![\"gef8chndxmskg4vghcjmidx\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2024\/05\/DSCF4166-color-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a>I\u2019m happy to report that, because of the impressively high demand for it, free access to the 2021 Interpreter Foundation dramatic film Witnesses<\/em><\/a> will continue until 18 October 2024. \u00a0It\u2019s a perfect movie for an evening before a Sabbath, or a Sabbath day, or a family night on Monday evening, or any other night of the week on which you don\u2019t happen to be watching Six Days in August<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0It\u2019s perfect for gatherings of neighbors, ward members, business colleagues, and immediate and extended families<\/p>\n In order to access Witnesses<\/em>, please go to the official website for Six Days in August<\/em>.<\/a> \u00a0Within a few seconds, a pop-up will appear that will permit you to register to watch Witnesses<\/em>. \u00a0(The process is brief, and it\u2019s painless.) \u00a0And, while you\u2019re there on the website, you can find out where Six Days in August<\/em><\/a> is playing in your vicinity. \u00a0Or, if it\u2019s not<\/em> being screened in your area, you can request it for a theater near you.<\/p>\n During several visits to F\u00fcssen, the Bavarian town that sits near to King Ludwig II\u2019s famous fairly-tale castle of Neuschwanstein, my wife and I and anybody who was with us would stay at a little family-owned hotel that we liked because of its excellent breakfasts and its immaculate cleanliness. \u00a0Since I speak German, I often spent a few minutes talking with the elderly proprietor. \u00a0Once, he was nearly in tears. \u00a0Somebody \u2014 perhaps a competing hotel owner? \u2014 had recently posted several nasty online reviews of his small hotel. \u00a0These reviews smeared it, with transparent dishonesty, as a filthy dump that fed inedible food to its unfortunate guests. \u00a0He begged us to post a review of our own, telling the truth, which we happily did.<\/p>\n I really dislike such anonymous misbehavior \u2014 \u201creview bombing,\u201d as it\u2019s sometimes (appropriately) called \u2014 \u00a0which I consider quite clearly unethical. \u00a0And yet online ratings systems, which can often have real value, too commonly lend themselves to it. \u00a0Moreover, they can provide venues for what are really covert ideological battles.<\/p>\n If, say, you survey the customer reviews on Amazon.com for various editions of the Book of Mormon, you will soon see that the reviews often vary wildly between five stars and one star (the lowest rating possible). \u00a0The five-star ratings assure everybody that the book is of divine origin and that it will change their lives. \u00a0Many of the one-star reviews are like this specimen, which I chose at random:<\/p>\n Joseph smith (Author) was a fraud and a charlatan. The book is just page after page of drivel. utter trash.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Online reviews of Latter-day Saint materials often exhibit this extreme variation, from one star to five stars with relatively little in between.<\/p>\n And so, without even a smidgin of surprise, I\u2019m observing the same quite predictable response in online reviews to Six Days in August<\/em>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m okay \u2014 not delighted<\/em>, mind you, but okay<\/em> \u2014 with online reviews from people who didn\u2019t enjoy Six Days in August<\/em>. \u00a0This will happen. \u00a0Tastes vary. \u00a0I encourage everybody who has seen the film, and everybody who will see the film, to post what they think about it on social media. \u00a0I don\u2019t ask that all of these be five-star or, depending on the system, ten-star reviews. \u00a0I do, however, hope that the reviews that are posted online will be actual reviews of the movie itself, rather than mere expressions \u2014 overt or (frequently) disguised \u2014 of contempt for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Saints, its history, and its leaders, or of personal hostility to me<\/em> (much as I may deserve such hostility).<\/p>\n I say this because I\u2019m noticing now with regard to Six Days in August<\/em> what I also noticed back in 2021 with respect to Witnesses<\/em>: \u00a0One or more persons are appearing at such sites as Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> and IMDb<\/a> with the pretty clear agenda of driving the film\u2019s approval rating as low as they are able. \u00a0(Compare my blog entry from 4 June 2021: \u00a0\u201cHonestly, We Need Your Help.\u201d<\/a>) \u00a0I even have a reasonable idea as to who is behind the effort: \u00a0The pseudonyms and the themes (particularly on IMDb) are familiar to me from years and years and years of observing what I call the \u201cPeterson Obsession Board.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, a one-star review on IMDb falsely claims of Six Days in August<\/em> that \u201cIt tends to portray polygamy as something that was enthusiastically embraced by women. Nothing could be further from the historical truth.