{"id":107872,"date":"2024-11-18T14:38:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T21:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=107872"},"modified":"2024-11-19T17:18:31","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T00:18:31","slug":"another-note-on-mormonism-in-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/11\/another-note-on-mormonism-in-the-movies.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Note on “Mormonism” in the Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A close-up of \"Wilford Woodruff\"<\/a>
Wilford Woodruff listens to Sidney Rigdon, in a scene from \u201cSix Days in August\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some here may be interested in this 44-minute discussion between an Evangelical Protestant and a Latter-day Saint: \u00a0\u201cHeretic<\/em> Review: Why Everyone<\/em> Should Oppose Religious Misrepresentations.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0I myself have listened, thus far, to only about twenty-five percent of the recording, but I\u2019ve enjoyed it thus far.<\/p>\n

In this conversation, Jacob Hansen and Jeff McCullough discuss the recent film \u2018Heretic\u2019 and its portrayal of Latter-day Saints and Christianity. They explore the broader themes of media representation, the exploitation of religious beliefs, and the misconceptions surrounding faith. The discussion delves into the importance of accurate representation in media, the nature of worship, and the cultural critiques of Christianity, ultimately emphasizing the transformative power of faith and the need for genuine understanding between different belief systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least one of them \u2014 the Evangelical \u2014 hasn\u2019t actually seen<\/em> the movie, but he says that he has read a great deal about it. \u00a0In any case, the discussion isn\u2019t entirely about the film as such.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, according to IMDb, Heretic<\/em> is currently ranked fourth at the box office in the United States. \u00a0It took in $5.2 million over this past weekend. \u00a0I read at the Peterson Obsession Board that I\u2019m absolutely livid with impotent jealous rage. \u00a0Of course, it never so much as entered my mind<\/em> that our Six Days in August<\/em>, an indie film aimed at a niche market and backed by a modest budget, would compete with national Hollywood releases \u2014 but I suppose that pretending otherwise makes for amusing message-board conversations.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m on the subject, though: \u00a0We are now far along in our preparations for its streaming and for its release in DVD and Blu-ray formats. \u00a0My wife and I spent some time on Saturday morning (as did our associates) spot-checking a preliminary DVD of it that includes both English and Spanish subtitles. \u00a0But I\u2019m told that Six Days in August<\/em> is maybe holding on by its fingernails in a small handful of theaters. \u00a0If that is true \u00a0\u2014 and, right now, I don\u2019t know for sure whether or not it is<\/em>, although I believe that it\u2019s still in five theaters \u2014 I hope that some of you will take the opportunity to see it again, or to see it for the first time, or to take friends or neighbors or family who haven\u2019t yet seen it. \u00a0As I\u2019ve said here before, the cinematography of Six Days in August<\/em> is beautiful and is well worth seeing on a large screen; its musical score is likewise beautiful and is worthy of hearing on a good theatrical sound system.<\/p>\n

I continue to be puzzled by the film\u2019s failure at the box office. \u00a0I\u2019ve been disappointed to hear from more than a few people in my own neighborhood and among my own acquaintances that, well, they had vaguely kinda heard<\/em> of Six Days in August<\/em> and had sorta thought<\/em> about maybe going to see it sometime but, well, they just don\u2019t go to movies very often and just hadn\u2019t gotten around to it. \u00a0We always knew that our window of theatrical opportunity for the film was going to be small, and now it has closed.<\/p>\n

I remain proud of the effort, though. \u00a0Six Days in August<\/em> is a solid, good film about an important story. \u00a0Our filmmakers did a superb job with it. \u00a0I hope that many out there will stream it when it becomes available and\/or that they will buy it on DVD or Blu-ray when the formats are out. \u00a0(If Latter-day Saint cinema is ever going to be economically viable, Latter-day Saint audiences will need to spend some money on it.) \u00a0And now we look forward to going to work on the docudrama with which we had always intended to follow it, and which is already partly \u201cin the can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
This circus poster dates back to 1900. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). \u00a0It\u2019s still relevant, though, to certain regions of the internet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the fifteen to twenty years that he\u2019s devoted himself to continual, anonymous, disingenuous, and invariably negative online commentary on me and all my works (both real and imagined), my Malevolent Stalker has often struck me as unethical and implacably hostile but rather clever, if not altogether cunning. \u00a0Sometimes, though \u2014 today, for example \u2014 he strikes me, quite simply, as intellectually . . . well, limited<\/em>. \u00a0(I\u2019m being as diplomatic as I can be, given the facts of the case.) \u00a0He may be feigning<\/em> such limitation, of course. \u00a0But he may not. \u00a0And he has the advantage of performing for an uncritical and eagerly credulous audience.<\/p>\n

\"Newspeak,<\/a>
The three principal government slogans of Oceania in George Orwell\u2019s dystopian novel \u201c1984\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A common theme of items that have been retrieved from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122 is the evils that are done by theists and theism. \u00a0But what about benefits that the apparently ongoing decline<\/em> of religion and religiosity seem to offer<\/em> us? \u00a0A pair of such potential gains \u2014 rape and suicide \u2014 forms the subject of this recent Hitchens File<\/em> entry: Philip Truscott, \u201cRape, Suicide, and the Rise of Religious Nones,\u201d\u00a0 Journal of Sociology and Christianity<\/em> 14\/2 (Fall 2024): 34-58:<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> \u00a0One of the most widely quoted concepts in late twentieth century criminology was the general theory of crime which proposed that insufficiency of self-control is the most important predictor of criminal behavior. The presence or absence of social bonds promoting self-control is an important element of this theory. This article argues that the decline of one important societal bond, religious affiliation, is impacting the incidence of rape. Since the 2010s, there has been a positive correlation between the proportion of the population declaring no religious affiliation (the \u201cNone\u201d rate) in the 50 USA states and the campus rape rate. This correlation was significant in the four years from 2016 (r=0.464, p.0.001) to 2019 (r=0.393, p.0.005). Beginning in 2018, the None rate in the 50 states also correlates with the rape rate in the general US population (r=.343, p. 0.015) identified by Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Was this due to a variation in actual crimes or in reporting rates?Recent data make the reporting rate explanation implausible. Furthermore, the UCR rape rate is directly correlated with another violence statistic that is not susceptible to reporting error: suicide rates published by the CDC. This research contends that suicide rates are a proxy indicator for male self-control, as three quarters of suicides are male. Rape perpetration is also overwhelmingly male. The correlation of rape rates and suicide rates in the USA rose from 2014 (r=.55, p. = 0.00001) to 2019 (r=.66, p. = 0.0000001). It is argued that declining religiosity is lowering self-control, and that this is a plausible mechanism driving both increased rape and suicide.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Some here may be interested in this 44-minute discussion between an Evangelical Protestant and a Latter-day Saint: \u00a0\u201cHeretic Review: Why Everyone Should Oppose Religious Misrepresentations.\u201d \u00a0I myself have listened, thus far, to only about twenty-five percent of the recording, but I\u2019ve enjoyed it thus far. In this conversation, Jacob Hansen and Jeff McCullough discuss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":107169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21199,37743,5115,743,28443,2749],"class_list":["post-107872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heretic","tag-hugh-grant","tag-rape","tag-religion","tag-six-days-in-august","tag-suicide"],"yoast_head":"\nAnother Note on "Mormonism" in the Movies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Some here may be interested in this 44-minute discussion between an Evangelical Protestant and a Latter-day Saint: \u00a0"Heretic Review: Why Everyone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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