Kitsch, Movies, and Mormons: Pop Culture in the LDS Community

The use of kitsch has become exponentially popular within the Mormon community. The toys, clothing, and paraphernalia representing LDS values and beliefs have been used to help boys and girls understand the expectations for them in the Mormon faith (Riess, 3). However, many of the images imitate designs and slogans associated with the "mainstream" non-Mormon pop culture. The images on the kitsch are pulled from things that the Mormon religion traditionally object to, such as a TV show that features unmarried cohabitation and pre-marital sex and imitating the logo symbol of a clothing company whose advertising does not necessarily promote chasity and modesty (Riess, 2).
Kitsch also solidifies gender roles within the Mormon faith. Kitsch for girls emphasizes domesticity and home-bound religious life while boys pictures and toys encourage outside material and professional success. The author, Jana K. Riess, asserts that the kitsch that talks about virtue and chasity are usually geared toward girls and there are rarely any products aimed at boys (Riess, 4-6).
The high demand for such items reflects the way Mormons "insist that gender roles are eternal"and use kitsch to emphasize what their expectations are for young adult Mormons (Riess, 8).
Ed Halter's article "Missionary Positioning: Indie Cinema Attempts a Mainstream Conversion" offers a look at the growth of Mormon indie and commercial film. It seems that the most successful and popular films are those that parody or spoof common practices in the Mormon life such as missionary work, dating, and door-to-door scripture education. Many Mormon directors and screen writers are trying to shake off the stereotypes of Mormons in films by producing large scale films and introduce them to a larger audience. However, their success is limited by the culture boundaries between Mormons and non-Mormons and displaying controversial topics such as homosexuality.
What is interesting about kitsch and filmmaking is the fact that the LDS Church does not have a direct influence on the production of these materials. They are developed by independent companies that cater directly to the Mormon lay community.

Why would the LDS Church allow independent copmanies to mass-market products that have such a large impact on its followers without review and oversight from church officials?


What would cause the Mormon community to associate themselves with popular products and designs that do not reflect their most valued beliefs and morals?

Do you think stereotypes can change when the issue at hand reaches a wider audience and has more exposure?

Mormons and Popular Culture

Though their ideals often do not reflect those of the greater American public, Mormons are not immune to the trends of modern society. In an attempt to remain culturally relevant while also upholding the values of their religion, the Mormon community has transformed mainstream ideas to fit with their morals. As the Mormon community has grown in number and increasingly spread across the country, it has become more susceptible to the effects of mainstream society. While Mormons are not “in a headlong drive toward cultural assimilation” (Riess 4), they have certainly been influenced by cultural factors present in the rest of America.
Many of these influences have been manifested in various forms of kitsch. T-shirts, posters, jewelry, and films have all been produced by Mormons and marketed toward the Mormon community. While the actual products and slogans have been adopted from the rest of the country, the Latter-Day Saints have molded this merchandise to purport their beliefs. Symbols such as the Nike swoosh, the Calvin Klein typeface, and the Hard Rock Café logo have all been transformed to depict some LDS emblem or teaching. Ideas such as female domesticity, male financial responsibility, abstinence, and other Mormon teachings are emphasized by the different product lines that have been marketed towards this faith based community. However, these products that have been adapted from mainstream culture often carry connotations that do not correlate with the beliefs of the Church. So while utilizing the CK font (a brand which uses racy and sexual advertising to market underwear) to advertise CTR rings (“Choose the Right” rings worn by many young Mormons to often represent chastity and dedication to the faith) may on one hand show that Mormons are attempting to fuse their beliefs with cultural symbols that have influenced many of the young church members, it also represents a certain level of confusion as to the role of Mormonism and its conservative values in a decidedly less traditional modern-day America.
The Mormon struggle to define their place in today’s society is one which every faith and general group of people faces. In a consumer world driven by flashy advertisements, racy television, and controversial celebrities, any group of people who attempts to define themselves by a strict set of morals is sure to find barriers in integrating into this culture.
1-What does the Mormon utilization of mainstream memes (such as Nike or Calvin Klein symbols) indicate about their perception of these symbols in society? What does it say about the way Mormons view themselves as a niche group of the greater United States community?
2-Mormons struggle to identify with popular culture seems to contradict areas of their history in which they have shunned modern society all together and advocated their independence and separation from it. How do you feel about the evolution of their beliefs, and what do you think has caused this change? Does it make sense in the context of having an ever expanding range of followers, or does it represent a more softened and less dedicated community of Latter-Day Saints?

