Mormonopia» Mormon Church in Pop Culture

Play ball! ‘Mormon Night’ is big in the big leagues

Graham — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:00:01 +0000

About a month ago Mormon Times had a nice article about “Mormon Night” at various Major League Baseball ball parks. I’m a huge baseball fan, and live close to Toronto, so it’d be great if the Blue Jays did that. A couple of years ago the missionaries sang the national anthems, and members could get some group tickets, but it wasn’t really “Mormon Night”.

Dale Murphy recognized the signs.

There was the late-arriving crowd, the national anthem singers wearing black name tags and the 0-for-4 in the box score next to his name.

Then there was this sign, held up by a fan in the center field stands before one game: “Hey Murph, no success can compensate for failure at home plate.”

It must be “Mormon Night.”

That sign held by the fan is classic!

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13 Former Ad Men Who Found Fame in Other Fields

Graham — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:02:29 +0000

mental_floss magazine has a blog posting on their website about 13 Former Ad Men Who Found Fame in Other Field. President Monson makes the list at #13:

13. Thomas S. Monson
Monson, the current President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, got his start as an advertising executive for newspapers in the 1940s.

Cool!

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Another shot from Bill Maher

Graham — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:57:56 +0000

A few months ago I posted some comments about Bill Maher’s “documentary” Religulous. He obviously is no fan of organized religion. Mormons were covered in the movie, but I didn’t think what he said about us was any worse than what he said about other faiths.

Well, he’s at it again. During last Friday’s show he did a “rant” on his show about the “birthers” who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. He thinks they are stupid. Yet someone in talking about this issue, he manages to bring up Mormons.

In America there is no idea so patently absurd that it can’t catch on… for example, have you ever met a mormon?

Anyway, if you are interested, you can view the YouTube video from 2:19 to 2:30.

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Church commercial on CNN.com

Graham — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:27:06 +0000

So, I was watching a few “latest news” videos on the CNN news site, and I just let them play through. At one point, between videos was a commercial for the Church’s video called Finding Happiness. Then, the next thing I knew there was a segment on about how Lindsay Lohan had posted a topless picture of herself on Twitter. Weird timing! Obviously the Church doesn’t pick exactly when their commercial will be shown. I just wondered if that was a good place or a bad place to show a Church commercial? I kind of thought it was funny. Ms. Lohan has had a lot of problems lately. Maybe she should get a copy of the video

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Stones, Zeppelin Songs Combat Crickets

Graham — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:56:46 +0000

I first heard about this on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

Most members are aware of the story from early Utah when some crickets were eating crops and seagulls came and ate them. The type of cricket has been called Mormon Crickets.

Anyway, these so called Mormon Crickets are causing a problem in Nevada, and officials are trying to use heavy metal music to chase them away.

Imagine waking up with a cricket on your head. Imagine crickets swarming everywhere outside your house. It sounds like some kind of Biblical plague, but it’s actually affecting Tuscarora, Nev. so badly that the residents have resorted to blasting rock ‘n’ roll to combat them…

To me, the most noteworthy thing about this, is that when mentioned on Wait, Wait… there weren’t really any Mormon-related joke. One panelist mentioned that Mormons, like crickets, reproduce a lot, but that was it. There were no jokes about polygamy, nothing about getting rid of Mormons, etc. It would seem that we are indeed making some progress

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Jim Carrey invites the missionaries over

Graham — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:51:54 +0000

Actually, it wasn’t the real Jim Carrey… it was Carl Allen, a character Jim Carrey plays in the movie Yes Man. In the movie, Jim Carrey’s character Carl is in a dead-end job, he is divorced, and seems to avoid everyone and everything. He bumps into an old friend who has really been enjoying life. This friend has been following a self-help program that is based on saying “Yes” to everything. Carl eventually tries it out and the movie is about the new life Carl has as he tries new things, but then the troubles he faces as he says yes to things he shouldn’t.

Anyway, at one point of the movie, Carl answers the door, and two men in dark pants, white shirts and ties are there. They don’t have name tags on, but they do tell him they are from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ask if they can talk to him and Carl let’s them in.

Wow… now not only do we have Steve Martin as a member (just kidding… it’s a myth), but now we can claim Jim Carrey as our own!

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Religulous

Graham — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:00:16 +0000

Have you seen the Bill Maher “documentary” Religulous? I’m generally not a fan of him, but I still went ahead and watched the movie a couple of weeks ago. I’m not really sure what to say about it. I thought there were many thought-provoking things in the movie, but they were all clouded by Bill Maher’ obviously disdain for religion. He blames religion for essentially all the violence in the world and spent much of his time mocking (in a covert manner) the people he was “interviewing”. There is no attempt at all to have any balance in the movie. If you are religious, you must be crazy. If you do not believe in religion, then you are intelligent. It probably wasn’t very fair, but he chose some interesting places to visit and people to interview which made the movie a little more entertaining. He even interviewed his mother and his sister and there were clips of that at a few points in the movie.

Surprising, out of all of the religions that were highlighted, I thought the short segment on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the least offensive. He originally tried to film on Temple Square, but they were told to leave. He didn’t interview anyone official (as he did with almost all other churches he mentioned) and ended up interviewing a couple of ex-Mormons… Tal Bachman and Bill Gardiner. They made fun of the Church, but it seemed easy to disregard the opinion of a disgruntled ex-member.

