Why Didn't People Watch Origin?

  There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28 NRSVue

The other evening we finally watched the film Origin. We intended to see it in the movie theatre but ended up streaming it. It is a biopic of sorts, telling the poignant story of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson whose husband and mother died within a year. It also gives us the back-story of her journey of discovery into the differences between racial prejudice and a caste system. The result was the brilliant book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents. 

Caste is a cultural construct created to separate groups of people within a society through laws and taboos. They are not necessarily based on skin colour, but they can be, as was the case in the United States during centuries of slavery followed by segregationist Jim Crow laws. Wilkerson, a Black woman, also explored the caste system in India and Nazi Germany, where leaders studies American laws as a model for the systemic isolation, persecution and murder of six million Jews. 

Reviewers liked Origin and in January Barry Hertz of the Globe and Mail said:  “It is one of the most purely fascinating films of the season – demanding of discussion – yet hardly anyone outside a small group of critics seems to be talking about it." Origin didn't do well at the box office and received no nominations for Academy Awards. I realized as I watched that it was may have been too thoughtful and complex to be popular. We both appreciated the film and I certainly felt that having read Caste was helpful. I wrote about the book in this blog a couple of years ago. 

As I watched I was reminded that religion is often coopted as an ally in creating and sustaining a caste system. In the United States and Germany Christians (not all) somehow twisted Christ's gospel of inclusion to institutionalize exclusion. In India the caste system became integral to Hinduism, and continues to this day.This brings to mind the observation of Martin Luther King Jr:  “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning.”

Do Wilkerson's distinctions between racism and caste also apply to the way Indigenous peoples have been characterized and oppressed in Canada and around the world, again with religious institutions as allies? It seems to me that the answer is a shameful yes.

 If you subscribe to Prime you will be able to watch Origin for free and I encourage you to do so.