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Mar. 21st, 2012 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI have lately been enthralled with the musical The Book of Mormon.
The songs are catchy and largely upbeat. They are (some of them) very funny and, at the same time, quite profane and I got to thinking, there.
Thing is, if we (theatergoers, theater enjoyers, the freethinking largely atheistic / broadly and generically not-very-deist persons who are the intended audience for this thing) were all as belief-free or as flexible as we like to pretend we are, the thing would not be funny and profane at the same time. The authors (Matt and Trey) are banking on us being liberal and broad-minded and still, somewhere deep inside, kinda-sorta taking religious belief seriously.
You can't really have profane unless you have sacred. If nothing is sacred, then there is no profane. There is no way to profane. There is nothing wrong (at all) with telling the Imaginary Dude In The Sky fuck you. The lyric (I am quoting, btw, not making shit up again, Arnold) "Fuck you God in the ass, mouth, and cunt-a" is nowhere nearly as effective if there isn't at least a teensy corner of you inside yourself going "Man, that's really, really bad. I'm so totally Going To Hell." Even if you don't believe, not really.
I mean, I'm pretty solidly in the atheist camp. I don't go on and on about it because I'm not sure that's really necessary or appropriate. Mostly, my lack o' faith is not particularly germane to the things I discuss here and so I leave it at the door. And still, still, I was there listening to the damn songs and going "So totally going to hell...", which, in my eighth-grader mind, was at least a third of the enjoyment. Lion King (the tune riffs pretty strongly on "Hakuna Matata") was another third, if that helps. And we're set up for the Lion King thing because two songs previous, the missionaries discover that they're going to Uganda (which for the purposes of this musical might as well be thought of as a nonspecific "Somewhere In Africa" location)... "Like Lion King!" Just, yknow, in case you might have missed that.
I am not sure it's fair for the South Park guys to get the laughs that they do, standing straddle over the gap between what we'd like to believe and what we actually do believe, but life isn't particularly fair and at least they do a good job of pointing out that our emperors are naked.
I do like that they've taken the Mormons for an exemplar faith. It's an amazingly good choice -- similar enough to mainstream Christianity that there doesn't have to be boatloads of explaining *what* they believe, but different enough that lukewarm Christians can also go "Hey, they believe *that*? That's got to be some serious made-up shit." This is delightfully covered in track 12 (I have the soundtrack), a tune called I Believe. It starts off with tenets of faith that most people of even vaguely-Christian leanings are going to be reasonably behind.
I believe that the Lord God created the universe.
I believe that He sent His only Son to die for my sins.
Most Christians can get behind those two. They're sort of cornerstones of the faith. So, we have audience buy-in. Even non-believers are USED to these sentiments. They're quotidian and we're exposed to them all the time in sort of a cultural soup of things-people-believe. And then we get
And I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America.
Wait, what? They did *what*? Are you stupid?
I believe that God has a plan for all of us.
Yep. People can kind of get behind that. It's a pretty common trope of the faiths.
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.
What? Planets?
I believe that the current president of the church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God.
No, no, he doesn't. The Catholics are even sort of... quieter about that business with the Pope these days.
I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people.
This is covered in Wikipedia. Basically, in 1978, the LDS church leadership expressed a policy shift (based on a "revelation" from God) that allowed black men to become ordained, where heretofore they had not been allowed that privilege. Black membership in the church increased substantially following the 1978 reform.
I believe that God is on a planet called Kolob.
I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well.
Yeah, okay, maybe the planet thing is your religion's weird interpretation of Heaven. Maybe. I'm not saying that it's right, but to each his own...
And I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.
What? No. Just... no.
The musical wouldn't work nearly as well if it targetted something distant from mainstream Christian beliefs. It works because it's close enough for people to buy in to the similarities to mainstream Christian faith yet different enough for people to go "Hey, wait a minute, that sounds kind of... stupid."
(The "kind of stupid" thing was very neatly covered in the South Park episode about Mormons. It's available online here: Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.)
But despite the "It's pretend" approach to matters of faith, South Park guys Matt and Trey are nonetheless somewhat... gentle about religion and its role in people's lives. In the South Park episode, the Mormon kid Gary's family is compassionate, friendly, polite, and generally very nice. They're good people and they seem to be genuinely happy doing their thing.
