‘Do Mormons think The Book of Mormon is funny?’
Abstract
Public ridicule of a minority typically predicts a defensive response from the target of that humor. This is because public ridicule provides a polarizing spectacle, where the majority enjoys a humorous face reward, and solidarity, at the expense of that minority. Logically, we could expect a faith-based minority to be especially sensitive to public ridicule, since their face investment is greater, in inverse proportion to their social position and power, and because their group (and personal) identity is linked inextricably to what would normally be inviolable: a sacred text, a prophet, or deity. However, the official response from the LDS Church to the musical comedy The Book of Mormon defies this expectation. This paper analyses this response, in order to understand why a religious minority chose to creatively engage with what should have been a highly face-threatening satire.
About the author
Adrian Hale is a Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University. His research and teaching areas are: Linguistics, Linguistic Studies of Humour, Academic Literacy, TESOL and Discourse Analysis.
References
Aikin, Scott F. 2009. Poe’s law, group polarization, and the epistemology of online religious discourse. SSRN. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1332169.10.2139/ssrn.1332169Search in Google Scholar
Allen, Kawika & Kenneth T. Wang. 2014. Examining religious commitment, perfectionism, scrupulosity, and well-being among LDS individuals. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 6(3). 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035197.Search in Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore. 2005. Humour. In Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Ostman, Jan Bolmmaert & Chris Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: 2003–2005 instalment, 2nd edn. 135–155. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/hop.9.hum2Search in Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore. 2008. Semantics and pragmatics of humour. Language and Linguistics Compass 2(6). 1203–1215. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00107.x.Search in Google Scholar
Beaman, Lori G. 2001. Molly Mormons, Mormon feminists and moderates: Religious diversity and the latter day Saints church. Sociology of Religion 62(1). 65–86. https://doi.org/10.2307/3712231.Search in Google Scholar
Bell, Nancy D. 2009. Responses to failed humour. Journal of Pragmatics 41(9). 1825–1836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.010.Search in Google Scholar
Bell, Nancy. 2015. We are not amused: Failed humour in interaction. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781501501586Search in Google Scholar
Bell, Nancy & Salvatore Attardo. 2010. Failed humour: Issues in non-native speakers’ appreciation and understanding of humour. Intercultural Pragmatics 7(3). 423–447. https://doi.org/10.1515/iprg.2010.019.Search in Google Scholar
Bennett, Jeanette. 2004. 2 funny guys show quirky LDS culture on the big screen. UtahValley360.Com. Available at: https://utahvalley360.com/2004/01/01/2-funny-guys-show-quirky-lds-culture-on-the-big-screen/.Search in Google Scholar
Bennett, Jim. 2014. What happened to the wave of Mormon movies? Deseret News. Available at: https://www.deseret.com/2014/4/25/20540085/what-happened-to-the-wave-of-mormon-movies.Search in Google Scholar
Bianculli, David. 2019. ‘Fresh air’ favorites: ‘Book of Mormon’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. National Public Radio. Available at: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/790794191.Search in Google Scholar
Bogdan, Silvia. 2014. Failed humour and its effects in conversation: A case study. Speech and Context 37. 37–47.10.5005/jp/books/12344_8Search in Google Scholar
Boxer, Diana & Florencia Cortés-Conde. 1997. From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display. Journal of Pragmatics 27(3). 275–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-2166(96)00031-8.Search in Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813085Search in Google Scholar
Buchanan-Whitlock, Emmilie. 2013. From ’Book of Mormon’ musical to Mormon convert. Deseret News. Available at: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865579364/From-Book-of-Mormon-musical-to-Mormon-convert.html.Search in Google Scholar
Burin, Margaret. 2017. What real Australian Mormons think about the Book of Mormon musical. ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-04/what-real-mormons-think-about-the-book-of-mormon-musical/8239188.Search in Google Scholar
Canale, Michael A. & Merrill Swain. 1980. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1(1). 1–47. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/i.1.1.Search in Google Scholar
Cavendish, Dominic. 2013. The book of Mormon: Trey Parker and Matt Stone interview. The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theater/theater-features/9895520/The-Book-of-Mormon-Trey-Parker-and-Matt-Stone-interview.html.Search in Google Scholar
