> Eugene Woodbury wrote:
>
> This is critical. Trying to come across as more generically (Nicean)
> "Christian" in order to win a larger audience and make the Evangelicals
> "like us" won't and won't.
The enemy may be likeable, but he is never valued and never respected. We
are the enemy to too many versions of Christianity. Why kick against the
pricks?
This is why I advocate writing for the secularists.
Sure, some secularists and progressives will see Mormons as the enemy,
particularly because of their perception of "our" social and political
leanings. But it is much easier to overcome these prejudices than to
overcome the prejudice of the Christian, who senses that his very
salvation may be in jeopardy if he is too tolerant of the Mormons. If the
Mormon storyteller wants a secular audience to respect the Mormon
experience, all he/she will likely have to do is demonstrate his/her
respect for the secularist. What goes around....
But the Christian audience is a different bird altogether. If the Mormon
writer shows it respect (yes, I admit to speaking in wholesale stereotype
for the sake of argument), the Christian readership is likely to simply
expect to get that respect--since we are lesser than they. (Yeah, we do
this to them as well. I know.)
Generally, secularists and progressive thrive on the idea that they, of
all people, are open to new ideas, new experiences, new people. And they
seem more likely to buy well-written books. So skip the Christians. Theirs
is a drawbridge and the the bridge is up. Write for the secularist.
Lisa Downing
>
>
>
>
> www.eugenewoodbury.com <http://www.eugenewoodbury.com/>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: aml-list-bounces@???
> [mailto:aml-list-bounces@???] On Behalf Of Scott Parkin
> Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 5:25 PM
> To: AML Discussion List
> Subject: Re: Writing Mormon from the Outside In Re: [AML] What makes a
> "Mormon"
>
>
>
> Lisa Downing wrote:
>
>
>
>> I agree wholeheartedly. And yet, I don't think that what Dutcher
>> appeared
>
>> to do w. States was "ideal." IMO, he made the huge mistake of trying to
>
>> tell an LDS story that would appeal to Christians. He made a Mormon
>
>> Christian film. Now, some Christian films appeal to Mormons, but Mormon
>
>> films will never appeal to Christians (I mean the evangelical protestant
>
>> type).
>
>
>
> My struggle with SofG was that I don't think it had a core audience--which
> I
>
> believe was a flaw in Dutcher's presentation and vision.
>
>
>
> I love what it was trying to do, and it was a very effective film for me
>
> (overwrought closing scene notwithstanding). The ideas that Mormons can
>
> learn something about grace from good people of any faith, that our
>
> struggles may be different in detail but not in fundamental type from
> those
>
> faced by others, and that we can be betrayed by well-intentioned but
>
> ultimately heartless aspects of our own culture hit dead-on for me.
>
>
>
> While I saw him chiding Mormons for not being better than they are--and
>
> extending a bridging hand to other religions that we're not as different
> in
>
> core doctrine as they might think and we have much to learn--I didn't see
> it
>
> as particularly or aggressively unforgiving of Mormon culture's inevitable
>
> overzealousness.
>
>
>
> I thought its biggest problem was that Dutcher assumed he already had LDS
>
> audiences in the bag and that he didn't make nearly as strong an effort to
>
> reach out to Mormons as he did to reach out to others. The result was that
>
> he didn't meet any (large undifferentiated) market segment fully on its
> own
>
> turf, and as such he didn't have the core audience to generate the
> necessary
>
> word of mouth to broader audiences.
>
>
>
> Perhaps he shouldn't have needed to court his own community. Perhaps we
>
> should have been more charitable and given him more benefit of doubt. I
>
> think all of his films' (at least the first three) payoffs should
> ultimately
>
> be quite satisfying to broad Mormon audiences.
>
>
>
> But the fact that he was chiding Mormon culture as a primary structural
>
> component put an element of confusion into the story that made it hard for
>
> any single audience to claim the story as its own. In the end, none
> claimed
>
> it (as a general community).
>
>
>
> Was he addressing Mormons first and bridging to others? If so, he probably
>
> should have allowed more success of LDS culture to do things well.
> Instead,
>
> his Mormon characters were good despite the culture, not because of it
> (and
>
> while the same could be said of his other characters and their religious
>
> communities, those others were the special guest stars, not the core
>
> depiction).
>
>
>
> Was he addressing (Evangelical) Christians first and bridging to
> Mormonism?
>
> As you point out, most non-Mormons find stories about Mormons to be
>
> somewhere between irrelevant and distasteful. Where they are interested in
>
> seeing the mind of a Mormon, they want it from either fully inside their
> own
>
> cultural traditions (inside POV, Mormons as outsiders), or fully within
> the
>
> Mormon POV as exploration.
>
>
>
> In the case of SofG, I think he gave his Christian audiences more than a
> tad
>
> of whiplash by switching up between Mormon and non-Mormon viewpoints.
> Rather
>
> than briding, I think it muddled the presentation and made it harder for
> any
>
> of the groups to strongly identify.
>
>
>
> In other words, he was focusing so hard on the bridge that he failed to
> moor
>
> it on either side. Or at least that's how it seems to me, and that's why
> he
>
> ended up with tepid response all around--not because the message was
> beyond
>
> his audiences, but because he hadn't fully earned either audience's trust
>
> before heading into the bridge.
>
>
>
>
>
>> I disagree, however, IF you are suggesting that the stories LDS writers
>
>> produce from the "outside" must lack direct LDS elements to succeed.
