Before I launch into my post, I want to remind everyone that the deadline for submissions for the new anthology of Mormon Literary Criticism and Theory is December 1st. I’ve already received a few submissions, and I’m hoping to receive a few more before I start shaping the volume. If your submission is still a work in progress, I’m willing to accept brief abstracts (300-500 words) by the submission date with the understanding that a submission draft will be delivered in full by the end of the year.
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Recently, Wm’s posts about self-censorship and the Mormon writer, Jonathan’s excellent exploration of the “Mormon” in Mormon literature, and Mahonri’s recent reflection on identity and the Mormon artist have caused me to think about the ways we use Mormonism in art. What follows is not a definition of Mormon art, or even a system of classification, but rather a few observations about trends I see in how we deliberately and sometimes overtly employ Mormonism as we engage audiences with art.
My focus here (as usual) is not on art by artists who happen to be Mormons. While I’m happy to include such works in discussions of Mormon art, I’m not bringing them into this discussion. My interest here is in how and why artists bring Mormonism into their work. I’m also interested in how audience considerations influence artistic decisions.
For this post, I focus on three modes of Mormon artistic expression: alienation, accommodation, and substitution. Each mode has its strengths and weaknesses. Any preference I show for one over the other is simply a matter of taste.
THE THREE MODES
Alienation. This mode of Mormon art exists exclusively for Mormon audiences and engages deeply with the Mormon mythos. Content is deliberately and overtly Mormon. It does not modify its engagement with Mormonism to cater to the audience’s background, knowledge, or understanding. It assumed its audience is already immersed in Mormonism. It intentionally alienates audiences in the sense that it assumes “others” and disregards them. The disregard is not necessarily born of enmity, hostility, or indifference, although it can be.
This is perhaps the most elitist approach to Mormon art, although elitism can exist in all modes of Mormon art. It is also the approach that flirts the most with Mormon kitsch and other alienating products of the Mormon culture industry, yet the approach is not inherently kitschy. It simply is for and because of the Mormon world.
Importantly, this mode of Mormon art can reach “others” and even speak to them, but it does so on its own terms. It can also borrow from “other” influences—how could it not?—but it filters them through Mormonism and repurposes them for Mormon audiences.
Accommodation. This mode of Mormon art exists to show the cross-cultural ties that bind Mormonism to the rest of the world. It engages deeply with the Mormon mythos, but in a way that offers inroads to audiences who are not part of the Mormon world, including those whose familiarity with Mormonism is minimal. Most Mormon art follows this mode. Its primary challenge is accessible world-building. It does not shy away from its Mormon content and world-view, but it seeks a general audience and accommodates them at some level.
The accommodation manifests itself in explanatory notes, glossaries, textual explanations and digressions, and other forms of audience education. Some artists accomplish this subtly, while others are more heavy-handed and aggressive with it.
This mode of Mormon art has the most potential for crossover. It is the ambassador of Mormon Art and fulfills most closely Orson F. Whitney’s notion of Home Literature, although it does not necessarily have to embrace its missionary objectives. Accommodation art builds cultural bridges where alienation art leaves a gulf. It demystifies and generates dialogue about Mormonism and its broader cultural contexts.
Substitution. This mode of Mormon art aims to make Mormonism indistinguishable from other –isms by substituting their terminology and imagery for terminology and imagery that is traditionally or typically Mormon. It erases or significantly downplays Mormon elements to appeal to broader audiences without making itself entirely unrecognizable to Mormon audiences. It is Mormon art, but refuses to foreground or acknowledge its Mormonness. If it does acknowledge its Mormonism, it usually does so in coded language or imagery.
The substitution mode appeals to Mormon audiences, but passes itself off as something else in order to have more universal appeal. This kind of art seeks broad connections that transcend cultural barriers by refusing to acknowledge the barriers. It substitutes the the unique with the broadly familiar. It would rather tell the story of a “pastor” than a “bishop,” a “Christian” than a “Mormon.” In fact, this mode of art usually passes itself off as “Christian.”
