There once was a union maid who never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and deputy sheriffs that made the raid
-“Union Maid” by Woody Guthrie
James Motluk is a Toronto-based filmmaker and the writer/director of Whose University Is It? a documentary about corporate influence on Ontario’s universities. Varsity writer DAVID SMOOKLER sat down to talk to Motluk about his film last week.
DS: How did you become an activist?
JM: I wouldn’t call myself an activist. I think an activist is someone going and taking risks. I’m just being honest about what I see. I’m a Trent alumnus, so when I read about how they overrode the (university’s) Senate I started researching what was going on and it just seemed wrong. They were changing what I found so valuable about the university, and why it gave me such a good education. It just seemed wrong to me, and it seemed like something that was happening all over the place, at hospitals, museums, Hydro-this whole drive to define all of our public services as businesses.
I make my movies to tell the other side of the story. Trent University has a huge amount of money that they put behind their angle on Superbuild [the government promotion for universities to seek corporate sponsorship] saying it’s all rosy and wonderful and they’re doing great things for the students. I think that they’re not.
DS: Your previous film, Life Under Mike was a critique of the Harris government; this film is a critique of corporate culture entering the universities, would you describe yourself as a Canadian Michael Moore?
JM: No, I’m not the Canadian Michael Moore; I’d say I’m more the Woody Guthrie of film. He could go anywhere with his guitar and he would write songs about what he saw, and I have a digital camera. I can go anywhere with my little camera and make documentaries about what I see-social injustice. Someone like Woody Guthrie could go to a demonstration and write a song like “Union Maid” and it would spread. It was this kind of grassroots culture, very immediate and accessible, and I think that digital video and documentary is allowing people to do that. I think it’s a tool of social activism the way that folk music was from the ’30s to the ’60s.
DS: How do you find the response when you tour universities?
JM: Actually, I’ve found it really quite amazing. There’s a whole youth culture that seems to be very engaged, very politicized. That’s certainly what I’ve noticed as I’ve gone around to campuses. Liberal change almost always happens through students. Tiananmen Square, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, was students. It is almost always students who democratize the world. People have to realize they have a lot of power if they are engaged and active and they participate.
DS: Do you think the student dissent shown in the film had any impact on the university’s actions regarding the downtown campus?
JM: I think without any opposition (university dean) Patterson would have disposed of both downtown colleges pretty quickly. In the end she tried to smash the Peter Robinson College, which was kind of the centre of a lot of the dissent, and kept the other college. I think the opposition definitely slowed things down. It made a difference. And the students were also protesting the increased advertising on campus, and apparently they have stalled that completely.