comeuntochrist.org. 2018. What is the book of Mormon? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.comeuntochrist.org/beliefs/book-of-mormon/what-is-the-book-of-mormon.Search in Google Scholar
Cox, Daniel. 2019. Most churches are losing members fast — but not the Mormons. Here’s why. Vox. Available at: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3/6/18252231/mormons-mormonism-church-of-latter-day-saints.Search in Google Scholar
Cuthbertson, Debbie. 2015. South park creators’ Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway hit the book of Mormon to open in Melbourne. The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/musicals/south-park-creators-trey-parker-and-matt-stones-broadway-hit-the-book-of-mormon-to-open-in-melbourne-20150427-1mu5h5.html.Search in Google Scholar
Daniels, Nicholas Ephram Ryan. 2018. Everything you need to know about the book of Mormon. London Theater Direct. Available at: https://www.londontheaterdirect.com/news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-book-of-mormon.Search in Google Scholar
Dehlin, John P., Renee V. Galliher, William S. Bradshaw & Katherine A. Crowell. 2015. Navigating sexual and religious identity conflict: A Mormon perspective. Identity 15(1). 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2014.989440.Search in Google Scholar
Duin, Julia. 2009. Sunstone magazine offers different perspectives. Deseret News/The Washington Times. Available at: https://www.deseret.com/2009/4/18/20313230/sunstone-magazine-offers-different-perspectives.Search in Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Ann. 1986. Teasing: Verbal play in two Mexicano homes. In Bambi Schieffelin & Elinor Ochs (eds.), Language socialization across cultures, 182–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511620898.009Search in Google Scholar
Fandom.com. no date. Super best friends. Fandom.com. Available at: https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Best_Friends.Search in Google Scholar
Friedman, Sam & Giselinde Kuipers. 2013. The divisive power of humour: Comedy, taste and symbolic boundaries. Cultural Sociology 7(2). 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975513477405.Search in Google Scholar
Givens, Terryl L. 2013. The viper on the hearth: Mormons, myth, and the construction of Heresy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199933808.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Gross, Terry. 2019. ‘Fresh air’ favorites: ‘Book of Mormon’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Fresh Air: National Public Radio. Available at: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/790794191.Search in Google Scholar
Gruner, Charles R. 2000. The game of humour: A comprehensive theory of why we laugh. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Kurt (Director). 2002. The singles ward [Motion Picture]. Orem, Utah: Halestorm.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Kurt (Director). 2003. The RM [Motion Picture]. Orem, Utah: Halestorm.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Kurt (Director). 2004. The home teachers [Motion Picture]. Orem, Utah: Halestorm.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Kurt (Director). 2006. Church ball [Motion Picture]. Orem, Utah: Halestorm.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Kurt (Director). 2007. The singles 2nd ward [Motion Picture]. Orem, Utah: Halestorm.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Adrian. 2018a. “I get it, but it’s just not funny”: Why humour fails, after all is said and done. European Journal of Humour Research 6(1). 36–61. https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr2018.6.1.hale.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Adrian. 2018b. There is an after-life (for jokes, anyway): The potential for, and appeal of, ‘immortality’ in humor. HUMOR 31(3). 507–538. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2017-0105.Search in Google Scholar
Hale, Adrian & Helen Basides. 2013. The keys to academic English. South Melbourne: Palgrave MacMillan.Search in Google Scholar
Hansen, Danielle Tumminio. 2013. Don’t judge a book of Mormon by its cover: How Mormons are discovering the musical as a conversion tool. Huffington Post. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dont-judge-a-book-of-mormon-by-its-cover-how-mormons-are-discovering-the-musical-as-a-conversion-tool_b_3267252.Search in Google Scholar
Haring, Bruce. 2020. ‘South Park’ missing five episodes from HBO Max offerings because of prophet Muhammad depictions. Deadline.com. Available at: https://deadline.com/2020/06/south-park-episodes-missing-hbo-max-prophet-muhammad-1202969280/.Search in Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer. 2001. The pragmatics of humor support. Humor 14(1). 55–82. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.14.1.55.Search in Google Scholar
