i like matt stone and trey parker. i'm a fan of their entire catalog, from 'cannibal: the musical' to south park. i want to see this musical and like it.
full disclosure: i was raised mormon, but i don't believe in most of the church's truth claims. i still consider myself "mormon" in almost an ethnic sense. i'm proud of my mormon roots, and fully recognize the positive influence the church has had in my life. if you want to know more, call me. that's pretty much the extent of what i feel comfortable disclosing on the internet.
despite my non-traditional mormon-ness, i still have a love for all things mormon. i have a stack of books on my shelf about mormon history, i religiously subscribe to mormon-themed podcasts (produced by people both inside and outside the church), and i regularly find myself defending the church and its members whilst hanging out on the internet.
so would the love for my childhood faith stop me from seeing this musical? absolutely not. to me, being unfunny is a sin worse than blasphemy. i'll forgive pretty much anything as long as it's genuinely clever. and since two of my comedy heroes are behind this musical, i'd say there's a 95% chance the book of mormon musical is hilarious.
i couldn't see this musical because i have a feeling it would hit too close to home. from what i understand, the musical is about a couple of naive missionaries who arrive ready to preach the gospel to people in africa, but realize upon arriving that they are in no way prepared for the poverty they encounter.
as a kid, proselytizing was something i was never really comfortable with. i had my beliefs, other people have their beliefs. we all seemed to be doing fine with our own beliefs, so why try to change each each others minds?
in fact, as i prepared for my mission it was something that i had to rationalize in my mind. my mental dialog leading up to my mission was as follows: "don't worry about proselyting. you'll get there, and you'll just try your best to be an example of christ-like love and compassion, and your example will benefit people regardless of their faith."
i repeated this mantra in my head as i prepared for my mission. i repeated this mantra in my head to survive the MTC (missionary training center). and i repeated this mantra as i struggled to acclimate to life in north argentina.
but the stark reality was that the training that was given me in the MTC in no way equipped me to understand or help the people i was teaching.
in my first month of my mission we started teaching a husband and wife, maria and angel. they were a great family, and i really loved spending time in their home and getting to know them. they would tease my terrible accent, teach me slang words, and introduce me to new food. i remember one night they got me to taste this kind of bread that i can only assume was made with lard and flour. i immediately ran out to their back porch and threw up. while this sounds gross, it was one of the funniest moments of my mission.
one night we went to visit them, and maria's daughter was out front. she told us that angel was taken to the hospital earlier that day. we immediately took a bus to the hospital to visit angel.
what i saw when i got there i will never forget. it was an open-air hospital, and very dirty. you could hear cries as you walked through the outside corridors. we were taken to a "recovery room" that was full of semi-conscious people who had just been operated on. there were about 10 people in a room that should have held two at most.
my missionary companion was talking to maria, and a doctor took me to angel's bedside. angel's midsection had just been bandaged and blood was seeping through, and there was a tube coming out of his nose. angel was moaning and attempting to remove the tube from his nose - the doctor instructed me to hold his arm down to prevent him from taking out the tube.
i sat next to angel for 30 minutes holding down his arm, just looking at him. he was then given more sedatives, and we took a bus home.
when i got home, i just cried. i didn't know how to process what i had just experienced. i felt helpless, and i was in no position to provide any meaningful help for my new friends. in fact, i felt like my presence was almost mocking them - at any point i could leave the country and return home to my life of relative luxury. i almost felt like a poverty voyeur.
i can't see the musical because of this and other experiences on my mission. as clever as i'm sure the musical is, i'm just not prepared to re-live those painful episodes by song. those were real people, and the experiences are still too raw for me to find any humor in them, even 14 years later.
do i judge people who do find humor in it? absolutely not. their life experiences are different from mine, and there probably is some humor to be found in those types of situations. but i probably won't ever be able to bring myself to see it.
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