... and why I do not recommend it to anyone.
The Book of Mormon is a highly successful 2011 musical comedy written by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
It tells the story of two Mormon missionaries, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, who are sent to an Ugandan village against their will to convert an indigenous group to the Mormon faith. The village is ruled by a local warlord whom the villagers defeat in the end with the help of the newly arrived missionaries.
Beforehand, I want to point out, that The Book of Mormon per se is not a “bad” musical. When it comes to the question of what constitutes a typical musical, this show ticks all the right boxes. It is furthermore commendable that The Book of Mormon is not a juke-box musical, like We will rock you. It does not consist of a bunch of disconnected songs, which some try-hard writers desperately tried to mould into a halfway cohesive plot. What I recounted above are only the bare bones of the story, which can at times even be quite enthralling (keeping in mind that this is a comedy), because the main characters of the musical are somewhat decently fleshed out.
I personally enjoyed The Book of Mormon on Broadway to a certain extend (the opening scene is pure gold!) and I did not regret seeing it, mainly, because I now know what so many musical fans are talking about. But I cannot overlook the significant and undeniable problems that it has.
My first problem with this musical is, that it talks down to its audience, which has got to do with the type of humour that the dialogue is drenched in: pop culture humour, or to be more precise, pop-culture-reference humour. One of the main characters, Elder Cunningham, is a walking pop-culture-reference jukebox, which does not even need to be fed coins. This quickly gets annoying, because Elder Cunningham is incapable of making good pop culture references.
At this point I should mention that I think pop culture references should, above all, be challenging and smart. What is the point of a pop culture reference that everyone instantly gets?
I understand that the creators of The Book of Mormon want their show to appeal to a wide audience, which is why they only chose pop culture references that literally everyone understands. But as someone who is very much into pop culture, I was often close to feeling insulted while watching this show, because it insists that pop culture humour should not be challenging and that being able to identify a black-cloaked figure with a breathing problem as Darth Vader is its epitome.
That pop culture humour does not have to be smart either is demonstrated by a specific reference which occurs at about 15 minutes into the show: shortly before the missionaries leave for Africa they are literally confronted by a pop culture reference pertaining to The Lion King which screams in their and the audience's faces. If you hope at this point that the rest of the show is going to be subtler, then I sadly have to disappoint you.
The second big problem that I have with The Book of Mormon is its treatment of people of colour. The indigenous group that the two missionaries meet in Uganda is (except for a few individuals) immensely dumbed down. They simply accept that they are being oppressed by a warlord, who at one point in this musical executes one of them, and they do not even try to change anything about their situation (still keeping in mind that this is a comedy).
But it is not only the villagers who show no inclination of wanting to throw off their shackles, but also the party of the warlord, who is likewise put into a box by the unfavourable and extremely clichéd way in which the white male writers of this musical portray these people. The warlord's name, which I refuse to mention here, is the perfect example of what the writers primarily consider to be fun; plus a perfect example of how blunt writing can be.
The Book of Mormon is a highly successful 2011 musical comedy written by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
It tells the story of two Mormon missionaries, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, who are sent to an Ugandan village against their will to convert an indigenous group to the Mormon faith. The village is ruled by a local warlord whom the villagers defeat in the end with the help of the newly arrived missionaries.
Beforehand, I want to point out, that The Book of Mormon per se is not a “bad” musical. When it comes to the question of what constitutes a typical musical, this show ticks all the right boxes. It is furthermore commendable that The Book of Mormon is not a juke-box musical, like We will rock you. It does not consist of a bunch of disconnected songs, which some try-hard writers desperately tried to mould into a halfway cohesive plot. What I recounted above are only the bare bones of the story, which can at times even be quite enthralling (keeping in mind that this is a comedy), because the main characters of the musical are somewhat decently fleshed out.
I personally enjoyed The Book of Mormon on Broadway to a certain extend (the opening scene is pure gold!) and I did not regret seeing it, mainly, because I now know what so many musical fans are talking about. But I cannot overlook the significant and undeniable problems that it has.
My first problem with this musical is, that it talks down to its audience, which has got to do with the type of humour that the dialogue is drenched in: pop culture humour, or to be more precise, pop-culture-reference humour. One of the main characters, Elder Cunningham, is a walking pop-culture-reference jukebox, which does not even need to be fed coins. This quickly gets annoying, because Elder Cunningham is incapable of making good pop culture references.
At this point I should mention that I think pop culture references should, above all, be challenging and smart. What is the point of a pop culture reference that everyone instantly gets?
I understand that the creators of The Book of Mormon want their show to appeal to a wide audience, which is why they only chose pop culture references that literally everyone understands. But as someone who is very much into pop culture, I was often close to feeling insulted while watching this show, because it insists that pop culture humour should not be challenging and that being able to identify a black-cloaked figure with a breathing problem as Darth Vader is its epitome.
That pop culture humour does not have to be smart either is demonstrated by a specific reference which occurs at about 15 minutes into the show: shortly before the missionaries leave for Africa they are literally confronted by a pop culture reference pertaining to The Lion King which screams in their and the audience's faces. If you hope at this point that the rest of the show is going to be subtler, then I sadly have to disappoint you.