H/H (personal communication, December 2019).10.36548/jucct.2019.2Search in Google Scholar
Idato, Michael. 2016. The book of Mormon is coming. Is nothing sacred? The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/the-book-of-mormon-is-coming-is-nothing-sacred-20161018-grzif9.html.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Jake. 2015. Mormons, musical theater, and the public arena of doubt. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 48(4). 89–114.10.5406/dialjmormthou.48.4.0089Search in Google Scholar
Jones, Morgan. 2016. How the LDS church’s response to ‘the book of Mormon’ musical is actually working. Deseret News. Available at: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865667313/How-the-LDS-Churchs-response-to-The-Book-of-Mormon-musical-is-actually-working.html.Search in Google Scholar
Klausen, Jytte. 2009. The cartoons that shook the world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kuipers, Giselende. 2009. Humour styles and symbolic boundaries. Journal of Literary Theory 3(2). 219–239. https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt.2009.013.Search in Google Scholar
Kuipers, Giselende. 2015. Good humor, bad taste. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9781501510441Search in Google Scholar
Kwok, Emily. 2018. Why we take book of Mormon in good humour. The Daily Telegraph. Available at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/why-we-take-book-of-mormon-in-good-humour/news-story/6a99f2b78412eadb61ce6f7921484d54.Search in Google Scholar
Laineste, Liisi. 2013. Funny or aggressive? Failed humour in internet comments. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore (53). 29–46. https://doi.org/10.7592/fejf2013.53.laineste.Search in Google Scholar
Lockyer, Sharon & Michael Pickering (eds.). 2009. Beyond a joke: The limits of humour. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Lowe, Adrian. 2017. What a (lapsed) Mormon thinks after watching the book of Mormon. The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/what-a-lapsed-mormon-thinks-after-watching-the-book-of-mormon-20170202-gu4fie.html.Search in Google Scholar
McCool, Lauren Zawistowski. 2012. Religion as a role: Decoding performances of Mormonism in the contemporary United States. Bowling Green State University. Available at: https://uat-etd.ohiolink.edu/.Search in Google Scholar
McIntyre, Elisha. 2018. Religious humour in Evangelical Christian and Mormon Culture. New York: Bloomsbury.10.5040/9781350005518Search in Google Scholar
Monson, Thomas S. 2012. Welcome to conference. Liahona. Available at: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/callings/missionary/faqs?lang=eng.Search in Google Scholar
Newsroom. 2011. Book of Mormon musical: Church’s official statement. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Available at: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-statement-regarding-the-book-of-mormon-broadway-musical.Search in Google Scholar
Newsroom. 2011. On faith blog: “Why I won’t be seeing the book of Mormon musical”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Available at: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/on-faith-blog-why-i-wont-be-seeing-the-book-of-mormon-musical.Search in Google Scholar
Newsroom. 2020. Facts and statistics: United States. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Available at: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-states.Search in Google Scholar
Oring, Elliott. 2017. The consolations of humor. The European Journal of Humour Research 5(4). 56–66. https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr2017.5.4.oring.Search in Google Scholar
Ott, Karl-Heinz & Bernard Schweizer. 2018. Does religion shape people’s sense of humour? A comparative study of humour appreciation among members of different religions and nonbelievers. The European Journal of Humour Research 6(1). 12–35. https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr2018.6.1.ott.Search in Google Scholar
Palmer, Jerry. 2004. Taking humour seriously. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203380154Search in Google Scholar
Partington, Alan. 2006. The linguistics of laughter: A corpus-assisted study of laughter-talk. Abingdon: Routledge.10.4324/9780203966570Search in Google Scholar
Pressley, Patsy V. 2018. It’s time that a black person reviewed “the book of Mormon”. QCity Metro. https://qcitymetro.com/2018/07/27/time-that-a-black-person-reviewed-the-book-of-mormon/.Search in Google Scholar
Rose, Flemming. 2014. The tyranny of silence. Washington: Cato Institute.Search in Google Scholar
Santos, Albert. 2018. Crass, offensive and politically incorrect: Does ‘the book of Mormon’ hold up in 2018? junkee.com. Available at: https://junkee.com/book-of-mormon-2018-review/150122.Search in Google Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie. 2010. Humour. In Miriam A. Locher & Sage L. Graham (eds.), Interpersonal pragmatics, vol. 6, 307–328. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110214338.2.307Search in Google Scholar
