LDS filmmaker Richard Dutcher recently bid farewell to the community of LDS cinema and the LDS Church too. His comments, some of them barbed, elicited an outpouring of bile from Kieth Merrill, whose worst work (Legacy, Testaments) is one of Dutcher's targets. To his credit, Merrill apologized.
As a Mormon of sorts, I find Merrill's bile and penance a familiar script. Mormons can get angry in the most juvenile ways, and then absolve themselves through their equally dramatic regret (I am quite familiar with this behavior because I have often done it myself). Both the bile and the regret are sincere, and yet oddly calculated at the same time. I know that subconsciously calculated is an oxymoron, but somehow it seems to fit here. Maybe 'culturally programmed' would be the better term.
Dutcher, too, has his stock Mormon rhetorical faults. There is a measure of arrogance in his initial farewell that is also familiar. Yet, Dutcher's rhetoric also has a wonderful self-reflective quality that transcends the usual boundaries of Mormon moral navel-gazing. It seems that every time I see a Mormon I have not been around for a while, that person engages in some talk about being scandalized by the state of the world (usually the lack of morals in the media) in order to communicate their continuing allegiance to the "true gospel."
Dutcher has so much more to offer than this. He understands Mormonism with the sympathy of an insider and the perspective of a more dispassionate outsider, all at the same time. Perhaps this is why his Mormon movies are effective, and Kieth Merrill's Mormon movies are cinematic pop tarts.
Dutcher recently added an addendum to his farewell, and man is it powerful. I think it is even more on target than his original farewell. This guy "gets it." My favorite part was his discussion of the ritual slandering of the "lost soul" in historical and contemporary Mormonism. I'll let him speak for himself:
"Thomas Marsh was one of the leaders in the early Church. Most of us know him only as that silly man who left the Church because his wife cheated another sister out of some “milk strippings.” The matter ended up with local Church leaders who determined that Sister Marsh had, indeed, acted dishonestly. As the story goes, Thomas was so offended and angry that he left the Church and didn’t come back until he was an old man, dead broke and half-senile.
But there’s so much more to the story.
Although the “milk stripping” incident is factual, it is not the reason Thomas Marsh left the Church. He left in those chaotic days in Far West, shortly before Joseph was arrested and taken to Liberty Jail. These were the days of Sidney Rigdon’s reach for power and his “Salt Sermon.” They were the days of the Danites (Yes, Virginia, there were Danites), and the days when Oliver Cowdery left the Church. Oliver’s complex and difficult decision was made at a time when his life was being threatened by other Church leaders. It was a crazy, dangerous time and Thomas was right in the middle of it. I’m sure those old milk strippings were the last things on Thomas Marsh’s mind when he mounted up and got his family the hell out of town.
Yet this man’s complex life, and his difficult decision, has been reduced to an inaccurate Sunday school lesson in Pride. I believe this “lesson” is a slander, and a violation of a very complex human being.
Although it may be out of my hands, I do not intend for something similar to happen to me. At least not without a fight.
It’s unpleasant to acknowledge, but the LDS community has a history of character assassination. It is an ugly truth, but it is the truth. I have often joked (darkly, and among friends only) that when wandering sheep stray from the fold, Mormons don’t go looking for them. What happens is: somebody climbs up on a really tall tower, takes out a high-powered rifle, gets the poor straying soul in the cross-hairs, and then blows his wandering brain out.
When individuals leave the fold, why do we find it necessary to blacken their names? This has been the case since the earliest days. Back then, a church member or leader could be in full fellowship one day and considered a wonderful, decent, loveable human being. The next day, if that individual chose to make an exit, he was the “blackest, basest of scoundrels,” an “adulterer” and a “counterfeiter,” etc.
Today, we’re a little less melodramatic. But still, when a scholar, artist, intellectual, or even a rank and file member of the Church decides to leave, his character is instantly under attack: “I think he’s gay” or “I bet she’s having an affair” or “I’ve heard he’s a drug addict,” etc.
Just for the record: I’m not having an affair. I’m not gay. I’m not a drug addict. I’ve never tried to illegally reproduce hundred dollar bills and I haven’t killed anyone. Sadly, I can’t even claim to have beaten anyone up, not since the 9th grade anyway. (Actually, now that I think of it, I didn’t win that particular fight. A neanderthalic 12th grader beat the snot out of me.)"
Dutcher then continues to speak about his leaving the fold as a progression through Mormonism instead of an eschewing of his experience in it--the latter being the usual ex-Mormon trope. It was this that I tried to express in my last post, but Dutcher does it so much better. I really like this guy.
