A new documentary is currently making the rounds of limited release that explores the life of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. &#8216;Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words&#8217; offers its viewers a unique perspective on one of America’s most contentious and quietly brilliant men.
Thomas has, of course, been a contentious figure in American politics ever since his confirmation hearing in 1991 — when President George H. W. Bush nominated him for the position of Supreme Court associate justice. Thomas was quickly accused of sexually harassing a female subordinate, Anita Hill, earlier in his career. While the FBI quickly ruled out the claim, her testimony was leaked to the public and devolved into a heated series of public sexual harassment hearings prior to his confirmation.
The movie doesn’t pretend that it isn’t taking a stance on Justice Thomas’s innocence. If anything, his accusation draws immediate comparisons in the movie to the conspicuously similar accusations made 27 years later against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Alas, in the scheme of lionizing Supreme Court justices, a single documentary about Justice Thomas pales in comparison to the multitude of biopics and documentaries made about progressive darling Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
&#8216;Created Equal&#8217; is a documentary that merely puts his perspective in the spotlight. It’s primarily composed as a one-on-one sit-down interview with the now 71-year-old justice as he reflects on his life, politics, and his stances on constitutional law. Anyone who has read his memoir, &#8216;My Grandfather’s Son,&#8217; will likely be familiar with some of the highlights of his journey — but for first-time viewers, his life will likely be rather striking. Born in rural Georgia during segregation, Justice Thomas endured both poverty and unimaginable racial prejudice.  He was largely sheltered from the worst of it via his relationship with his grandfather, who put him to work as a part-time laborer and a farmer with strict standards and expectations. After a falling out with his grandfather, he underwent a period of radicalization amidst the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement and moved politically to the far-left. After graduating from College of the Holy Cross and subsequently Yale Law School, he eventually received a job working with the attorney general of Missouri, and future Republican U.S. senator, John Danforth.
While most of the back half the documentary deals with the results of his Supreme Court nomination and subsequent confirmation, the first half ends up being the more revealing half. Seeing his path from the most oppressed rungs of American society to becoming an associate justice is nothing short of inspiring. He is, in every respect, the embodiment of the American dream. His position of power now is a reflection of a lifetime of struggle, hard work, and self-reflection as he grew into the man he is today.
Seeing him grow from a leftist into the most famously conservative man on the Supreme Court is equally fascinating. That journey, though less fraught than his upbringing, required years of intellectual wrestling with his leftist tendencies as he developed his originalist stance on constitutional interpretation. After years of attending political conventions and arguing with friends, he developed a strong sense of constitutional fidelity birthed from his love for the Founders and their vision for an American government.
That immense wellspring of knowledge about the nature of the American Founding subsequently gives Thomas&#8217;s perspective of his confirmation hearings a rather hilarious undercurrent. Watching him explain how then-Senator Joe Biden’s (D-DE) contortions of political theory amounted to little more than an attempt to make him reveal his positions on abortion is nothing short of hilarious. The Democrats&#8217; line of interrogation during the Senate confirmation hearings was clearly nothing but an attempt to make him stumble as part of the Left’s effort to destroy a black man holding, as Thomas puts it, the &#8220;wrong&#8221; opinions.
Being black and a conservative always put Justice Thomas at odds with the progressive Left. Given his Catholic faith, as well as his personal stances against forced busing and welfare, he drew immense amounts of acrimony from those who hated him well before Anita Hill made her accusations known. Thomas is, in every respect, the kind of public figure the Left should hold up as a success story for the black community. Yet the Left casually dismisses him as a race traitor. Thomas is clearly still bothered by some of the horrifically racist rhetoric that has been used against him throughout his career.
For bringing much of this history to the public’s attention, &#8216;Created Equal&#8217; is a vitally important piece of both journalism and history. Thomas’ stories feel all too familiar in an age of #MeToo accusations and racial identitarianism. Much of the vitriol he spent his career fighting sadly remains a stubborn fact today. The perspective he brings to life, law, and morality is immensely valuable and inspiring. To this day, his name is invoked on the Left as an example of a prominent man being let off the hook for sexual impropriety. The film makes clear Thomas’ name, reputation, and beliefs were dragged through the mud. Thankfully, such a horrific show didn’t destroy the man. He is today as humble, intelligent, proud, faithful, and patriotic as he’s ever been.