This mode of Mormon art almost disqualifies itself as such because of the distance it places between itself and Mormonism. It is perhaps the most marketable approach, however, in the way it seeks to eliminate alienating elements. If it wanted to be overtly Mormon, it easily could, but it chooses instead to be generic.
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We see examples of these modes in every form and genre of Mormon art today. While I tend to favor alienation and accommodation, I think many people favor substitution for the way it highlights the commonalities we have with other cultures and traditions. I worry about a drift towards substitution, though, especially in the world of Mormon film. Lately Mormon film has been enjoying a second renaissance, but I’m disappointed that several recent Mormon films have opted to downplay their Mormonness to appeal to wider audiences. I recognize, of course, that many of these films market themselves as inspirational–and therefore favor the universal to avoid seeming too propagandist. With these cases, however, I wonder if its the inspirational mode itself that is the problem and not the potentially alienating Mormon elements.
At any rate, I think it’s important that we don’t take the Mormonness of our art for granted. When we engage Mormonism with art, we should do so deliberately and fearlessly, being as honest with our art as we are with our faith.
This is an interesting set of categories, Scott. One permutation that I find interesting (and frustrating) is what maybe could be called reverse Substitution. Substituting Mormon characters/settings and/or content standards in order to make the broad and familiar a little bit more acceptable to a Mormon audience. Lately, this has gone so far as to be a double Substitution: it’s meant for a Mormon audience and makes some substitutions to signal that but does so without any overt Mormon content.
My favorite permutation is (sadly? predictably?) alienated alienation or what you might call weird alienation. It takes content that is deliberately and overtly Mormon and makes it more strange and alienated from the standard Mormon experience.
I wrote a blog post here a while back on imitation in Mormon literature/art that describes, I think, reverse substitution. It’s a valid cause for frustration, and we see plenty of examples of it in LDS Bookstores.
As far as alienated alienation/weird alienation goes, I’m a big fan. I think it’s what I liked best about Dark Watch–and it’s something I’ve tried to do with some of my comics. I’m a fan of working in the alienation mode.
I remember being very much in the substitution mode in high school. The original draft of A Roof Overhead that I wrote in high school was about a Christian family, not a Mormon one, and there were other things that I was writing that were decidedly secular in tone. It was watching Eric Samuelsen’s plays at BYU that really inspired me to switch gears and embrace my Mormonism in my writing. His work was so searching, so intelligent, even culturally critical–but he was brave with his progressive brand of Mormonsim, shying away from “kitsch,” but also unafraid to plainly acknowledge the influence that the Gospel had on his plays.
I remember thinking at one point in my life that I could never be a successful fiction/non-fiction writer if my work alluded directly to Mormonism–and I remember the moment that thinking shifted. I still don’t think engaging Mormonism overtly is the most likely past to monetary success for writers, but I do think writers who engage Mormonism overtly, honestly, and creatively have the potential to be very successful in creating a strong Mormon literary/artistic foundation for the twenty-first century.
I also think substitution is mostly a path to failure and insignificance…but that’s just me.
I am sometimes frustrated by substitution in works by Mormon artists, though as you point out it’s a legitimate mode for some writers and some purposes. I’m thinking for example of Orson Scott Card’s use of Catholicism as a proxy for Mormonism in Speaker for the Dead (something he has flat-out said is the case) as a way of depicting an authority-based faith community without distraction of specifically Mormon elements–though his depiction is also specifically Catholic in a variety of ways not typical of substitution as usually employed.
I like William’s comment about alienated alienation. I think this may be the mode Steve Peck most often employs when he’s writing about Mormonism. Probably also the mode of Jack Harrell’s “Calling and Election”?
I also find myself wondering where my own novel falls on this spectrum. (And in this case I think it is a spectrum at least as much as a set of distinct modes.) Somewhere along the border between alienation and accommodation, though the accommodations (at least those I was aware of) were fairly subtle ones: spelling out “Brigham Young University” the first time it was used, instead of “BYU”; including little embedded explanations. Basically, I didn’t want to alienate (there’s that word again) any potential non-Mormon readers, though I didn’t expect the book to appeal to really speak to non-Mormons. While I’m sure most readers were Mormon or at least had a Mormon background, I was surprised at how many positive responses I did get from non-Mormon readers. As in science fiction, alien cultures can be an attraction for some readers–and many were able to make their own translations from Mormonis to religious faith in general.
