Feeling the Love for "Big Love"

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #1 03-27-2006, 02:14 PM

http://www.eaforums.com/images/biglove.jpg

"Big Love" is the new post-Sopranos HBO show, about a bigamist and his three wives and passel o'children. Anyone watch it? Feeling the love for it?

**amykhar** · #2 03-27-2006, 02:21 PM

I'm watching it, and so far I like it. I can't imagine how anybody could live that way, and the hubby is going to overdose on viagra if he's not careful, but I'm loving it.

**mtomm**[$] · #3 03-27-2006, 03:40 PM

This is a BIG deal at church and since I have the opportunity let me quote to you part of the official statement of the LDS Church about Big Love:

Quote:

Concern for abuse victims

The Church has long been concerned about the illegal practice of polygamy in some communities, and in particular about persistent reports of emotional and physical child and wife abuse emanating from them. It will be regrettable if this program, by making polygamy the subject of entertainment, minimizes the seriousness of that problem and adds to the suffering of abuse victims.

Confusion over the continued practice of polygamy

The central characters of Big Love are not “Mormons,” or, more properly termed, Latter-day Saints. HBOhas said the script makes it clear that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t practice polygamy. Still, placing the series in Salt Lake City, the international headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is enough to blur the line between the modern Church and the program’s subject matter and to reinforce old and long-outdated stereotypes.

Polygamy was officially discontinued by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1890. Any Church member adopting the practice today is excommunicated. Groups that continue the practice in Utah and elsewhere have no association whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of their practitioners have never been among its members.

That being said I wouldn't mind watching some of it just to see what it is really like but I don't have HBO.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #4 03-27-2006, 04:04 PM

I don't have HBO, so I guess I'll have to wait a few years until the videos come out and make their way to the library.

By which time, nobody will want to talk about it any more.

I just this week finished watching the end of the Fourth Season of the Sopranos!

Living behind the times,
Auntie

P.S. But it does sound like a good show!

**pippadaisy**[$] · #5 03-27-2006, 07:17 PM

I kept meaning to open a thread to see if anyone else was watching it and forgot, so thanks MJ!

This week's was hilarious... G said that it reminded him of one of my family gatherings on Ecstasy.

Margo, it is VERY clear. One of the daughters works as a waitress in a restaurant and one of the other waitresses is LDS, and it's made VERY clear the delineation.

I do find it hard to believe that Harry Dean Stanton's character wouldn't be able to pronounce PALMYRA correctly.

It's also more interesting to me since my sister got me the new Jon Krakauer book which has a LOT to do with the polygamist sects. Things make a lot more sense and the set-up of the "compound" vs. the big city polygamist HAS to be based on some of the larger communities I'm reading about in his book, because the similarities are uncanny.

**pippadaisy**[$] · #6 03-27-2006, 07:23 PM

OH, also, Margo, it's VERY clear that the young girl angle is creepy. Daveigh Chase (voice of Lilo in Lilo & Stitch... also in The Ring) is a 14-year-old "pre-marriage placement" of Harry Dean Stanton's character and the scene this week with one of the daughters of Bill Paxton who is the same age, but going to school, etc. was downright scary. The younger wives are definitely portrayed as victims of a patriarchal system, and even Bill Paxton's mother (who was one of several wives) goes off on him for marrying a young wife, even though she was over the age of consent.

There are subtle bits, too, like the youngest wife flirting and horsing around with the oldest son of another wife... you get the vibe that Bill Paxton did this because he was raised that way but it's not a life that anyone would choose.

And there was another scene I just remembered... where Harry Dean Stanton's character goes off on the LDS church and claims that those who continue polygamy are the "one true church of Joseph Smith."

**mtomm**[$] · #7 03-28-2006, 10:03 AM

Well, just so you know I belong to the "true" church and not those apostate ones still doing the polygamy thing. Or bigamy thing, right MJ?

Jon Krakauer. Hmm, I really liked his book "Into the Wild" but now I understand why the family of the subject of the book (can't remember the name now) would not participate in it. After reading some of the book I was quite appalled by it and now I can't believe much of what was written in Wild either. Much of what he writes in his book is nothing new, my dad quoted much of it because it was written in books years ago about Joseph Smith.

All I can say in defense of what you read in that book and may read anywhere about the Mormons... I just want you to judge us by our fruits and not the trash that some people will say. The old "and by their fruits ye shall know them" thing.

**theworm**[$] · #8 03-28-2006, 10:15 AM

The show might be funny. I saw the ads and decided that I don't want to watch. I don't know - it could be a very very funny show, but the implication for me was that this was a play on the Mormons and it seemed wrong. I haven't seen it, and I'm not judging. I'm betting its a good show, I just don't know that I'm comfortable with it.
I remember when 6 Feet Under was just starting and I thought "how awful - a show about a funeral home" and I LOVED loved loved 6FU!!!

