The Mission (National Geographic)

[DanaK]

Nat Geo documentary on a young evangelical missionary killed by an isolated Indian tribe when he tried to contact and evangelize them. Premieres on Hulu on December 8

[AstridM]

Am I the only one who watched this?

[scriggle]

No. I don't know what I was expecting but I was disappointed.

[AstridM]

3 hours ago, scriggle said:

No. I don't know what I was expecting but I was disappointed.

Yes, I’ve been wondering for years HOW this kid thought he was going to “convert” those people when he didn’t speak their language and they didn’t speak English, and I STILL don’t know, lol. Just delusional. 

[nodorothyparker]

I stumbled upon this last night. It felt ambitious in that it clearly wanted to tell a larger story about Western evangelicalism and colonialism and the place it occupies in the public imagination but stumbled over itself in trying to be overly sensitive and fair-handed with the religious nutters who either egged this kid on or at minimum did nothing to make sure he was at least somewhat realistic about what it was he was proposing to do.

I think we were supposed to draw parallels with the older failed missionary who wasted years with the tribe in the Amazon thinking that if he just lived among them long enough and studiously worked on learning the language, they'd eventually embrace him and his message but if that's what they were going for, it was pretty muddled. We didn't get much more than our good missionary thought if he just rowed up to them with presents of fish they'd "accept" him and go from there as explanation for how he saw that playing out. Part of me suspects the kid didn't know either though, so there's that.