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HUMMEL: ‘Created Equal’: New Documentary Sheds Light On The Life Of Justice Clarence Thomas

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Hollywood is no great fan of Christianity. On most days, the film industry is either apathetic about or actively hostile towards the world’s largest religion. It’s not hard to see why. Christianity stands in stark contrast to the intersectional Left, whose goals include the reconstruction of all traditional institutions in the name of fighting nigh-omnipotent oppression that exists at all levels of society.
What happens though when you have a story that’s too great not to be told, but is deeply rooted in Christianity? Simply put, you disregard it.
This is nothing new. Hollywood actively downplays the faith of religious characters all the time. Even Vox, of all places, pointed this out in its review of 2018’s largely forgotten adaptation of &#8220;A Wrinkle in Time.&#8221;
“&#8217;A Wrinkle in Time&#8217; is deeply informed by its author’s Episcopal Christianity, But the irony is that despite its supernatural figures, &#8216;A Wrinkle in Time&#8217; is a deeply Christian book, informed by not just L’Engle’s spirituality, but her specifically Episcopalian background,&#8221; Tara Isabella Burton of Vox <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/8/17090084/a-wrinkle-in-time-faith-christianity-movie-madeleine-lengle">wrote</a>. &#8220;For most of her life, L’Engle was a devoted Christian (she served as librarian and writer in residence at New York City’s St. John the Divine church) and her specific vision of Christianity was central to &#8216;A Wrinkle in Time&#8217;’s climax.”
In that case, director Ava DuVernay (&#8220;Selma, When They See Us&#8221;) washed the book’s religious themes out in favor of Oprah-esque new-aged spirituality.
In the past year, Hollywood has struggled to properly depict the faith of one of the 20th century&#8217;s most beloved American ministers. The late PBS Star Fred Rogers is well known as the star of the children series &#8220;Mister Rogers&#8217; Neighborhood,&#8221; which ran on television off and on between 1968 and 2001.
Because of the immense gentleness and power of his message, there’s been a renewed interest in his life over the past two years that’s been explored in a pair of excellent films. Morgan Neville’s documentary &#8220;Won’t You Be My Neighbor&#8221; and Marille Heller’s biopic &#8220;A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood&#8221; both explore the same concepts of how someone as enigmatic and gentle as Mr. Rogers can arise in a world as divided, cynical, and exhausting as ours.
But neither film truly comes to a full conclusion on Fred Rogers. Both tacitly mention his faith, but they both sideline it in favor of merely treating his otherworldly kindness as an enigma worth viewing at a distance. They sparsely consider the possibility that kindness actually stems from his religion. Unfortunately, such distance seems to have fundamentally alienated anyone who might’ve learned something from Mr. Rogers.
In BirthMoviesDeath’s review of the film by Britt Hayes, Hayes praised Rogers&#8217; kindness and immediately stated that it is impossible to actually live out such kindness.
“I won&#8217;t pretend that I&#8217;ve successfully practiced empathy throughout my life, despite the early and frequent teachings of Mister Rogers, a man who had to practice his patience and compassion every single day.&#8221; Hayes <a href="https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/11/25/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-proves-we-need-mister-rogers-now-more-t">wrote</a>. &#8220;Like most people, I struggle with the limits of that empathy. Nazis, Trump, perpetrators of hate crimes, rapists — they&#8217;re all on the list of people who, in my estimation, don&#8217;t deserve such kindness and understanding. It&#8217;s just too difficult and laborious (and perhaps generous) to extend them that kindness, not that they&#8217;re likely to accept it or be changed by it in any fundamental way.”
Such incredible kindness and gentleness is unobtainable if we as a society are unwilling to consider the radical idea that it was born of his religious beliefs. In the worst moments of these films, Fred Rogers&#8217; kindness just becomes a cudgel against the broader Right. The most irritating scenes of &#8220;Won’t You Be My Neighbor&#8221; come when the movie takes potshots at Fox News for its criticism of Mr. Rogers. These barely register as anything more than a sanctimonious dog whistle.
This shyness on the subject of faith is ironically not shared by another film that shared the same release date as &#8220;A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.&#8221; &#8220;Frozen II&#8221; carries an overtly proud neo-pagan aesthetic that borrows heavily from medieval European spirits and mysticism. In the film, those spirits teach the main character that the foundational myth of Elsa’s family was a lie, that widespread human technological development hurts nature, and that the only method of creating peace with nature comes with a radical desire to destroy our technological achievements. Only in doing so can we pray that nature forgives us of our sins.
The progressive worldview can’t overcome the notion that joy, meaning, and truth are found in the destruction of classical institutions and not in their preservation. Neo-paganism does not upset the whims of the progressive Left and can easily be twisted to its means more readily than can Christianity. As the success of Christian films like &#8220;Unplanned&#8221; and Kanye West’s recent Gospel album &#8220;Jesus is King&#8221; show, there is a huge market for these values in Hollywood films that is currently being largely ignored.

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HUMMEL: ‘Created Equal’: New Documentary Sheds Light On The Life Of Justice Clarence Thomas

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