**amykhar** · #9 03-28-2006, 10:34 AM

Wormie, it doesn't make fun of the polygamists or Mormons. The characters are real, fleshed out and humans. It's just a drama about a family that happens to have a different lifestyle, much like the Sopranos was often a drama about a family with a different lifestyle.

**theworm**[$] · #10 03-28-2006, 10:36 AM

I probably would like it - though I find that I tire of HBO shows.
Never tired of 6 Feet, but I got really sick of Sex and the City, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe I'll check it out.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #11 03-28-2006, 10:40 AM

"Big Love" makes it very clear that the family is not LDS, but from one of the fringe groups who do NOT consider themselves LDS, and feel LDS is the "wrong" church. A few of the main characters involved grew up on a fringe group compound and have, in three episodes, very clearly articulated why they left the compound but that they still feel value in poligamy "done right," as it were. I certainly don't watch "Big Love" and think of my cousins, who are LDS. (Well, maybe the part about how they have lots of kids makes me thing of my cousins. But that's about it.)

Wormie - very similar to 6FU - "a show about poligamists?!" but funny and serious and also interesting to watch how they deal with things we wouldn't think about, along with the pros and cons of poligamy for both the husband and the wives. Not a simple "have a harem" kind of thing at all. And like Amy said, fully-fleshed-out characters with their own issues and needs and behaviors that help and hurt the family in various ways. Definitely not Stepford wives!

**mtomm**[$] · #12 03-28-2006, 12:01 PM

I think I'd really like to watch. I'm just too cheap to get real cable or pay for HBO. Okay, maybe its the fact that I don't want my sons to watch those Girls Gone Wild commercials.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #13 03-28-2006, 12:03 PM

Warning - there is HIGH graphic sexual content.

**amykhar** · #14 03-28-2006, 12:51 PM

Yep. and one of the wives is loud

**pippadaisy**[$] · #15 03-28-2006, 01:26 PM

VERY loud.

Margo.. no, I was saying that it was very clearly delineated between the two. Growing up here, I probably know more about LDS than most non-Mormons simply because it's around all the time. Most folks around here have been to Hill Cumorrah at least once, faith aside.

That book is about the polygamist sects, not about the regular-old plain vanilla, non-polygamist folks in Utah who are LDS. Does that make more sense?

**intebess**[$] · #16 03-28-2006, 04:27 PM

I really like this show a lot too. It's a good replacement for Six Feet Under in my book. Not quite as wacky, but still fun to follow.

**mtomm**[$] · #17 03-28-2006, 04:28 PM

Yep. I gotcha. But I'm more of a peppermint stick than plain old vanilla.

I may sound like I'm coming off defensive about the show and I'm really not upset about it personally. It does not threaten me or what I believe. It just needs to be known that is a separation there. In some (many?) ways the Church holds some responsibility for those who hold those beliefs but I'm not sure that there is a way to acknowledge that with looking like there is consent given. Does that make sense?

**amykhar** · #18 03-28-2006, 04:57 PM

Dooce has an interesting post from a Mormon's point of view about the show.

The founding prophet of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, started polygamy because he said it was a revelation from God. And so he and other elders in the church took dozens of wives, many of them in their early teens. That isn’t okay to me. Nor is it okay that the only reason the church stopped sanctioning polygamy was because the government told them they had to.

**mtomm**[$] · #19 03-28-2006, 10:23 PM

It appears to be an ex-Mormon's POV.

She makes some good points, some questions I've asked myself.
I liked this repsonse to her post:

Quote:

As a Mormon, I'm impressed that you explained your feelings without any pot-shots or belittling. I may not agree with all that you say, but I respect your right to say it and I think you said it well.

**amykhar** · #20 04-03-2006, 02:09 PM

I like that they are starting to explore why wife #1 agreed to wife #2 and #3. Barb seems like the most put-together of the three wives. Nicki has serious daddy and shopping issues. Margene just seems needy and insecure in general.

And, could Roman be any more creepy or manipulative?

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #21 04-03-2006, 02:22 PM

And for Nicki to say Barb can't have a job when Nicki is simultaneously shopping them into the poorhouse --- !!!! ARG!!!! Barb has WAAAAY too much patience with Nicki.

But the bit with Suze Ormond had me thinking - is Bill legally responsible for Nicki's debts? I doubt they're married in the eyes of the law (marriage license and all that), just in the eyes of the church... so how would creditors get to go after Bill?