The Book of Mormon, by Matt Stone and Trey Parker

[Maximus]

well I was going to try and catch it in NY this weekend, but 300 bucks is the cheapest tickets I can find. No thanks.

[UtahDan]

Better tape the Tony Awards tonight while you watch the NBA Finals if you want to see this:

Do you know what number they are doing? My guess is "Turn it off."

[Babs]

The directors forgot to thank church leadership. Must have been an oversight.

[myboynoah]

The directors forgot to thank church leadership. Must have been an oversight.

Did we win?

[Babs]

Did we win?

http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/winners.html

[UtahDan]

BOM Musical wins best Musical and Tre Parker thanks his co-writer Joseph Smith, Jr.

[myboynoah]

http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/winners.html

Yay!

[MarkGrace]

Flipped this on after the game to see some bom action. Flipped it off about 5 mins later because it was just painfully boring.

[CardiacCoug]

Flipped this on after the game to see some bom action. Flipped it off about 5 mins later because it was just painfully boring.

The opening by Neil Patrick Harris was pretty good -- a song and dance number called "It's not just for gays anymore" that had some pretty funny lines.

And Chris Rock announced the Best Musical in a pretty funny way -- something about how everybody knew what was going to win and announcing all the nominees was like taking a hooker to dinner.

[LA Ute]

Here's a DesNews piece critical of the musical's accuracy:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...tire.html?pg=1

Parody and satire don't need to be accurate, but I wonder how many of those who see the play will keep that in mind.

GetReligion.org's Mollie Ziegler wrote that the play "is an entirely New York phenomenon. It mocks general religious belief using Mormon characters. It's made by media elites (media elites whom I generally like, admittedly) and enjoyed by a class of people who go to Broadway musicals."

EDIT: Here's "I Believe," from the musical:

[YOUTUBE]tggtPHDmrR8[/YOUTUBE]

I find the points at which the audience laughs a little unsettling. It doesn't seem all that friendly to me.

All in all, I think it's OK that we've become a sufficiently accepted part of American culture to be mocked on this scale, kind of like the Catholics.

[dabrockster]

BOM Musical wins best Musical and Tre Parker thanks his co-writer Joseph Smith, Jr.

"You did it, Joseph! You got the Tony!" Parker said, looking skyward.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110613/...us_tony_awards

[Babs]

It doesn't seem all that friendly to me.

Did anybody suggest it was?

[UtahDan]

Here's a DesNews piece critical of the musical's accuracy:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...tire.html?pg=1

Parody and satire don't need to be accurate, but I wonder how many of those who see the play will keep that in mind.

I think the play gets the historical broad strokes more or less right, though there are some inaccuracies. The "less benign inaccuracies" mentioned in that article are pretty weak IMO. I think each of the ones mentioned are either arguably accurate or harmless (I mean really, it is not benign to do a funny song about the guy dreaming he might go to hell over leaving his companion because the nuances of the three kingdoms of glory are lost?).

I think if one is going to be really offended at anything in the play it is going to be its profanity and as I have said to others most of that stuff would offend any faithful person, not just Mormons. I think the article gets it right in the sense that the message is that religion is great if you aren't too literal about it, an idea that the author of the article dismisses right out of hand by quoting David Brooks from the NYT that religion viewed that way "doesn't last" and that only religions that are rigerous and have clearly defined ideas of what are true and false can uplift and motivate people. I'll debate David Brooks any time any place on that assertion.

I think the interesting rub for faithful folks is whether they want to object too loudly to something that in the end says something positive about them for what they will view as the wrong reason. The play is saying that Mormon beliefs and religious beliefs generally are wacky but that they do in fact help people to be better, up lift them and give them hope even if not taken literally. But the church, I think, would not agree that is the reason it has value. It has value because of exclusive authority, literal truth claims other churches don't have, etc. The play says that Mormonism is valuable as a metaphor (something that gets said all the time here) whereas the church sees its value in its literalness. Basically I think LDS have been willing to take the essentially good press even if it comes with a Trojan Horse of sorts.

Last, I can help myself from saying that I wonder when the church owned newspaper is going to review church produced or faithfully oriented media for accuracy and publish about it. That sort of feels like the big ironic elephant in the room when I read that article.

EDIT: Here's "I Believe," from the musical:

[YOUTUBE]tggtPHDmrR8[/YOUTUBE]

I find the points at which the audience laughs a little unsettling. It doesn't seem all that friendly to me.

All in all, I think it's OK that we've become a sufficiently accepted part of American culture to be mocked on this scale, kind of like the Catholics.

I think it is a credit to the church and its members that they have not jumped up and down or ranted and raved very much. The response I see most often is "it's not totally right but we can laugh at ourselves a little and it is cool that we are a big enough deal to be the subject of something like this." But it is interesting to see the "we love publicity" angel battling it out with the "we hate to be misrepresented" devil on people's shoulders.

EDIT: By the way, I think when it goes on tour next year its popularity is going to demonstrate that it is not at all a Broadway goer/New Yorker phenomenon.

[LA Ute]

Did anybody suggest it was?

Yes, that's been suggested by many, including Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who have pushed kind of a "nothing personal, we love you guys even though you're kinda weird" meme. I don't care if it's friendly or not, but we ought to be clear about it. Like I said, all in all I think the musical is not a bad thing.

[Surfah]

Here's a DesNews piece critical of the musical's accuracy:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...tire.html?pg=1

Parody and satire don't need to be accurate, but I wonder how many of those who see the play will keep that in mind.



EDIT: Here's "I Believe," from the musical:

[YOUTUBE]tggtPHDmrR8[/YOUTUBE]

I find the points at which the audience laughs a little unsettling. It doesn't seem all that friendly to me.

All in all, I think it's OK that we've become a sufficiently accepted part of American culture to be mocked on this scale, kind of like the Catholics.

A friend had that clip on their FB page today and I watched it. I didn't care much for the laughter either. It bothered me because most of those laughing have no idea what they're laughing at. But it didn't necessarily offend me either. In fact, I kind of dug it. It was catchy. What it did make me think was what if this tune was about Jews or Muslims, would the audience react the same?

"I believe that Mohammed rode on a horse to Allah! I believe!"

I doubt there would be much laughing. I doubt that play would even get produced.

Stone and Parker said they chose Mormons deliberately because there would be little recourse from the Church, its members, and most importantly from ticket buyers. To me that cuts both ways. Sure it means that we're mainstream enough to be the subject of parody, but it also means to some degree that we don't carry, I don't know, the cachet (?) that others have that would call for boycotting and accusations of bigotry. That they chose Mormons as the vehicle to drive their message almost seems like picking the low hanging fruit and in that regard doesn't seem very creative.