Announcement - The Reformers

Those of you familiar with my work will recall my involvement in The Grievance Studies Affair.

For my newly found subscribers, the Grievance Studies Affair was an elaborate academic hoax that took aim at identity studies departments to expose the madrassa-like qualities that lay beneath a social science veneer. I stumbled into the project during its early conception, became close with the protagonists, and documented the strange journey while getting deeply involved in it.

The plan for the feature film was to leverage proven interest from web audiences to secure post-production funding and distribution within the established industry. We were able to find a motivated web audience across YouTube, Twitter, and Patreon, who funded the film to a humble level of completion (TYSM) but we hit years’ worth of dead ends in the next phase of screening to distributors, sales agents, and festivals.

Much of the industry was horrified by the film. In some cases, they were outright hostile. I got the impression that older Gen X and Boomer producers really liked it and were privately enthusiastic about the playful skulduggery of it all. Younger industry professionals either blew me off or dutifully took meetings and sat with a frightened look as if they were in the presence of the devil himself. One grant rejection said the “competition in this round has been extremely competitive” before announcing the successful applicants that were a string of this kind of thing…

It’s possible the film is just a bit shit and I’m unaware. The project was an artistic experiment, and its peculiar themes and format might be an acquired taste. Given the interest we’ve had from the digital public though, the more likely scenario is that the legacy industry is an extension of the academic landscape we critique in the film.

So this is the announcement. I’ve decided to break the film down into four parts and premiere it here.

Part one will be free to the public on Substack and my YouTube channel. I’m going to paywall the next three episodes until I can square away a development budget for my next film, after which I’ll release it all free and encourage donations.

Any support you can give, whether via paid subscriptions or just sharing the first episode on May 7th, will be greatly appreciated.