The Book of Mormon Musical
It's taken me a while to write this review, I needed a few days after to think about it. When this musical first came out I was in high school, preparing to serve a mission, and I was as mormon as they reasonably come. I remember assuming it was just "anti-mormon" propaganda, but after the church used it as a springboard for a PR campaign, I also remember thinking, like the writer McKay Coppins, that all press is good press. Coppins, having never seen the play, was asked by a theater critic why he thought it was able to get away with explicitly mocking a minority religion. Coppins offered that the lukewarm backlash was a testament to the niceness of mormons, to which the critic replied, "No, it’s because your people have absolutely no cultural cachet." I think about that quote a lot. Mormonism more than almost anything inspired in me a deep need to be liked. Someone thinking I was bad would by extension mean they might think my religion was bad. Nothing could be worse to the anxious believer. It's been years since leaving the faith of my youth but that feeling has never quite left me. And so finally after all these years, watching this musical felt almost surreal. Looking around the packed Salt Lake theater I found myself asking, "Have any faithful mormons come here today? Would they?". The lights dimmed and I found myself laughing and enjoying myself almost immediately. The jokes are quick, the historical references are accurate, and the music is exaggerated to the point of intentionally parodying the very concept of musicals. But I kept thinking about if my formerly religious self was sitting next to me. I probably would have laughed along and chuckled with a hand over my mouth. I would have wanted to seem like a "good sport" who can take a joke. "I liked it", I would have lied to my friends afterwards. But secretly I would have felt dressed-down, humiliated, and guilty for even going. Knowing that made it feel just a bit too mean to have a good time laughing along knowing I have faithfully mormon friends and family who wouldn't be honest with me about how it actually made them feel. And to be clear, I don't even think this musical is even particularly antagonistic. It's obviously intended for a non-mormon audience and is more using mormonism as a convenient vehicle to criticize religion more broadly as a bunch of "hooey" for simpletons. I don't actually believe that about my religious friends, and I didn't like feeling like I was in a group of the cool kids gossiping about the nerds just out of earshot. The rush of being included with the popular crowd overrides that feeling in the moment but afterwards the guilt creeps in. In the end, I'm really glad I saw it finally. For what it's trying to do it does it really well and I can't deny I enjoyed it for what it was. But I think as far as art through which to engage with interesting ideas about religion and faith I'll stick with things in the ilk of "The Young Pope" and "The Leftovers".