>
>> either w. the non-LDS or the LDS audiences.
>
>
>
> I don't think LDS authors *must* do anything but tell a story that moves
>
> them. If they explore the human experience, they have a chance to connect
>
> with humans. If they try to tell an institutional experience, then they're
>
> marketing to institutions--which are notoriously fickle about book (or
> film)
>
> purchases.
>
>
>
> On the specific point, however...
>
>
>
> I think LDS writers working from outside in need to stop proselyting and
>
> just tell a story about people. Far from removing explicitly Mormon
> elements
>
> from their fiction, I think LDS authors would be well served to tell very
>
> aggressively Mormon stories from deep within the religious, social, and
>
> cultural experience. Explore the thoughts of your explicitly Mormon
>
> characters straight out--not as evidence for or against the institution.
>
>
>
> It seems to me that very few have tried--they've been too busy trying to
>
> convert people to The Church through illustrative tract. They've been too
>
> busy writing parables of scriptural principals or historical/educational
>
> treatices to just tell stories about people. As the cranky editor once
> said
>
> (sorry, the name escapes me), "If you want to send a message, use Western
>
> Union."
>
>
>
> You use Chiam Potok as an example. I've only read _The Chosen_ so I can't
>
> speak for his other works, but in that novel all of the characters were
>
> Jews. Yes, some were orthodox, some were reformed, and some were even
>
> Hasidic. Some were Zionists. Some were insular and others sought
>
> integration. But they were all Jews, and that commonality tied the
> different
>
> communities together--at least for the outside reader.
>
>
>
> The strength of Potok's human story was seeing how the forces of division
>
> and inclusion shaped the thoughts and actions of people who were set fully
>
> and completely within the bounds of American Jewish culture. He was
> telling
>
> an intimately Jewish story to a non-Jewish audience first, and hoping to
>
> appeal to Jewish audiences second.
>
>
>
> Potok was largely ostracized by his own community(s) and found acceptance
>
> and popularity with those from outside the culture first--it took many
> years
>
> (a full generation, if I recall) before that general acceptance moved back
>
> inside the culture and he could be accepted from within.
>
>
>
> This resonates with the Missionary School (by us, for them) versus Deseret
>
> School (by us, for us) ideas discussed many years ago on this list. In the
>
> Missionary School, LDS writers speak to those outside the community about
>
> stories of the Mormon community. By exploring Mormon experience for
> general
>
> audiences we set just a few more contextual clues and make fewer
> assumptions
>
> about what the audience already knows or believes about the thoughts of
> the
>
> players--in the process, more firmly bounding the explicitly LDS story.
>
>
>
> (I'm editorializing *a lot* on the Missionary/Deseret School definitions
>
> here, by the way. This is my take on other peoples' ideas, not an attempt
> to
>
> accurately explain those ideas as their originators offered them.)
>
>
>
> So on an outside-in approach, I think LDS authors need to be more
> explicitly
>
> Mormon that they might on an inside-out approach. It's the very exoticism
> of
>
> Mormon thought (or at least marginal oddness) that will appeal to the
>
> outside audience. They're looking to know how we think inside out own
> heads,
>
> not how we want others to think about us. They want human struggle and
> folly
>
> shaped by a unique worldview that's specifically not their own. They're
>
> looking for the results of the thought, not the specific reasons for the
>
> thought.
>
>
>
> So when I say that we shouldn't proselyte for the Church in an outside-in
>
> story, I mean we should explore inside thought for an outside audience.
>
> Audiences want an honest viewpoint, not a carefully constructed one
> designed
>
> to lionize (or villainize) the institution.
>
>
>
> That's hard to do, and very few have succeeded at it. Neither Dutcher nor
>
> Levi Peterson succeeded, in my opinion, and Maureen Whipple didn't really
>
> try (though I think Virginia Sorenson did an amazingly admirable job many
>
> years ago); Whipple was too busy apologizing for the practice of polygamy
> to
>
> explore it cleanly.
>
>
>
>> Dutcher's error in
>
>> establishing a cross-over film was that his cross-over audience was an
>
>> audience of another faith. No, no, no. The LDS storyteller that crosses
>
>> over with stories from the LDS culture will need to appeal to a secular,
>
>> not a religious audience.
>
>
>
> I agree, though I think you can appeal to a religious audience as long as
>
> you avoid proselyting for or against. But your point is well taken--if
>
> you're aiming for a religious audience (as opposed to a human one) you'll
>
> make choices that will color the presentation and most likely poison the
>
> well.
>
>
>
>> So part of the challenge I'm grappling with is how to fairly use LDS
>
>> language that won't call up all the negative baggage you mention for the
>
>> outsider. Its tough. Maybe impossible.
>
>
>
> I think a Mormon writer needs to work extra hard to make sure that the
>
> expressly Mormon vocabulary stays within the context of the characters'
>
> thoughts--aka, grounded in the internal conflict--rather than rising to
> the
>
> author's context and becoming either apologetics or proselyte.
>
>
>
> Not impossible at all. I'm not sure it's even hard, though it is something
>
> you have to pay special attention to. Some baggage will always attach, and
>
> that's just fine. As long as the story remains grounded inside the
>
> characters' (non-proselyting) POV, enough readers will engage to give it a
>
> chance. I think.
>
>
>
> Scott Parkin
>
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