| Big Love: god is in the details HBO's polygamist drama has toned down the sensationalism to bring religion to the fore in its final season. We speak to show creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer about the tricky business of exploring faith in the context of prime-time entertainment | |
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BY Joshua Ostroff TV Talk Eye Weekly - Toronto Star Newspapers Limited | |
When polygamist melodrama Big Love premiered on HBO five seasons ago, much ado was made over how Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) and his sister-wives’ plural-marriage was a parable about our patriarchal society as well as a reaction to right-wing attacks on non-traditional same-sex and single-parent families. The controversy over the show's socio-political subtext has somehow masked its religious sur-text and Big Love is winding up its controversial run on March 20 as the most God-fearing TV show since Touched by an Angel or 7th Heaven, albeit in a more morally ambiguous manner. "We kinda took [religion] off the burner for the first couple of years," admits co-creator Mark V. Olsen in a recent interview with Eye Weekly. "We loved everything about the material — we loved the specificity of it; we loved that the Mormon world had yet to be tapped into in American pop culture. But we were nervous about the religious part of it, because clearly the polygamy that we were portraying was very scriptural-based." Though the (relatively) mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints banned polygamy back in 1890, fundamentalist sects out on secluded compounds continue to refer to it as "The Principle" and consider it necessary to salvation. Or perhaps it's just a disingenuous excuse to have married sex with multiple partners. Either way, religion is how all of Big Love’s polygamists justify their illegal "celestial marriages." "I remember in the writers’ room we were very nervous about how off-putting the actual rendering of the amount of prayer and faith-based activity in the daily life of this family could be," Olsen says. "We tended, as much as we could at that part of our journey, to put [religion] on the back burner and keep it off-camera," Olsen says. "But, bit by bit, over the course of the show we not only warmed up to it, but felt the show lacked a certain credibility without it, that it veered too much toward to 'three babes in a hot tub.' We felt that there were deeper things to do by fully embracing [religion] and by this fifth year it’s completely woven into the fabric of the show." Set in the Mormon homeland of Utah, Big Love has appropriately split its religious take into a holy trinity—the mainstream LDS, which newly elected state senator Bill Henrickson discovers essentially runs state politics; the creepy fundamentalists on the Juniper Creek compound where Bill and second-wife Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) grew up; and the more personal but no less patriarchal Mormonism of the Henrickson family that falls somewhere in-between. "Religion is such a huge topic," says Olsen. "Our discussions parse out religion, being religious and being spiritual. It's a very fine-toothed comb that we try to apply to the hair of our story. I think we had a fair amount to say and we do more than ever this season about the abuses of organized religion. But I want to be clear we’re talking about organized religion—once it converts into a bureaucracy and a power structure that’s where we find the venality of the whole enterprise, that’s where it starts to stink." The Juniper Creek subplots, including a second-season police raid, have always had echoes of actual polygamist compounds with the various leaders reflecting real-life figures such as the infamous (and currently incarcerated) "prophet" Warren Jeffs. "I think you see the signets of that culture in starker terms. Last year was an attempt to really see the signets of it," says Olsen, referencing a critically maligned eugenics subplot that was actually based on a real-life incident of incestuous in-vitro fertilization. "However strange and over-the-top that sounded, we do feel like the abuses and signets of that fundamentalist Mormon compound are even more starkly drawn than ever before." This final season has also tackled the hypocrisy of mainstream Mormonism, whose desire to publicly distance themselves from their religion’s original tenets have seen the show’s LDS Church attempt to impeach Bill over his campaign to normalize polygamy. Meanwhile, Barb’s (Jeanne Tripplehorn) feminist fight to be a priesthood-holder—a religious role held exclusively by men—makes it clear that, no matter how well we know and like the Henrickson family, Bill’s take on the Book of Mormon is as oppressive as any. "The name of Juniper Creek has fundamentalist in its title," notes co-creator Will Scheffer, "and Mormons are always separating themselves from fundamentalists—but it's the creeping fundamentalism of not only religion but of personal doctrine that is the danger of life. You can find fundamentalism in many places." Though last season’s baroque soap operatics (including murder, incest, kidnapping and a rescue mission to Mexico, not to mention Bill’s political campaign and the family coming out as polygamists) sparked a critical backlash, Olsen and Scheffer are proud of how they’ve "landed" the series and hope the story can be viewed as a complete canon. "I feel like the way we've been received by a lot of critics was that they don't get the show," says Scheffer. "But we don't write for nothing and I do see it in 10 or 15 or 20 years being looked back on as having been an important show. I can’t see it not having an effect on culture as culture progresses. "I don’t think we've said everything we have to say about faith," he adds, "I don't know if you ever can." Big Love's series finale airs Sunday (March 20) on HBO Canada. | |
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EyeWeekly.com Originally published March 18, 2011 | |
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