In the Book of Mormon musical, the revised Mormon faith (Elder Cunningham, er, takes a free hand with the text of the Book of Mormon and adapts it to be more meaningful to the villagers.) is about stuff like "being really fucking polite to everyone" and sticking together and helping each other out. The social values (stopping circumcision of baby girls, preventing dysentery, not raping virgin babies to cure AIDS) espoused by revised Mormonism are beneficial to the community even if they're delivered by way of the firey pits of Mordor, Boba Fett, Magical AIDS frogs, and the American Warlord Brigham Young.
The point, I guess, is that it's pretend, but that's OK if it helps people be happier, nicer to each other, able to lead more meaningful lives, etc.
I have not seen the musical. It's on Broadway. I have the soundtrack. Learning about a musical via the soundtrack is kind of... cliffs notes, only not exactly. But here is the plot, near as I can tell.
There are two Mormon missionaries, Kevin Price (the clean-cut, true believer, class president type) and Arnold Cunningham (shorter, fatter, sort of a geek, may not have actually read the Book of Mormon). They go to Uganda to be missionaries. (This is covered in songs 1 and 2.) Kevin Price is a narcissistic dick. (Song 3.) The villagers are not impressed. (Song 4.) There's some existential doubt on the part of the missionaries. (Songs 5, 6.) There's some evangelizing (Song 7.) There's some reaction to the evangelizing (8). There is a warlord, who apparently needs to be confronted. (9) Arnold Cunningham begins adapting the Book of Mormon to the real lives of the villagers (10) Kevin Price has doubts (11) but goes to see the warlord (12) anyway with predictably dismal results. Meanwhile, Arnold Cunningham is having some success (13) with the villagers (14). And the villagers have embraced the revised (Boba Fett!) version of the Book of Mormon (15). In the end, Kevin Price is less of a dick following the shattering of his faith vis a vis the warlord, Arnold Cunningham is the prophet of the fourth book, and a whole slew of villagers are out there beating on the doors of mud huts trying to convert the next generation to the Book of Arnold. (16) I have no idea what the deal is with the scrotum maggots.
The songs are catchy and largely upbeat. They are (some of them) very funny and, at the same time, quite profane and I got to thinking, there.
Thing is, if we (theatergoers, theater enjoyers, the freethinking largely atheistic / broadly and generically not-very-deist persons who are the intended audience for this thing) were all as belief-free or as flexible as we like to pretend we are, the thing would not be funny and profane at the same time. The authors (Matt and Trey) are banking on us being liberal and broad-minded and still, somewhere deep inside, kinda-sorta taking religious belief seriously.
You can't really have profane unless you have sacred. If nothing is sacred, then there is no profane. There is no way to profane. There is nothing wrong (at all) with telling the Imaginary Dude In The Sky fuck you. The lyric (I am quoting, btw, not making shit up again, Arnold) "Fuck you God in the ass, mouth, and cunt-a" is nowhere nearly as effective if there isn't at least a teensy corner of you inside yourself going "Man, that's really, really bad. I'm so totally Going To Hell." Even if you don't believe, not really.
I mean, I'm pretty solidly in the atheist camp. I don't go on and on about it because I'm not sure that's really necessary or appropriate. Mostly, my lack o' faith is not particularly germane to the things I discuss here and so I leave it at the door. And still, still, I was there listening to the damn songs and going "So totally going to hell...", which, in my eighth-grader mind, was at least a third of the enjoyment. Lion King (the tune riffs pretty strongly on "Hakuna Matata") was another third, if that helps. And we're set up for the Lion King thing because two songs previous, the missionaries discover that they're going to Uganda (which for the purposes of this musical might as well be thought of as a nonspecific "Somewhere In Africa" location)... "Like Lion King!" Just, yknow, in case you might have missed that.
I am not sure it's fair for the South Park guys to get the laughs that they do, standing straddle over the gap between what we'd like to believe and what we actually do believe, but life isn't particularly fair and at least they do a good job of pointing out that our emperors are naked.
