Further Light and Knowledge

WTF is righteous hari kari?

This is the central idea on my mind as I"m watching Saturdays Warrior. WTF is Lex de Azevedo on?

OK, so I'm trying to introduce my convert wife into the mad mad mad world of Mormon pop culture (for free). I downloaded Saturdays Warrior to show to her and I'm watching it while she's sleeping in this morning and it's genuinely painful. The whole missionary bit is painful, but one of the most disturbing things is the gender roles that are so tied up in the show. Women are weak, vacillating silly sex objects without God, upon which point they become self sacrificing, silly virgins... even when they have 8 kids. It's like watching the virgin/whore dichotomy play out in front of you.

It's like there is nothing to people beyond the LDS church. The whole portrayal of the system... Kessler is an unmitigated boor, an asshole of the first order and he's played up for laughs. Jimmy Flinders... damn... he looks like the Karate Kid.... and every other 80's TV hero.

And the whole 'pre existence love' thing is bullshit even for TBMs.


At least I know PK will find it funny... even in a train wreck kind of way.

_________________
As man is, so is his God
And thus is God, oft strangely odd

If the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a tyranny tempered by incompetence, as the old joke goes, the Mormon Church is a megalomania atrophied by age.
Asia Times February 5 2008 Front Page

I saw Saturdays Warrior live when I was about 13 (around 1978 or so) at Knotts Berry Farm. I had no idea what it was before we went, but the daughter of some friends of my parents had the female lead, so we went. I was completely mystified, and when the curtain went down, my father said, rather too loudly, "I sure hope there weren't any investigators here."

Having a father who was always in the margins of the church, we were never steeped in the popular culture, and stuff like that has always seemed to me like kitsch from an alien culture.

_________________
"You can only talk rubbish if you're aware of knowledge." --Karl Pilkington

Runtu's Rincon: http://runtu.wordpress.com

I've always loved Saturday's Warrior, even as an exmo, for precisely the reason that it's full of Mormon kitsch (and very little doctrine). I still have the soundtrack on my computer and listen to it all the time. In fact, I think it's even more hilarious now that I'm exmo since I feel I've given myself more permission to laugh at it.

_________________
"You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen."
—Razumihin, Crime and Punishment

The 1970s version is jam-packed with great Mormon folk doctrine. I have the *old* soundtrack (my parents had it on LP) from the 70s on my iTunes.

"I take some paper in my hands
And with a pencil draw a man..."

I've enjoyed it more since I read Confessions of a Mormon Boy. It's so refreshing to see that it wasn't just the girls that wanted to marry Jimmy Flinders... one of the funniest sections of that play

It's pure sugar..lol

And I love how unselfish the 'bad' people are. Limit your kids because the world needs it, not because you want to.

Can't even get past the self sacrifice when their trying to portray bad characters

_________________
As man is, so is his God
And thus is God, oft strangely odd

If the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a tyranny tempered by incompetence, as the old joke goes, the Mormon Church is a megalomania atrophied by age.
Asia Times February 5 2008 Front Page

OK, if you want the real exmo version of Saturday's Warrior, then you need to see Saturday's Voyeur.

It makes fun of the hypocricy of the SLC city counsel, and their tendency to be highly influenced by whatever the Church wants them to do; it makes fun of Mitt Romney and his tendency to flip on various topics to conform to what Utah voters would like to hear; it makes fun of Larry Miller and his banning of Brokeback Mountain at his theatres in Utah; it makes fun of Gayle Razika and her undo -- and highly conservative -- influence on the Utah legislature; it makes fun of the Church's new shopping mall; etc., etc., etc.

It's a crazy, over-the-top evening. And, it's a caberet show, which means you can bring food and drinks (including any sort of alcohol you want, which is always in abundance with the patrons) into the theatre with you.

It's the antithesis of shows like Saturday's Warrior.

_________________
As man is, so is his God;
And thus is God, oft strangely odd.
-- Goethe

Where did you download it from? I would love to see it again myself.

