
14:04is a super progressive, Bernie Sanders voting, Birkenstock wearing progressive on Evergreen,
14:10at Evergreen State College, and also loved by his students. And he was just eaten alive by,
14:17by the administration. Brett now actually has a podcast in the States that he does with his wife.
14:23He's unemployable in higher education because he becomes such an explosive, uh, character after
14:31this happened. And so you end up with someone who, you know, people say now that Brett, that Brett,
14:37this character is now right wing. He's an anti-vaxxer. He has a podcast. He deals with,
14:43the podcast is about evolutionary biology, but he does deal with some controversial issues. But the point is,
14:49he was completely unwelcome in his own lefty progressive spaces after this incident. So
14:55people find their homes in other, in other arenas.
15:00Coming up, more of my conversation with filmmaker, Rick Esther Bienstock. We're talking about her
15:07documentary, Speechless. You can watch part two tomorrow night at 8 PM, and you can see the entire
15:14film on CBC Gem. If you want to join the conversation, scan this QR code or go to cbc.ca
15:22slash documentaries slash speechless.
15:38I've always believed in free speech, defended it, even when it was hard. But this felt personal.
15:45I'm Jewish, and I have family and friends in Israel, many who oppose their own government's
15:50policies and sympathize with Palestinian suffering. So watching a Cornell professor call the October
15:577th attacks exhilarating, energizing, was hard to process. He wasn't some anonymous voice online.
16:04He was a tenured Ivy League professor who appeared to be celebrating mass murder.
16:09I needed to know what was happening on that campus.
16:14So I headed to Cornell.
16:19We do need to talk about October 7th, 2023. This is something that surfaces in the latter part
16:25of your documentary. I guess I want to know from you first, Rick, how different, I know the issues
16:33are different. I know the political climate is different. But how different are the protests
16:39that you've seen on campuses post-October 7th versus the ones you documented before?
16:46October 7th is obviously one of the most hot button issues. I thought, I thought it was hard
16:51enough dealing with race and gender issues. And then October 7th took it into an entirely different
16:56arena. And because of, I realized I just did not want to litigate the war and what was happening.
17:05That's not what the film was about. I was looking at student protests. When you say,
17:08how is it different? It was just, it was political. So it wasn't just identity. And it was everywhere.
17:16I mean, it took over the whole world and still, and it is still there. What I wanted to look
17:21at
17:21was how some of the protests represented currents that had been at play on these campuses starting
17:27in the 60s. Now, that's not to undermine the fact that there should be protests about wars on
17:33campuses. That's where people protest. There always has been. But what I found interesting was how it
17:39kind of fit in, they were using the words that I had documented, oppressor oppressed, that kind of
17:45dynamic. And again, I'm trying to stay away from litigating the war, but they were using all the same
17:51language as I was hearing in these other protests. And I think that was the most challenging part of the
17:57film to make, but it showed me two things. One, it's easy to talk about free speech and our ability
18:03to speak across differences when it's issues that aren't kind of close to your heart, because you can
18:07talk about it in academic terms and in abstract terms. But I didn't feel that way about October 7th.
18:13So I was really forced to look at, okay, what is acceptable speech when you don't like what you're
18:18hearing necessarily? And I think that was an important lesson for me, but also to kind of show that in
18:23the film.
18:24How concerned were you about bias or that perception of bias?
18:31It's one of the reasons I declare I'm Jewish. I just declare my identity because I can't help my bias,
18:40but I can try and overcome and listen to people who I don't agree with. I think I can do
18:46that. I might
18:46not like it, but I think I can. And, you know, I interviewed people. I didn't choose people according
18:53to their views. I chose people who were, for example, one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian camp
19:00at Cornell, who I interviewed. Everybody said he's the guy to talk to. Everyone said he represents us.
19:06And so I went and spoke to him. And all I can try and do is be as honest as
19:11I can in the film and as
19:12transparent as I can. And I did that. And so did my co-producer. I mean, that was really important
19:18to us. What I found is people's identities and their views always surprised me that you can't
19:24slot people into their identity based on their race, their gender, their political affiliation,
19:32necessarily. People are, I mean, this sounds so trite, but people are complex. We're nuanced.
19:37And I think it's important to see that because I think that just looking at people through the
19:42lens of identity can be destructive sometimes. So through all of this, the title of your
19:47documentary is Speechless, which implies people have been silenced or afraid to speak.
19:52Who is, do you feel, is truly being silenced? That's such a good question, Pia. I actually think
19:59we're not being silenced, but I think most of us live in this center where we don't agree,
20:05we don't have to be friends with people we don't agree with, but we're in this center where you can
20:09actually see nuance, see complexity. None of us are perfect, right? We all have our views and people
20:16piss us off for different reasons. But I think the center just doesn't have a voice, not in social media,
20:24not in the media. Everybody's in their own echo chamber. And I think, you know, we need to get
20:29back to the center. And I think we need students. I wish that professors and administration would
20:37stand by their professors so they can talk about different ideas that people might find a little
20:42bit offensive, but then they should be able to challenge those ideas as opposed to canceling them
20:47and shutting them down. Because it's created an environment where people are scared to speak,
20:51whether they want to admit it or not, certainly on campuses. But frankly, even in media, I've seen
20:57it myself. They're scared to say things. You know, everyone said, again, why are you doing a film?