Sisterhood: An Act of Unification or an Means of Oppression?

Throughout history, the Mormon religion and culture has been judged by the American society for their differing beliefs on the values in life. The stereotypical view of the Mormon faith and culture in the United States has been completely perverted especially when concerning the role of women. It is viewed that women are oppressed citizens in Mormon societies with a lack of rights when compared to men. There is a common misunderstanding that suspects that women are secluded off from the rest of society and ignorant to their surroundings as they are left in the homes of their husbands without a voice to be heard, but this common misconception is incorrect because many women do find a connection and relationship amongst each other. This bond and role of sisterhood plays a major role in the lives of women in the Mormon faith and culture.

The idea of sisterhood that was uniting women of the Mormon society was augmented with the role of plural marriages. It may be assumed that the idea and practice of plural marriages would create a division amongst women in the households of their husband but quite the contrary occurred. Plural marriages allowed the women to find a common bond amongst each other and helped them unite as a whole family and work hard and thrive together when raising their children and living in peace. Derr highlights the importance of plural marriage and its contributions to the strength and unification of the women as she described throughout the text that plural marriages were a method of sanctifying the common bonds between women in the general society.

Derr also describes how women were very content with their role in society and their distinct separation from men. They felt no need to fight for equal rights and freedom because they believed that they knew and understood their role in society. The sphere of sisterhood was enough for them and they were satisfied especially with their own unique unification with one another.

Discussion questions:

1.) Do you feel that in the past and also in the present concerning women apart of the FLDS that women were truly aware of their potential in society and the things that they could accomplish beyond raising a family? Why do you think that a majority of the women chose to keep their constrained and limited role in society as opposed for furthering their education? Do you think it is because that is what they consider the norm and are not aware of the many opportunities that they can pursue or that it is a lifestyle that they truly yearn to strive for?

2.) How do you think Joseph Smith’s view on the role of women in the Mormon society help structure and impact the beliefs that were formulated concerning sisterhood and unification? How did the words of the prophets affect the differing roles of women over time in Mormon culture?

The Role of Women and Their Ties to Eachother

Urban Dictionary defines sisterhood as “a bond between two or more girls, not always related by blood. They always tell the truth, honor each other, and love each other like sisters.” The concept of sisterhood has been adopted by many groups, from close friends, to sororities, to the women of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

In the book “ ‘Strength in Our Union’: The Making of Mormon Sisterhood,” Jill Mulvay Derr examines the relationships between Mormon women over time. The author illuminates how the practice of plural marriage and the extended families that these marriages created strengthened bonds within the community of Mormon women. Unlike other Americans, the Mormon women were able to form attachments due to the unique phenomenon of polygamy. Derr further strengthens her argument that polygamy was a cornerstone in the Mormon women’s groups, by elaborating how female ties in the Mormon community weakened, after the practice of polygamy disappeared from the Church of the Latter Day Saints. In addition, Derr alludes to other practices which cemented ties in the nineteenth century and which lessened bonds in the twentieth century. In the author’s comparison of the two centuries, she proposes, “while nineteenth-century Mormon women’s networks centered in Mormon organization, theology, and family life, the affiliations of twentieth-century Mormon women were far more diversified, and the sense of collective closeness and identity wanted” (Derr, 199).

Although Derr’s points are very well presented, with ample proof, she fails to draw on some categories of Mormon women. While discussing the nineteenth century, the author defends her points with the quotes of the leading ladies, known as the “inner circle” of women, involved in the Relief Society. The piece fails to consider other Mormon women who are not quite as involved in the church and who perhaps are not members of the Relief Society. While looking at the nineteenth century, Derr examines women heavily involved in the Mormon community and pronounces these ladies as highly interactive with each other. When contrasting the book’s assertions to the twentieth century, the author includes the entire population of Mormon women, which are decreed to be not as involved as the previous generations. Derr’s resulting conclusions are highly suspect because her sample varies from century to century.

The speeches by Ezra Taft Benson discuss the role of women in the Church. These pieces emphasize that the place of a woman is at home, especially his speech “To the Mothers of Zion” which is a how-to guide to being a good wife, mother, and homemaker. In another speech, specifically addressing the single ladies, Benson underlines the importance of dating a fellow Mormon in order to obtain a temple marriage. The president’s words mirror the doctrine of the church that clearly states that the role of women is motherhood.

