The Invisible Tax of Ava DuVernay’s “Origin”
by Rafiq TaylorIn November of 2023, Origin was introduced to the world.
The Rhimes Performing Arts Center stands prominently on a clear day.
Directed by the illustrious Ava DuVernay, the film follows the journey of Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) as she becomes the author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The film received the highest test audience scores for both Ava DuVernay and NEON, making a splash at the Venice Film Festival. Despite its successes, I could only see the film within a limited window in 2024.
When I did see Origin, I too was blown away. The film is both ambitious and frightening in the relevance of its narrative. However, I have noticed a significant disparity in the way the film is discussed, a disparity that parallels the experiences that so many black women in powerful industries face. Even Ava DuVernay faced this disparity during her awards circuit interviews.
Inside the dance academy, a poster for a special screening of Origin rests near the entrance.
There’s a moment in the film, where Isabel is having a dinner discussion with her academic peers in Germany. She describes the current goal of her research: to find relevant parallels between the Holocaust and the institution of slavery in the US. During this conversation, her intellectual integrity is fiercely challenged with a verbal attack. While witnessing this moment, it ignited the moments I remember, when my thoughts faced the same kind of verbal lashing. That’s when I realized that being a Black academic can sometimes feel like being Ariel in Ursula’s lair.
The Black academic story is the story of a voice constantly in danger of being silenced and dismissed as illegitimate for the crime of not following the accepted, often white-led narrative. In journalism, this hides behind an illusion of objectivity. In the film industry, it’s loosely dismissed as tonally improper.
Art and fliers line the entrance to the Rhimes Performing Arts Center.
Regardless of the industry, the objective is the same: to silence. This practice of silencing enforces the fallacy that it is the historically dominant group that leads the pack, while the historically oppressed are expected to be grateful to even be in the space. I don’t understand why Black intellectuals need to be punished for sharing their thoughts. This silence is even present during the conversations and analysis of the film itself. In discussions about Origin, The protagonist isn’t talked about nearly as much as the concepts their book presents. Without our even realizing it, the fictional rendition of Isabel becomes the silent, unacknowledged laborer.
With this on my mind, an urgent opportunity arose to attend a screening of Origin on March 9th, the day before the Oscars. I listened to an episode of Hollywood-focused podcast The Town just a week ago. DuVernay’s name and work were not only mentioned, but immediately followed with a microaggression writing her off a “too angry” to be supported by the entertainment industry. If I recall correctly, the guest had described DuVernay’s frustrations with the lack of support she was receiving as entirely accurate. But somehow, the tone of her frustrations invalidated her from industry support.
Ava DuVernay and Debbie Allen conduct an interview and Q&A post-screening.
As I would soon learn in the Q&A portion of the special screening I attended, Origin was a project DuVernay conducted using her own support system outside of the standard studio avenues. It is this independence and ingenuity that the industry sees as foreign and an insult. As I listen to the story of Origin’s creation, relive the narrative unfolding within the film, and witness all of the excitement about the ideas presented in the film and the book it’s based on, I can’t help but feel a slight ache in the back of my mind.
It’s the pain of a price that is paid too often. It’s an inequality of trust: a trust that is afforded to Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, and Bradley Cooper. I wonder how often their ambitions were questioned as they conducted their recent work for the streamers and the studios. Judging from their guaranteed presence at the 2024 Oscar ceremony, it seems they got the festival treatment their work warranted from the second they had their ideas for a film until today, the day of the Oscars.
Ava DuVernay receives a work of art as parting gift from Debbie Allen.
I came to the event with the thoughts of Ariel in Ursula’s Lair in my mind: as a historical outcast, how does one prevent powerful institutions from silencing their melody? This was the question I tried to ask DuVernay herself after the screening. I was not called on to ask it, but I soon realized I was surrounded by an answer.
The screening was held at the Rhimes Performing Arts Center: the Los Angeles home of the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, named after Shonda Rhimes. It serves as one slice of HERstory: a series of events happening within that space honoring Women’s History Month. Five-time Emmy Award-winner Debbie Allen herself was the host and interviewer of the screening. After a lively discussion and Q&A, Allen invited the audience to explore the first and second floor lobby of the dance academy, encouraging us all to take in the art installations that decorate the space. I happily obliged.
It was through observing this work that the answer became clear to me. The outsider must create and curate the space for the trust in their beauty to flourish. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents would not exist without the curated intellectual space Isabel Wilkerson gave to her vision of the world. Origin would not exist as it does without the curated business space that is Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY. This screening would not have happened without the beautifully curated Rhimes Performing Arts Center. This article I’m writing might not exist without the curated academic space of USC’s Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab. All of these spaces feed each other.
So, there I am: floating through the lobby after the event’s end, surrounded by beauty. I notice one work of art in particular, and it strikes me with a bolt of knowing lightning.
On The Edge is an oil painting depicting secret anxieties, anguishes, and doubts.