Schnurr, Stephanie & Angela Chan. 2011. When laughter is not enough. Responding to teasing and self-denigrating humour at work. Journal of Pragmatics 43(1). 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.001.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Gregory. 2012. Mormons in America: Certain in their beliefs, uncertain of their place in society. The pew forum on religion and public life. Washington, D.C.: The Pew Centre for Research.Search in Google Scholar
Snierson, Dan. 2019. South Park renewed for three more seasons. Entertainment Weekly. Available at: https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/12/south-park-renewed-three-more-seasons/.Search in Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2002. Managing rapport in talk: Using rapport sensitive incidents to explore the motivational concerns underlying the management of relations. Journal of Pragmatics 34(5). 529–545. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0378-2166(01)00039-x.Search in Google Scholar
Sunstone. 2020. About us. Sunstone Magazine. Available at: https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/about/.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, Cheryl. 2017. Book of Mormon’s Anti-African racism is no laughing matter. The Huffington Post. Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/byblackscom/book-of-mormon-racism_b_15936092.html.Search in Google Scholar
Trepanier, Lee & Lynita Newswander. 2012. LDS in the USA: Mormonism and the making of American culture. Waco: Baylor University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Walker, Peter. 2013. Book of Mormon not a problem for the latter-day Saints. The Guardian (UK). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/07/book-mormon-musical-south-park.Search in Google Scholar
Walker, David. 2017. Mormon Melodrama and the syndication of satire, from Brigham Young (1940) to South Park (2003). The Journal of American Culture 40(3). 259–275. https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.12741.Search in Google Scholar
Wilson, William Albert. 1985. The seriousness of Mormon humor. Sunstone 10. 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1358/dof.1985.010.09.77473.Search in Google Scholar
Zajdman, Anat. 1995. Humorous face-threatening acts: Humour as strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 23(3). 325–339. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(94)00038-g.Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- Humor and A1C: the interaction between humor and diabetes control
- Humor styles influence the perception of depression-related internet memes in depression
- Self-deprecating humor and task persistence: the moderating role of self-defeating humor style
- Psychometric properties of the Comic Style Markers – Portuguese version: applying bifactor and hierarchical approaches to studying broad versus narrow styles of humor
- Are more humorous children more intelligent? A case from Turkish culture
- The variable of gender and its interplay with mother tongue in the humor and laughter of bilingual couples
- Failed humor in conversation: disalignment and (dis)affiliation as a type of interactional failure
- Satire as safety valve: moving beyond a mistaken metaphor
- ‘Do Mormons think The Book of Mormon is funny?’
- Identities are no joke (or are they?): humor and identity in Vivek Mahbubani’s stand-up
- Book Reviews
- Waterlow, Jonathan: It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin
- William V. Costanzo: When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West
- Claire Schmidt: If You Don’t Laugh You’ll Cry: The Occupational Humor of White Wisconsin Prison Workers
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- Humor and A1C: the interaction between humor and diabetes control
- Humor styles influence the perception of depression-related internet memes in depression
- Self-deprecating humor and task persistence: the moderating role of self-defeating humor style
- Psychometric properties of the Comic Style Markers – Portuguese version: applying bifactor and hierarchical approaches to studying broad versus narrow styles of humor
- Are more humorous children more intelligent? A case from Turkish culture
- The variable of gender and its interplay with mother tongue in the humor and laughter of bilingual couples
- Failed humor in conversation: disalignment and (dis)affiliation as a type of interactional failure
- Satire as safety valve: moving beyond a mistaken metaphor
- ‘Do Mormons think The Book of Mormon is funny?’
- Identities are no joke (or are they?): humor and identity in Vivek Mahbubani’s stand-up
- Book Reviews
- Waterlow, Jonathan: It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! Humour, Trust and Everyday Life under Stalin
- William V. Costanzo: When the World Laughs: Film Comedy East and West
- Claire Schmidt: If You Don’t Laugh You’ll Cry: The Occupational Humor of White Wisconsin Prison Workers