21:04It's like I'm almost the wrongest person to make this film. You know, I'm doing a film about race,
21:09gender, October 7th and Trump. And I'm a white woman, white Jewish woman of a certain age. But it's like,
21:16no, we're all people trying to do, trying to tell stories and trying to report on things that are
21:22happening and trying to explore our world and figure out how we're going to navigate all this.
21:26And how's the next generation going to navigate? And if they're going to navigate this world,
21:30they're going to have to speak to and engage with people that they don't agree with
21:34and find a common ground. You grew up like that. So did I, I think, I'm assuming.
21:41Coming up, more of my conversation with filmmaker Rick Esther Bienstock. We're talking about her
21:48documentary, Speechless. You can watch part two tomorrow night at 8pm. And you can see the entire
21:55film on CBC Gem. If you want to join the conversation, scan this QR code or go to cbc.ca
22:03slash documentaries slash speechless.
22:17We'll see you next time.
22:19Rick, I just forwarded you an email that I just got from a professor. I guess word got out that
22:26we've been on campus. Check it out. Okay. Oh my god. The following was posted by the camp today,
22:31the encampment, right? Perhaps you've seen it. Update on documentary crew. Please wear masks.
22:36The director, who is a Zionist, is on site. Be wary of what you are saying around them and guard
22:42yourself from a potentially unfriendly crew. I mean, are you kidding? Zionist has become a dirty
22:48word, so. Why do they think you're a Zionist? I don't know. I think we should speak to Zionists,
22:53and I think we should speak to anti-Zionists. Well, we're doing that, I think.
22:58You're a brave filmmaker. You've tackled a lot of hard
23:01subjects. And I hear what you're saying there, that we got to talk about this stuff. I got to
23:06make this film. But is there a small part of you that's just a little bit worried that I might
23:11get
23:12canceled? It's not that it hasn't occurred to me, but I mean, it's too late now. So I feel like
23:20the
23:20film is fair. I feel it's fair. I can defend the choices that I made. I think the stories are
23:27important. I guess I've always kind of gone into stories that are challenging. And I think it's,
23:36this is a really important story. And I'm really grateful that I was able to get CBC and BBC on
23:42board,
23:43because everybody knows this is happening. And why wouldn't we want kind of like a benevolent look
23:49at our institutions that are educating the next generation of leaders?
23:55Your film puts a lot on the line. What do you hope it's going to achieve?
23:59I just hope that people watch it. And it really has people discussing and talking about it. What
24:04was really interesting making the film is we finished shooting and the crew, we just want to talk about
24:12the issues constantly, constantly. And I realized it's because people are hungry to talk about this
24:17stuff in a safe space. And I hope that the film does that. And people just talk and realize this,
24:24this way of controlling speech on campus is not doing anything. You said part of the,
24:29you said part of the reason you started this documentary is that your own two children were
24:33on their way to post-secondary education, just entering that arena. It's this time of year right now,
24:39Rick, where kids are deciding, you know, do I go to that school? Did I get into that school? What
24:44do I
24:44want to do, quote unquote, for the rest of my life? And so what's your message to these students,
24:49these young people who are about to embark on their post-secondary education when it comes to
24:54the issues that you discuss in your film? I think the most important thing is don't go to school
24:59and class with pre, with knowing all the answers. Just be a little bit humbled. People are coming in,
25:06and I heard this from professors, they have the conclusions already. They're coming in with the
25:10conclusions. They're not coming in open to seeing where some of their conclusions might not be so
25:16airtight. So I just like, be open. And also, I mean, this is the most, the simplest thing. Don't,
25:26I have, I have to think of something really important to say. What is the big statement I'm
25:32going to say? I just think, don't be so easily offended. Don't take what, take every word and
25:38parse it out to the point where people are uncomfortable talking and talking about their
25:42feelings. We, you know, Y Edit Suite was a very, very safe space. We don't all, we're not all
25:48politically aligned by editor and the researcher and the archivist. And it made for some very robust
25:54and exciting and interesting discussions. We didn't necessarily change each other's minds,
25:59but we respected each other's opinions. That sounds so obvious, but it's not always obvious if you're
26:05scared of being canceled. Social ostracization is a very scary thing. And it's very, very hard for
26:14students and professors. But think about students, the fear of losing friends over something is an
26:19overwhelmingly powerful, powerful and potent weapon. That was the most devastating thing to see.
26:26Students who just said, I am not going to engage in any of these ideas because it's too dangerous.
26:32How is higher ed a place where dangerous ideas shouldn't be discussed? I think we have to
26:39come to terms with that and realize we need braver administration and we need people to realize that
26:46it's created more polarization. And I think if we're going to kind of survive as a democracy,
26:52because I believe in democracy, we have to, uh, what's the word? We have to de-ignite.
26:59What's wrong with agreeing to disagree and still be friends? I have friends I don't agree with on
27:04every issue. They have strong values and that's what's important. It's a really important film at
27:10a really important time. Thank you for making it. Thank you for sitting down with me today.
27:13I appreciate it so much. Thank you very much. What a pleasure, Pia.
27:16Pia.
27:19Pia.
27:19Pia.
27:31Pia.
27:33Pia.
27:39Pia.
27:43Pia.
27:44Pia.
27:45Pia.
27:46Pia.
27:47Pia.
27:48Pia.
27:50Pia.
27:51Pia.
27:52Pia.
27:52Pia.
Comments