Mormons in media: Gee, thanks 'Tonight Show' and 'Big Love'
 
By Joel Campbell
Mormon Times
 
In response to Sen. Orrin Hatch's musical gift to Jews, a Hanukkah song, Conan O'Brien's "The Tonight Show" decided to return the "favor."

According to Tablet (kind of the Jewish equivalent of Mormon Times): "Host Conan O'Brien proceeded to announce that his show's resident Jew, drummer and bandleader Max Weinberg, who also sets the rhythm in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, wanted to return the favor to Utah's senior senator and his co-religionists of the Mormon faith. Bottom line: you can watch the cast's holiday song -- 'Mormons, Mormons, Mormons / We haven't got a clue / Of what you folks believe in / Or think or drink or do'"

Don't know whether to laugh or get angry -- especially when Conan says viewers can learn more by watching "Big Love," "Witness" and "Children of the Corn." I think O'Brien should give more credit to Hatch for understanding Jews, and us Mormons more respect than the banal stereotypes portrayed. Maybe Latter-day Saints should suggest O'Brien have David Archuleta, Steve Young and Hatch on one night as penance. Here's the song, including an appearance by the The Mormon Tapper-nacle Choir."

Frankly, I prefer the perspective of the recent editorial in the Boston Globe, which points out it was a Jew who requested that Hatch write the song: "More importantly, it makes a winning statement about the spirit of pluralism. As some TV and radio gabbers overstate the 'war on Christmas,' the senator offers an argument for celebrating everybody's traditions. And a recording of the song, filmed by Jewish-themed Tablet Magazine, is a triumph of multiculturalism. In the video, Hatch is joined by his collaborator Madeline Stone -- a Jew who usually writes Christian contemporary music -- and singer Rasheeda Azar, who is Syrian-American. The music they produce is decent enough. Their message is a mitzvah (often translated as 'good deed')."

"Big Love" to strike again

It turns out the writers of "Big Love" have figured out a way to include a gay-Mormon story line in drama that's supposed to be about polygamist fundamentalists. Of course, the writers haven't let that fact get in the way of sticking it to the LDS Church through fuzzy plots lines and tenuous connections in the past. Remember the "Big Love" show re-enacting sacred temple ceremonies?

An Entertainment Weekly columnist writes that "Big Love" producers want to again shock their audience. "(Producer Marc V.) Olsen suggests, 'It's more than just the Mormon culture. We're highlighting certain aspects of the church's relationship with its gay members that I think, as the story unfolds, is going to cause no (small) amount of controversy.'" Once again it sounds like Olsen and company are ready to blur the lines between a fictional fundamentalist group and what is practiced in the LDS Church. Bottom line: Producers are using their artistic license as a screen for misinformation and bigotry.

In the Philippines, "Big Love" is officially banned, but the show has been airing on late-night TV. A Catholic advocacy group has filed contempt charges against the show's distributors. "The group, the Family Media Advocacy Foundation Inc., said Creative Programs continued to air the program on Velvet cable channel despite an order from the government ratings agency to stop doing so. 'Showing "Big Love" is against the law and goes against public morals,' said lawyer Jo Imbong, who heads the group," according to the Manila Standard. A newspaper editorial said all of the attention given to the show by "moralists" may drive up viewership. Unfortunately, none of the reporting makes clear that the show has nothing to do with the LDS Church -- it only references a "fictional Mormon."

E-mail: foiguy@gmail.com
Joel Campbell's column "Mormon Media Observer" appears on MormonTimes.com on Wednesdays and some Saturdays.
 
MormonTimes.com
Originally published Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009
 
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