The second big problem that I have with The Book of Mormon is its treatment of people of colour. The indigenous group that the two missionaries meet in Uganda is (except for a few individuals) immensely dumbed down. They simply accept that they are being oppressed by a warlord, who at one point in this musical executes one of them, and they do not even try to change anything about their situation (still keeping in mind that this is a comedy).
But it is not only the villagers who show no inclination of wanting to throw off their shackles, but also the party of the warlord, who is likewise put into a box by the unfavourable and extremely clichéd way in which the white male writers of this musical portray these people. The warlord's name, which I refuse to mention here, is the perfect example of what the writers primarily consider to be fun; plus a perfect example of how blunt writing can be.
I felt uncomfortable every time a white person tried to interact with a person of colour in this show.
Talking about feeling uncomfortable while watching this musical, I was furthermore dismayed by how nonchalantly violence was dealt with. Granted, there are very few incidences of violence in The Book of Mormon, but there is a specific scene in this musical comedy towards the end of the show, in which someone gets “tortured”. Of course, this person is not “tortured” onstage, but it is explained in very clear terms what happens to him. When he comes onstage afterwards, the utter agony on his face alone proves that no one came to his rescue or that the torture was done by Monty Python, either of which scenarios should have happened if this musical were supposed to be a comedy through and through. You cannot incoporate scenes with uncomfortable depictions of violence into your show if you want it to be perceived as a comedy, and if you moreover want to refrain from dumbing down your characters (and your audience) even further.
Talking about feeling uncomfortable while watching this musical, I was furthermore dismayed by how nonchalantly violence was dealt with. Granted, there are very few incidences of violence in The Book of Mormon, but there is a specific scene in this musical comedy towards the end of the show, in which someone gets “tortured”. Of course, this person is not “tortured” onstage, but it is explained in very clear terms what happens to him. When he comes onstage afterwards, the utter agony on his face alone proves that no one came to his rescue or that the torture was done by Monty Python, either of which scenarios should have happened if this musical were supposed to be a comedy through and through. You cannot incoporate scenes with uncomfortable depictions of violence into your show if you want it to be perceived as a comedy, and if you moreover want to refrain from dumbing down your characters (and your audience) even further.
And yes, I do get that the scene I am talking about helps to shape one of the protagonists' characters, but this does not excuse the poor execution of this particular ”joke”.
The third undeniable major problem of The Book of Mormon, which is interwoven with the second one, is the fact, that it is a white saviour fantasy. The main protagonists of this musical are white saviours, characters in fiction who rescue people of colour, and who, although they learn about the foreign culture that they are more or less unwillingly thrust into, are the actual heroes of the story. White saviour narratives depict the oppressed people as unable to free themselves from oppression without the help of a white protagonist. Famous examples from pop culture with white saviour narratives are the following movies: Avatar, Tears of the Sun, The Last Samurai, The Greatest Showman, Dances with Wolves, Blood Diamond and the movie that has won an academy award for best picture this year, Green Book.
Keep in mind that a white saviour narrative does not necessarily make movies or musicals “bad”, but it definitely makes concepts like colonialism and slavery ambiguous, because the white saviour is not portrayed as a “conqueror”, but as, well yeah, a “saviour”, which is without question what happens in The Book of Mormon.
The third undeniable major problem of The Book of Mormon, which is interwoven with the second one, is the fact, that it is a white saviour fantasy. The main protagonists of this musical are white saviours, characters in fiction who rescue people of colour, and who, although they learn about the foreign culture that they are more or less unwillingly thrust into, are the actual heroes of the story. White saviour narratives depict the oppressed people as unable to free themselves from oppression without the help of a white protagonist. Famous examples from pop culture with white saviour narratives are the following movies: Avatar, Tears of the Sun, The Last Samurai, The Greatest Showman, Dances with Wolves, Blood Diamond and the movie that has won an academy award for best picture this year, Green Book.
Keep in mind that a white saviour narrative does not necessarily make movies or musicals “bad”, but it definitely makes concepts like colonialism and slavery ambiguous, because the white saviour is not portrayed as a “conqueror”, but as, well yeah, a “saviour”, which is without question what happens in The Book of Mormon.
After listing my biggest issues with this musical, let me say, that I am aware of the possibility that The Book of Mormon may be intended as a satire. This knowledge however, did not alleviate my feeling of discomfort when I was watching this show and neither did it assist me in detecting anything remotely satirical in the way its narrative unfolds and how its characters are represented. Maybe the satire is as unsubtle as the entire musical and therefore I am missing the forest for the trees. But while watching this show on Broadway I also did not have the impression that any of the audience members around me (most of whom had trouble staying in their seats because they were laughing so hard) were laughing for satire's sake, but rather for the crude comedy's sake.
As stated above, The Book of Mormon is not a “bad” musical, and maybe many people are entertained by it simply because it is (by popular musical standards) “good”, or because their type of humour is similar to the creators’. But anyway, I personally cannot look past The Book of Mormon's problematic implications that do not seem to have been entirely thought through by its writers anymore and I recommend to anyone who has not yet seen it: go see something else.
This topic was partly inspired by Renegade Cut.