I do like that they've taken the Mormons for an exemplar faith. It's an amazingly good choice -- similar enough to mainstream Christianity that there doesn't have to be boatloads of explaining *what* they believe, but different enough that lukewarm Christians can also go "Hey, they believe *that*? That's got to be some serious made-up shit." This is delightfully covered in track 12 (I have the soundtrack), a tune called I Believe. It starts off with tenets of faith that most people of even vaguely-Christian leanings are going to be reasonably behind.
I believe that the Lord God created the universe.
I believe that He sent His only Son to die for my sins.
Most Christians can get behind those two. They're sort of cornerstones of the faith. So, we have audience buy-in. Even non-believers are USED to these sentiments. They're quotidian and we're exposed to them all the time in sort of a cultural soup of things-people-believe. And then we get
And I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America.
Wait, what? They did *what*? Are you stupid?
I believe that God has a plan for all of us.
Yep. People can kind of get behind that. It's a pretty common trope of the faiths.
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.
What? Planets?
I believe that the current president of the church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God.
No, no, he doesn't. The Catholics are even sort of... quieter about that business with the Pope these days.
I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people.
This is covered in Wikipedia. Basically, in 1978, the LDS church leadership expressed a policy shift (based on a "revelation" from God) that allowed black men to become ordained, where heretofore they had not been allowed that privilege. Black membership in the church increased substantially following the 1978 reform.
I believe that God is on a planet called Kolob.
I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well.
Yeah, okay, maybe the planet thing is your religion's weird interpretation of Heaven. Maybe. I'm not saying that it's right, but to each his own...
And I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.
What? No. Just... no.
The musical wouldn't work nearly as well if it targetted something distant from mainstream Christian beliefs. It works because it's close enough for people to buy in to the similarities to mainstream Christian faith yet different enough for people to go "Hey, wait a minute, that sounds kind of... stupid."
(The "kind of stupid" thing was very neatly covered in the South Park episode about Mormons. It's available online here: Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4.)
But despite the "It's pretend" approach to matters of faith, South Park guys Matt and Trey are nonetheless somewhat... gentle about religion and its role in people's lives. In the South Park episode, the Mormon kid Gary's family is compassionate, friendly, polite, and generally very nice. They're good people and they seem to be genuinely happy doing their thing.
In the Book of Mormon musical, the revised Mormon faith (Elder Cunningham, er, takes a free hand with the text of the Book of Mormon and adapts it to be more meaningful to the villagers.) is about stuff like "being really fucking polite to everyone" and sticking together and helping each other out. The social values (stopping circumcision of baby girls, preventing dysentery, not raping virgin babies to cure AIDS) espoused by revised Mormonism are beneficial to the community even if they're delivered by way of the firey pits of Mordor, Boba Fett, Magical AIDS frogs, and the American Warlord Brigham Young.
The point, I guess, is that it's pretend, but that's OK if it helps people be happier, nicer to each other, able to lead more meaningful lives, etc.
I have not seen the musical. It's on Broadway. I have the soundtrack. Learning about a musical via the soundtrack is kind of... cliffs notes, only not exactly. But here is the plot, near as I can tell.
There are two Mormon missionaries, Kevin Price (the clean-cut, true believer, class president type) and Arnold Cunningham (shorter, fatter, sort of a geek, may not have actually read the Book of Mormon). They go to Uganda to be missionaries. (This is covered in songs 1 and 2.) Kevin Price is a narcissistic dick. (Song 3.) The villagers are not impressed. (Song 4.) There's some existential doubt on the part of the missionaries. (Songs 5, 6.) There's some evangelizing (Song 7.) There's some reaction to the evangelizing (8). There is a warlord, who apparently needs to be confronted. (9) Arnold Cunningham begins adapting the Book of Mormon to the real lives of the villagers (10) Kevin Price has doubts (11) but goes to see the warlord (12) anyway with predictably dismal results. Meanwhile, Arnold Cunningham is having some success (13) with the villagers (14). And the villagers have embraced the revised (Boba Fett!) version of the Book of Mormon (15). In the end, Kevin Price is less of a dick following the shattering of his faith vis a vis the warlord, Arnold Cunningham is the prophet of the fourth book, and a whole slew of villagers are out there beating on the doors of mud huts trying to convert the next generation to the Book of Arnold. (16) I have no idea what the deal is with the scrotum maggots.