\u201d \u00a0I already responded to this dishonest assertion when it appeared \u2014 most likely posted by the very same individual \u2014 over on the Peterson Obsession Board. \u00a0Here is what I wrote in a blog entry from 30 September entitled \u201cShameless\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n A review of Six Days in August<\/em><\/a> has appeared online that was written by my anonymous Mini-Stalker, who has been posting criticisms of me for many years now \u2014 especially of things (this is his particular specialty) that he\u2019s invented<\/em> about me. \u00a0To my completely disoriented surprise, he didn\u2019t like the movie. \u00a0Color me astonished.<\/p>\n That\u2019s fine, of course. \u00a0There are even people who dislike the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. \u00a0Leo Tolstoy detested Shakespeare. \u00a0My Mini-Stalker hates me<\/em>. De gustibus non disputandum est.<\/i><\/p>\n But I do appreciate accuracy<\/em>.<\/p>\n Among other things, Mini-Stalker comments on a scene in which Joseph Smith explains the principle of eternal marriage to Hyrum Smith and Brigham Young and their wives. \u00a0By that time, both Hyrum and Brigham were widowers who had married again after the deaths of their first spouses. \u00a0Hyrum had married Jerusha Barden in 1826, and they had six children together. \u00a0But Jerusha had died in 1837. \u00a0 Later that year, he married the English-born Mary Fielding. \u00a0Brigham had married Miriam Angeline Works, but she died of tuberculosis in 1832 at the age of twenty-six. \u00a0She left two children behind. \u00a0In 1834, Brigham married Mary Ann Angell.<\/p>\n In the scene to which Mini-Stalker alludes, Hyrum was in the room with Mary and Brigham was there with Mary Ann.<\/p>\n The subject was eternal marriage, not polygamy as such \u2014 although, plainly, postmortem plural marriage is entailed by the idea that spouses can be sealed together for eternity and that (as Joseph says in the film) such sealings can be performed vicariously, on the same principle as baptisms for the dead. \u00a0Hyrum, in particular, is shown as being moved by the idea that he hasn\u2019t lost Jerusha forever. \u00a0(I won\u2019t spoil things by describing Brigham and Mary Ann\u2019s reaction.)<\/p>\n Mini-Stalker accuses me of dishonesty because I represent the two women, Mary and Mary Ann \u2014 and, by extension, early Latter-day Saint women more generally \u2014 as being \u201chappy,\u201d \u201cecstatic,\u201d \u201cexcited,\u201d and \u201cutterly joyful\u201d at the idea of polygamy. \u00a0Two or three of his followers then join in, denouncing me for my dishonesty in misrepresenting those women as being \u201centhusiastic\u201d about it. \u00a0Perhaps, one suggests, I feared excommunication if I didn\u2019t depict them as absolutely giddy with delight at the prospect of sharing their husbands with other women.<\/p>\n However, as I say, Mini-Stalker is grossly misrepresenting the scene, where the emphasis is on the continuation of marriage relationships beyond the grave, not on polygamy in this<\/em> life \u2014 which isn\u2019t so much as mentioned<\/em> by either Joseph or Hyrum or Brigham or Mary or Mary Ann.<\/p>\n And he certainly knows that the film doesn\u2019t actually suggest that Latter-day Saint women were enthusiastic, happy, excited, joyful, and ecstatic about plural marriage, because he himself cites a scene \u2014 in order, of course, to mock and criticize it \u2014 in which Emma tearfully expresses her pain and sorrow to Joseph about the agonizing test of her faith that plural marriage poses.<\/p>\n It\u2019s always ironic to be accused of dishonesty by (of all people) my Mini-Stalker. \u00a0Perhaps, in this case, even more so than usual.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Anyway, I invite any who have actually seen Six Days in August<\/em> to post their honest reactions to it online, and to go to places like IMDb<\/a> and Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> to rate the film and, if they wish, to express their views about it. \u00a0We\u2019re hoping, of course, that people like the movie and say so. \u00a0(We hope that such favorable verdicts will influence still others to see the movie.) \u00a0At a minimum, though, I\u2019m hoping that online ratings of the film won\u2019t be dominated by people who simply despise me and hate the Church. \u00a0It\u2019s a matter of simple, minimal fairness.<\/p>\n Incidentally, did anybody see Brigham and Mary Ann at the football game today?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I\u2019m happy to report that, because of the impressively high demand for it, free access to the 2021 Interpreter Foundation dramatic film Witnesses will continue until 18 October 2024. \u00a0It\u2019s a perfect movie for an evening before a Sabbath, or a Sabbath day, or a family night on Monday evening, or any other night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":44614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38061,2905,788,23405,28443,921],"class_list":["post-107391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-imdb","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-rotten-tomatoes","tag-six-days-in-august","tag-witnesses"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n