_________________
All your lemons are belong to us.

I flipped past this the other day on KBYU. I watched for about 15 seconds before I couldn't stand it any more.

Then I had regrets and changed it back. Lasted about another 10 seconds, and decided on Law & Order reruns.

Wow, is that acting bad. In a way that only 70's BYU students can be bad. It was a lot better in my memory than it was on screen.

_________________
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
-- Socrates

Oh, NOM, it's nowhere near as bad as the live-action video of the stage production of My Turn on Earth. Really, trust me on this one. Do not investigate for yourself--you will regret it.

_________________
"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

BTW, two interesting tidbits about the actors in the movie version of Saturday's Warrior:

1) Erik Hickenlooper, who played Jimmy, wrote the song "Buy Me A Rose" which was recorded by Kenny Rogers a number of years ago and went to #1 on the Billboard charts for several weeks. He is a very cool guy. I like Erik a lot.

2) Marvin Payne, who played the Father, is one of the coolest, most liberal Latter-day Saints you will ever hope to meet. The man is wonderful to work with. Very professional. While I think he still believes the Church's foundational claims to a degree, he isn't in-your-face about the Church at all. Very genuine, and very generous to anyone who is not a believer.


The film was made in the 1990's, but the original cast was in the 1970's, and was made up of primarily California Mormons. Of the original cast, at least one of them ended up as a non-Mormon. I can't remember her name, but one of the original cast members became the musical director for the Unity Church in Sandy for a lot of years.

_________________
As man is, so is his God;
And thus is God, oft strangely odd.
-- Goethe

I hate that Saturday's Warrior is now forever associated with the horrible 1990 video, docrtinally neutral version.

The 1974 version is not only kitschy, but has an amazing trove of mormon folk doctrines. In fact, for those of us who were mormons before correlation really took hold outside of the morridor (I was living in Western colorado in the 1970s), Saturday's Warrior *is* Mormonism: people promising each other in the pre-existence, spirits waiting to come down, chosing their parents; friends promising each other that they will find each other when they are born in the flesh.

Fabulous stuff. So much more real and human than the tightly controlled, anal, sterilized, fully correlated, vetted through the PR department mormonism of the 1990s and the Oughts.

There's a Unity Church in Utah??? (Not to be confused with the Unification Church, or Moonies.) I used to go to the Unity church from time to time in Kasnas City, because it was soooo weird. They'd lower the lights and a harpist would play during group meditation. They were basically low-level New Age. I enjoyed the community.

KHNSH

The funny thing about correlation has it has in many ways boxed the church into a corner that they might otherwise have wriggled out of. Things that most people could accept as allegorical or up for debate are now codified into doctrine. And when you have the idea that your doctrine is the result of revelation, it's damn hard to let go of it.

_________________
"You can only talk rubbish if you're aware of knowledge." --Karl Pilkington

Runtu's Rincon: http://runtu.wordpress.com

Yep! There's one in Sandy, there's one in Park City, and there's one in Ogden. At least Ogden had one for a time; I'm not sure if it's still there or not.

Yeah, it's really wierd isn't it? I knew their keyboardist very well, and whenever he'd need to take some time off, he'd call me in to sub for him. It was great. I'd just improv all sorts of New Agey stuff on the keyboard while they'd meditate. It was fun.

I even got used to all the hugging at the end of each service.

LOL! I remember my wife went one Sunday -- this is when we were still very TBM -- and the hug-fest and other not-exactly-normal stuff really freaked her out. She never went back.

_________________
As man is, so is his God;
And thus is God, oft strangely odd.
-- Goethe

I think that's the same version I have. I actually grew up with the 80s version, but I burned a copy of the 70s soundtrack from a fellow missionary. I believe this is the version:
http://deseretbook.com/store/product?sku=1916301

p.s. that's my favorite song too.

_________________
"You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen."
—Razumihin, Crime and Punishment