I think the case of OSC shows why the decision to substitute is never an easy one. Catholicism is an immediate point of recognition for many readers and provides instant rhetorical shorthand that Mormonism still doesn’t provide most readers. I think if the Mormonism is not crucial to the story, and inhibits rather than enhances it, substitution can be justified.
I think, for me, one of the problems I have with substitution (aside from those I’ve already articulated) is that it reveals or exposes the artist’s already weak engagement with Mormonism. That is, if he or she can easily substitute something else for Mormonism, his or her engagement with Mormonism cannot be that significant.
I think another rule of thumb is that if the substitution is obvious *without* supplying extratextual evidence (e.g., a conversation with the author), then it was probably not artistically successful. Which may be one of the reasons why we tend to react negatively to it: it’s most obvious when it’s also least successful.
Another comment: I’m generally of the opinion that rhetorical choices, such as the choice of mode, are most powerfully made (by the writer) and explained (by the critic) as a conjunction between purpose and intended audience. If you know what you’re trying to do in a story, and who you’re trying to do it for, that helps determine what your choices will be.
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Substitution’s tricky. For instance, I have considered whether the female lead in Perky Erect Nipples might “really” be Mormon (she’s a Nazarene) because hey—aren’t all my characters really Mormon? But no: I couldn’t tell this story this way with a Mormon character. She never was Mormon, even in my subconscious. But I won’t be surprised if people read her as a substitutional character—it’s natural to interpret everything as autobiographical as possible.
She didn’t read Mormon and I KNOW you and I never got a hint of her being your avatar.
(Aside: Hypothetically speaking, if *I* had a character-avatar, no one would guess who it was.)
Hi, guys.
Lately I’ve been working on pieces for Writers of the Future, the Jim Baen Memorial Contest, and Wm and Th’s new anthology. So far, it’s mostly been worldbuilding, but I know enough about how the stories will develop to notice Scott’s modes in them.
As the coordinating judge and at least two of the other judges for WotF are famously Mormon, I have consciously and unconsciously excluded any hints of Mormonism from anything I submit to that contest. Everything from theme to denouement is hypersubstitutional–in large part for the sake of those Mormons.
The Baen entry is on a very Mormon theme, but that theme is universal to humanity, and there is no need for any of the characters to be so much as religious, let alone LDS. Hyperaccommodating in the sense that, taken with my identity as its author, it says, “Look what matters to us and how far a person of my faith might go to serve what probably matters to you, too.”
The WmTh piece is Mormon through and through. In fact, as I prewrite it, I find myself pondering elements that suggest a humble contribution to Scott’s anthology. Hyperalienating.
Last night I made a long list of stories I need to finish or begin. I see the modes there, too. Some are plain old molit, meant for the Mormon community. Some have overt Mormon elements but are meant for the world at large. Some are universal in origin.
Oops. Misspelled my own name. Perils of a phone past midnight.
Any more, I assume all typos are phone-keyboard related.
Well, I had a problem I could ONLY solve by making my work overtly Mormon, and since I knew I’d never get published by someone else, I didn’t have anything to lose and I wanted to write characters who “looked like” me. In this case, we are the Other.
Anyway so it was a choice between being true to the story or watering the story down so far I had to make the implausible plausible. Now, look, I’m pretty good at making the implausible perfectly plausible, but not even *I* can make a 34-year-old virgin plausible without an overt reason, and the only plausible reason is religion.
Though I have a whole lot of life experience with two religions, only one of those is pretty adamant, vocal, and frequent about its messages of chastity, so I had to go with that one. “Purity Balls” and “virtue pledges to daddy” only go so far and those are a lot less understandable, and a lot more creepy and elaborate than “the Lord will be disappointed in you if you have sex before marriage.” Everybody gets that even if they find it silly.
Go big or go home, right?
So I did.
That said, and I don’t know if this fits anywhere in this conversation, is the book I TRIED to read, written by a Mormon, published by DB, that spent most of two chapters explaining Mormon culture to a Mormon audience. *sigh*