The “Stage” Mormon

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G.K. Chesterton’s excellent Father Brown series is a collection of short stories that are superficially mystery tales, but often contain fairly deep social and religious commentary. For example, I think one of the early Father Brown tales – “The Invisible Man” – is one of the most profound short stories in English literature.

In the tale “The Vampire of the Village” the mystery hinges on the demeanor of a priest, and while I won’t give away the ending, I am going to quote from Father Brown’s explanation of how he realized the truth behind a murder:

It is true, and it is not at all unnatural, that England does not know much about the Church of Rome. But England does not know much about the Church of England. Not even as much as I do. You would be astonished at how little the average public grasps about the Anglican controversies; lots of them don’t really know what is meant by a High Churchman or a Low Churchman, even on the particular points of practice, let alone the two theories of history and philosophy behind them. You can see the ignorance in any newspaper; in any merely popular novel or play.

Now the first thing that struck me was that this venerable cleric had got the whole thing incredibly mixed up. No Anglican parson could be so wrong about every Anglican problem. He was supposed to be an old Tory High Churchman; and then he was boasting of being a Puritan. A man like that might personally be rather Puritanical; but he would never call it being a Puritan. He professed a horror of the stage; he didn’t know that High Churchman generally don’t have that special horror, though Low Churchman do. He talked like a Puritan about the Sabbath; and then he had a crucifix in his room. He evidently had no notion of what a very pious parson ought to be, except that he ought to be very solemn and venerable and frown upon the pleasures of the world.

All this time there was a subconscious notion running in my head; something I couldn’t fix in my memory; and then it came to me suddenly. This was a Stage Parson.

I think that, using this definition, most of the time Mormons in the media are “stage Mormons.” While Chesterton was referring more to Melodrama than serious theatre, this applies even to serious theatre today. For example, the Mormon in Angels in America are stage Mormons – generic, stereotyped people who are unlike any real Mormons. They serve a plot function, but that’s about it. The Mormons in Angels in America are about as nuanced as the occasional Mormon who pops up on a sitcom – but at least in any given sitcom, we expect most every character to be a stereotyped “stage” person.

The Mormon character on House gets some points for having the Mormon be an African-American single dad, but at the same time, it was clear the creators had nothing more than a “stage” notion of a Mormon in mind, as the character’s one prayer (and reaction to a cross) were atypical of Mormons, but could be typical of someone who only has a vague notion of Mormons as “really, really, religious.”

The news media seems to have no other template, as well. Rather than attempting to cover Mormons as they are, most news reports approach Mormons with their preconceived notions of Mormons as “slightly (or very) weird, somewhat patriotic, religious types with ties to polygamy.” Just like the fake priest in the Father Brown tale “He evidently had no notion of what a very pious parson ought to be, except that he ought to be very solemn and venerable and frown upon the pleasures of the world” – the news media, as a whole (there are exceptions), “evidently has no notion of what a Mormon ought to be, except that he/she ought to have the exact same beliefs as every other Mormon, wear funny underwear, and otherwise be very peculiar.”

Any thoughts, examples of coverage that indulges in or goes beyond the “stage Mormon” level, or ideas on how to deal with this problem?

5 thoughts on “The “Stage” Mormon”

  3. Ivan, this is an interesting post, and I think very true. The entire coverage of the Romney campaign has been very weird for me because you keep on hearing, “Romney is so practiced and plastic. He’s too good to be true. He doesn’t seem real.” I have read something like this literally dozens of times in the media.

    Now, Romney seems to me exactly like the other Mormons I go and meet with every other Sunday in High Council. What I mean by that is that he seems to be a good man who is trying to do his best and is sincerely interested in public service. This is a pretty good description of our stake president, who is such a good man that he seems too good to be true sometimes.

    I bring this up not to turn this into a political post but to point out that the media simply does not get Mormons. They do not get the concept of people really trying to do good. They are so cynical that they think there must always been some horrible hypocrisy behind the veneer.

    I always encourage Mormons to watch the episode of Frasier in which Frasier needs a new agent and decides to fire Beebe, the Satanic witch-like agent, and hire the exact opposite, a do-gooder who turns out to be a Mormon. At the peak of the episode, the do-gooder is wearing a Boy Scout outfit — literally. So, the media clearly loves to have fun with the “do-gooder” image of Mormons. At the end of the day the good guy is ineffective and Frasier goes back to Beebe. So, the image appears to be “a do-gooder who cannot function in a fallen world.” A very interesting perspective.

  4. The question I have is, to what extent are all religious figures in modern media “stage” believers? I imagine Catholic priests have this problem, if for no other reason than that for so long it was easiest to have Religious Guy Bob be Father Bob, since you can see he’s a Religious Guy by virtue of his collar. More recently some films have pushed back against this trope — Raising Helen was on the other night, and featured a somewhat entertaining scene in which the title character freaks out that she’s caused a pastor to give up on his vows (he’s a Lutheran, and as he says, “I can date!”) Jews are either Hasidim or completely secular, Baptists always sing and are almost always black, etc.

    Remember too that when you have two hours (or worse, in the Frasier example, 22 minutes) and Religious Guy Bob is not the point of the whole story, you’re going to be cutting a lot of corners on his portrayal in the same way that almost all of your buildings will be facades or on the Universal lot or both. There’s about as much nuance to the homeless guy in Back to the Future as there is to any given LDS side-character This is no way excuses the news media, but does at least explain Frasier’s boy scout. I haven’t seen Angels in America, so I can’t comment on that one.

  5. Sarah –

    I think you are right to some extent. The “stage Mormon” is rather easy to forgive in a sitcom, especially a one-time guest role. In that case, every character that is a one-time guest role tends to be a “stage whatever” since there’s not time for characterization and sitcoms are (usually) all about the quick laugh, rather than the deep characterizations.

    Even Father Brown seemed to accept that “stage preacher” as a givne in “any merely popular novel or play.”

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