Questions:

1. How did Joseph Smith’s treatment of the role of women differ from that of Benson?
2. Women’s rights advocate for the right of women to choose their own future. The majority of Mormon women choose to raise a family over furthering their education or having a career. Can the Mormon’s stance that having a family is the correct choice be viewed through the lens of women’s rights?
3. How do you reconcile the concept of Benson advocating for solely temple marriages with our previous readings on race and the dearth of interracial marriages in the Mormon Church?

Racism, Racial Perceptions and Racial Integration in Mormonism

Mormons believed that the United States was divinely created to facilitate their perfect expression of Christianity. Distinctively American ideology was absorbed into Mormon theology and American social values permeated the fundamental doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the nation’s inception, varying degrees of racism have found expression in that American ideology. Consequently, it is not surprising that racial discrimination was initially present in Mormon religious beliefs. The relationship between Mormonism and racism after 1978 reflects the church’s attempt to reconcile aspects of its inherently racist theology with the evolution of American social values through a reinterpretation of that doctrine.

Armand Mauss’ All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage illuminates the origin of the racism that is expressed in Mormon theology and attempts to make a distinction between socially tolerant Mormons and their prejudiced religious beliefs. It is essential to note that African Americans were always allowed to practice Mormonism; the issue was their right to the priesthood guaranteed to all male Mormons. In 1852, Brigham Young formally declared that blacks were not privy to access to the priesthood based on their African descent. This fundamentally racist assertion was buttressed by additional presidential proclamations that culminated in 1931 when Joseph Fielding Smith “synthesized and codified the entire framework of Mormon racist teaching” (Mauss 217). The racist justification for the exclusion of blacks from the priesthood espoused by Smith’s book endured until a revelation refuted it in 1978.

Beyond clarifying the origin of Mormon racist theology, Mauss develops a counterintuitive thesis: despite supporting explicitly racist religious doctrines, Mormons are no more prejudiced than the average American. Using quantitative data derived from several surveys of different Mormon wards, Mauss demonstrates that Mormons’ attitude towards race is the same as the rest of the country. Conformity to Mormon orthodoxy leads to religious, not social, hostility towards African Americans. Mauss therefore proves that the Mormons’ support for a racist doctrine stems from their devotion to their faith, not inherent racism.

The revelation in 1978 that denounced racism in Mormon and allowed African Americans to receive that priesthood was delivered by Elder Bruce R. McConkie. The Apostle declared that this alteration of the ingrained theology was the product of a reinterpretation of Mormon scripture and part of God’s overall plan for the Mormons. A revelation from the Holy Spirit “added a new flood of intelligence and light” to the subject and inspired a major shift in Mormon understanding of God’s wills (McConkie 3).

In the time following the official renunciation of racism by the Mormon church, new issues concerning race have presented themselves. Foremost among these, according to O. Kendall White Jr. and Daryl White’s Negotiating cultural and social contradictions; interracial dating and marriage among African American Mormons, is interracial marriages, whether between Mormons or between a Mormon and a non-Mormon. Though the church officially renounced racism, Mormon leaders actively discourage miscegenation. The emphasis put on sealed marriages, now open to African Americans, has highlighted the relatively small number of black Mormons and made finding a black Mormon partner difficult. These teachings and a predominance of white church members bring African American Mormons to an impasse; any possible solution requires the violation of at least one of the church’s commandments.

Is Mauss’ determination that an inherently racist religion does not produce racists valid? What are the implications of the idea that reevaluation of a doctrine can lead to reinterpretation in the context of Mormon faith? Although African Americans can now receive the priesthood, does the LDS church actively attempt to integrate the faithful?

Race in Mormon Communities: Fully Integrating Individuals of African Descent into the LDS Church

The United States, throughout the nation’s relatively short history, experienced numerous divisions and controversies due to race and racial policies. From the beginning of slavery to the turbulent Civil Rights movement of the 1950s, the oppression of African Americans colored these social conflicts related to race. Today, one finds evidence of these past race-related problems in the Mormon Church, which only relatively recently, in 1978, allowed men of African descent to obtain equal status in the Latter-day Saints’ religious community.

