“The Cartel,” an award-winning documentary exposing failures in U.S. public education, is getting a special one-week engagement in Columbus.
The documentary was directed by Bob Bowdon, a New Jersey television journalist and reporter for The Onion. It exposes the “cartel” manifesting itself in New Jersey’s school system. The film will play this week at the Gateway Film Center.
Bowdon drew inspiration for the film from a call-in TV talk show he hosted about tenure, in which it was uncovered that the presence of unions makes it difficult to fire union members, even if they are underperforming.
“It seemed to me like a Third World country would have a rule like this — a guaranteed job for the rest of your life, no matter how lazy you are,” he said.
Bowdon explains in the film that New Jersey schools are suffering not only from union influence, but from the bureaucracy of state institutions.
As a reporter for The Onion, Bowdon set out to make a film with a different tone than the finished product.
“When I was first starting this, I was going to make a snarky, wisecracky, kind of tongue-in-cheek, stylized film like that with me in it a lot,” he said. “Then I realized that’s not what this content calls for. I had to really sort of say, ‘It’s not that funny.'”
Now, after winning awards at several film festivals, “The Cartel” will come to Columbus.
“(‘The Cartel’) fits really nicely into the sort of overriding mission to try to present a lot of different films and try to present films that might not make it to Columbus otherwise,” said Melissa Starker, sales and marketing manager for Gateway Film Center.
“It’s certainly an interesting topic and definitely one that people who have kids in school or teach, it hits very close to their heart,” she said.
“It’s an interesting film that talks about an issue that’s important to us, which is the power of public sector unions and the cost that they’re putting on to taxpayers,” said Matt Mayer, president of Buckeye Institute. “We just thought it was a good educational opportunity for Ohioans.”
Now, despite raising the curtain on issues and winning awards at various independent film festivals, Bowdon said the most approval he gets is for his Onion work rather than “The Cartel.”
“My Onion credentials always elicit more approval than my traditional, legitimate journalism credentials,” he said.