After looking information on Religulous on IMDB, I found another interesting thing… as of the time of this writing, there were 6 “Goofs” highlighted, and 5 of them had to do with our Church. A member must have submitted some updates to the page, and then a moderator accepted them.

Let me just say, that as a piece of entertainment, it was enjoyable. Religion can be pretty wacky sometimes. However, as a piece of accurate “reporting”, it distorted the truth, spread misconceptions, and is critical of almost all things religious. You won’t miss out if you never see it.

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My co-worker’s response to Big Love

Graham — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:32:47 +0000

I commented before that I had some co-workers who watch Big Love and I was curious to see if they would ask me about it. Well, I just had a nice conversation with one woman. We’ve talked about religion before. There have been a few members who have worked with her in the past, and she knows that I’m currently the bishop of my ward. She asked if I’d seen Big Love and I said that I had, and so she asked if the temple scene was true. I explained that it was basically true, but that it missed the point of the ceremony, which is to learn about the Plan of Salvation from the beginning to the end. She asked if the “muscle thing” was true, and when I gave her a confused look, she clarified that she was talking about what was said at the veil. I said that most of what was in the episode was accurate. She asked about what the blue apron. I told her it was actually green, and that it represented the “fig leaves” they used to cover themselves. She accepted that without hesitation. She also wanted to confirm that is what we do in the temple in Toronto (I’ve referred to that before), and I told her it was.

Without me trying to justify anything, she said that at first it seemed weird, but then she figured that all other churches have rituals, and it was no different than that, so she thought it was fine. She said she wanted to see the white room at the end. We laughed and I explained a few things she might have to change in her life in order to do that, and she said she was fine with most things other than the gambling (we work in Niagara Falls, and she likes to frequent the casinos). She said she’d let me know when she was ready.

We spoke about the “love court”, and I told her I’d never heard that phrase before. I explained that I’ve had to run a couple of those sorts of things, and that I didn’t think it was portrayed well. That made her think of when the woman was questioned about her garments, and wanted to know what that was. I wear crew neck garment tops, so I pointed to the white “undershirt” I have on, and told her it wasn’t magic underwear, but that I wear them every day. That was good enough for her. She didn’t ask any more about why, or what they represented. She did say she was going to check every day to make sure I had them on!

We talked for a little longer, and I explained a bit about Joseph Smith, and mentioned how he must have been influenced by what he learned as a Mason. I explained that the method was similar, but that what is taught is different. She thought that was very interesting, as her grandfather was a mason and it always fascinated her.

So, based on this one conversation, the episode did not hurt her impression of the Church, and it helped her learn some more about the Church.

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My (simple) thoughts on the Big Love episode

Graham — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:48:38 +0000

I have to be honest, when I first heard that Big Love was going to show parts of the temple endowment ceremony, I didn’t get very upset. It was going to happen sooner or later in some main stream movie or TV show. As others have commented, the information is all out there anyway. Out of all of the people close to me who found out about it, my mother-in-law was particularly upset about it. I received a couple of email forwards from various church leaders who wanted to ensure that the show wasn’t mentioned in sacrament meeting, and suggesting that if people have questions, they could watch the MormonMessages clip on YouTube.

Anyway, I did see the relevant parts today, and it just seemed so bizarre to hear those words spoken so freely when we as members never speak them other than in the temple. Generally, what they showed seemed pretty accurate. However, of course the problem is that only showing a few minutes doesn’t really help anyone understand the purpose of the temple. I know that the physical actions have a place in the ceremony, but I’ve always been fond of the presentation as a whole as you progress from the creation to the eternities.

There are a few people at work who watch the show. I have to say, that in trying to watch the show for entertainment, it was just too much of a soap opera for me. It definitely isn’t my type of show. It will be interesting to see if my co-workers approach me with any questions.

On a related (but side) note, the MormonMessages clip is from the longer movie Between Heaven and Earth. I saw it a few years ago, and at the time I thought it was excellent and very well done. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

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10 Religious Holidays Not Yet Exploited by Hallmark

Graham — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:05:06 +0000

Last week mental_floss blog posted about 10 Religious Holidays Not Yet Exploited by Hallmark. Coming in at #4 was Pioneer Day. After a brief history of the Church, it describes the day as follows:

And what better reason to set aside Pioneer Day every July 24 for some fireworks, picnics, Mormon folk music, and, of course, prayers of thanksgiving? Celebrating Brigham Young’s arrival to the city on that fateful day often involves historical reenactments, with Mormons revisiting parts of the trails their ancestors took across the country and replaying their forefathers’ entrance into the Salt Lake Valley. Much of the celebration is focused on community, with contests, concerts, parades, and games organized for the families. It isn’t just a Mormon event, though; non-Mormon residents of Utah also participate in the festivities. In fact, Pioneer Day is widely considered to be bigger than the July 4th holiday in the state.

I’ve never been present at a Pioneer Day celebration and I’ve never seen any of the Church broadcasts, so I can’t comment on it other than to say that although I appreciate the pioneer heritage of the Church, Pioneer Day seems very Utah-specific, and as a worldwide Church, I can’t see it catching on.

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