Bruce R. McConkie, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Mormon Church, explains and elaborates on the 1978 revelation, which permitted men of African descent to receive the priesthood, in his “All Are Alike Unto God” speech. Utilizing well-known biblical language and established church doctrine, McConkie provides a compelling argument in favor of the new revelation. The Apostle focuses much of his speech to the missionary benefits of the new revelation, including the expansion of the Mormon Church’s ability to “preach the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (1). Though certainly supportive of the new church doctrine, McConkie does not apologize for prior church policies that discriminated against individuals of African lineage. Rather instead, he simply states that “the time had arrived when the gospel, with its blessings and obligations, should go to the Negro” and that “it doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June of this year (1978)” (3). By carefully studying this speech, by delving into McConkie’s utter loyalty to his faith community, one infers that the Mormon Church continued to practice discriminatory policies throughout their history not due to their personal beliefs pertaining to race, but rather due to their adherence to their religious traditions and culture.

Armand Mauss, an American Sociologist, in chapter eight of his book, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage, delves into the shifting LDS stance towards individuals of African lineage from 1830 to 1978. The Mormon community, after their arduous exodus to Utah in 1847 and Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, prohibited the priesthood to this particular segment of the population. In the late 1970s, years of tenuous public relations finally forced the Saints to revise their doctrine, allowing men of African descent to obtain the high status of priesthood. Mauss employs historical dates, psychological surveys, and religious quotes, including those from the Book of Mormon, to highlight and explain Mormon racism in the context of greater American societal trends.

Though Mauss attempts to remove value judgments from his socio-historical work, the author fails to do so. In his analysis of LDS racial prejudice, Mauss supports the Mormon Church in the face of their discriminatory practices and their unwillingness to change their policies until the late 1970s. The sociologist places blame for the church’s long history of bigoted views on national racism, the lack of stability in the Mormon community in Utah, and misinterpretations of Smith’s words in The Pearls of Great Price. Indeed, Mauss states that groups like the NAACP, when the party charged the Mormon Church with perpetuating harmful bigotry in the secular world, actually lacked “empirical evidence” for such claims (219).

Furthermore, in his assessment of discrimination in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mauss completely ignores the definite presence of other types of historical prejudice in the Mormon community, most notably that against women. Unlike men of African lineage, females, both black and white, never received the priesthood and continue to exist as lesser members of the church (as discussed in class, they do, however, possess the role of motherhood). Any mention of discrimination against women as part of official church practice never appears in Mauss’ work. Ultimately, the lack of depth in his arguments and his unwillingness to make perhaps more bold assertions against discriminatory practices in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints limits Armand Mauss’ arguments and assessments to that of a simplistic report, from which readers may potential make a number of false assumptions concerning Mormon racial and discriminatory practices.

O. Kendall White and Daryl White, in their sociological article “Negotiating Cultural and Social Contradictions: Interracial Dating and Marriage Among African American Mormons,” continue the story of racial policies in the Mormon church, focusing on Mormon viewpoints towards African Americans from 1978 to the present. While strongly encouraging the raising of a family within a matrimonial relationship, Mormons today continue to discourage interracial marriage, particularly between whites and blacks. This social proscription frequently creates personal problems for African American Mormons, who lack an abundance of potential dating and marriage partners who belong to their own race and church.

In comparison to Mauss and his utilization of data, dates, and religious quotes, White and White employ personal testimonies of black Latter-day Saints to support their claims pertaining to the African American Mormon community and to marriage. These testimonies permit the voices of the people involved in the Mormon community to rise above the authors’ own words, creating a poignant, comprehensive picture of the variety of manners in which African American Mormons negotiate their cultural and social contradictions. The employment of individual stories also limits the personal bias of the individual authors, who remain relatively neutral narrators throughout their article. However, White and White’s reliance on oral histories to portray a social theme certainly limits the scope of their claims. The authors fully acknowledge this limitation in the introduction of their article, stating that, “since we do not know how representative their experience may be for black Mormons, we make no generalizations regarding the church as a whole” (86). Overall, White and White provide a narrow, yet genuine portrayal of racism and its effects on Mormon society.

Questions for Class Discussion:

1. How did the Mormon’s status as a persecuted religious minority in America affect its opinion towards people of African descent? Did the Mormons’ status as a persecuted religious minority cause the community to become more tolerant or less tolerant of individuals of African lineage?

2. How has racism in the United States changed its form in the last few decades? Does racism still exist in the Mormon community? Is the Mormon Church simply reflecting and exposing racial tendencies that still permeate the United States as a whole?

3. How does the Mormon community, in their current views towards interracial marriage, reflect greater trends occurring in our society today in relation to interracial dating? Does this lack of enthusiasm for interracial dating permeate mainstream culture? How does this affect society as a whole (hurt, help, doesn’t affect, etc.)?

4. Terminology can be very powerful. The use of certain terms can provoke strong reaction. Why did White and White and Mauss use the term “black” instead of “people of African lineage"? Does this reveal bias? Why does pejoration affect certain terms and not others?

Life Lessons from Missionary Work

Across the street where I live in San Diego, a Church of the Latter-Day Saints stood erect atop a hill, overlooking the surrounding neighborhood. The young men dressed in black suits, cruising by on bicycles were always friendly and polite, yet few open their doors to listen to their mission while even fewer open their hearts to the faith. In the wealthy, established suburbs of southern California, few were willing to change their lifestyles for the elusive promise of salvation. Missionary work is a hard and mostly thankless task; however an essential component known as the companionship ties the individual missionaries together to form stronger bonds between each other and people in the community. The missionary experience is intended to sponsor the personal and spiritual growth of the Mormon youth, while spreading the holy gospels of God.

In “The Mormon Missionary Companionship” by Keith Parry, the junior-senior partnership is explained by the fact that “though novice missionaries will already have undergone a period of intensive instruction at a MTC....novices often draw on the experience of their senior companions, especially in a foreign mission.” (Parry, 184) The companionship is a social mechanism that the Church uses to bond missionary partners and shield them from outside distractions. Two missionaries are paired up to do everything together 24/7. The system concentrates mission work and uses that both partners to keep the other in line. The companionship system is extremely conducive towards the personal growth and social skills of missionaries, as they must learn to compromise and handle disagreements with someone they cannot live without, at least for the duration of the mission. Two people must learn to accommodate another’s wishes in order to have a functional relationship, which helped many on their future marriages. “All the little problems that missionaries have with their companions are the same ones that many people have with their spouses.” (Parry, 198) Learning to live with another person despite their flaws, and to lean on each other for support are extremely important in successful marriages. It can be argued that companionship in missionary work contributes to the low divorce rate in Mormons as they recognize that the solutions to many marital problems is simply communication and compromise. Companionship facilitates the personal growth crucial to successful future interpersonal relationships for Mormon missionaries.

In “Called to Serve” by Jenette Wood Crowley, the missionaries shared their thoughts and experiences converting people at home and abroad. Josh Kirkham, a missionary in Italy, had convinced a Catholic family of the truth of Mormonism but failed to baptize the family. Fearful of being ostracized, the family backed out in the last minute. Kirkham remember being “devastat[ed] because we are taught that if someone knows the truth and they turn it down it’s much worse than them never knowing it.” (Crowley, 19) As a nineteen-year-old with the burden of an entire family’s salvation on his shoulders, Kirkham was extremely affected emotionally by the weight of his missionary burden. Such experiences will certainly cause many missionaries to reconsider their mission and their faith, however the ones who emerge from such painful experiences do so with stronger conversion convictions. Other missionaries reaffirm their faith through the devout converts they encounter. A missionary understood that a man with African lineage “wanted to be baptized because he loved the gospel. In contradiction to the policy, [he] taught him and his wife and his three kids and they were all baptized.” (Crowley, 21) In Brazil, many missionaries encountered converts who were supposedly disfavored by God. Spiritually it is very powerful to see those who believe even though they cannot receive the full benefit of salvation. Through missionary work, many Mormon youths reaffirm their belief through the action of converting and witnessing the faithfulness of others.
The missionary work Mormons perform in their youth profoundly affects the rest of their lives spiritually and socially. The companions and converts they encounter all serve to contribute to the personal growth of the missionaries, however what do you think the primary function of missionary work is? To educate the Mormon youth or to convert the masses?

Another question not completely relevant to my post, why do you think the Mormons of African descent convert to a religion that believes them to be born with sin?

Interest fact: The Curse of Cain Legacy

"Religion: Mormons and the Mark of Cain" in TIME magazine

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,878674,00.html