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Do you forsake Mormon celebrities?

Jonathan Green

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Do you forsake Mormon celebrities?

Yea, I forsake.

Do you forsake vicarious satisfaction in their professional success?

Yea, I forsake.

Do you forsake their works and fandom that you served in former times?

Yea, I forsake.

* * *

While the Church tends not to trumpet its famous members – no Osmond special musical numbers in General Conference, no Steve Young cover issue of the Ensign – other church members more than make up for it. Para-ecclesiastic media (outlets like Meridian Magazine or this fine blog) have always shone a spotlight on prominent athletes, academics, actors, artists, authors and politicians who are also church members. And it’s understandable: We like to see people like us succeed, we want to see evidence that our faith contributes to success in society, we want to point to positive things church members have accomplished, and we like to feel seen and understood in the arts and media.

I don’t think I can do it anymore.

* * *

I wasn’t there for the start of your career; few people were. But I noticed your first commercial success, and I’ve been following your career ever since and contributing to your success as much as one consumer can. Of course your work could stand on its own, but I hopped on the train because at last I felt like I had found someone who shared my values and valued my experience.

As your career blossomed, other fans found their way to your work, and your artistry was capacious enough to invite them in. Representation is powerful, and I could see their authentic joy when they too found themselves reflected in your work.

But the fans who first helped launch your career come with a cost on the national market, don’t they? Our ways can seem quaint, at times provincial, even narrow-minded or offensive. Or to put it another way, embarrassing.

You haven’t directly stated that you’re embarrassed of us – yet – but I keep noticing what look like nods and gestures in that direction that give me an unsettled feeling. Sometimes a sinking feeling. Occasionally a nasty feeling. At times, you seem to be apologizing for, trying to un-create, those early works that I enjoyed so much.

I don’t know for sure. We’re still in the realm of interpreting subtle hints and artistic themes. I can’t be certain where you’re heading.

But we’ve seen other Mormon celebrities take that route. Their spiritual journey is taking them down a new path, they say. Eventually they say they no longer identify as Mormons (although their marketing to LDS audiences seems to persist even after their membership records have vanished).

It you’re thinking of following them down that road, there are some things you should know. The first is that it’s not necessary. The religious test for Mormon fandom is pretty lenient. All you have to do is say something about trying to be a good church member even if you’re not very good at it, or trying to live as much as you understand. We can work with that.

The second thing to know is that it’s not going to work. Whatever commercial success or recognition from your relevant National Academy you’ve been denied, parting ways with your earliest fans isn’t going to get it for you. Did Taylor Swift get where she is today by running away from her middle school-aged fans? No, she did not. It will be tempting to present yourself as a victim of oppression, but if it comes to that point, I hope you’ll at least have the decency to say a few nice things about your LDS upbringing.

Finally, whatever spin you put on it, it’s a path I can’t follow. I don’t think I can even start down the road with anyone else anymore.

And why should I? Representation is powerful, and it’s especially powerful to be told that representing me is no longer part of your artistic program, or that my values are a drag on your aspirations for a breakout hit. By this point, we’ve been burned enough times that I have to wonder if it’s worth the emotional investment in the next up and coming Mormon academic, artist, athlete, actor, author or politician.

I understand your desire for a professional future beyond the Provo-Rexburg-FSY speaking circuit. But the final destination of a journey forces a re-evaluation of its earliest steps. What you choose next will determine if we were supporting a fellow member of a community based on shared values, or if we were just suckers getting set up for another rug-pull.

Comments

11 responses to “Do you forsake Mormon celebrities?”

  1. Stephen C

    Of course I’m curious who you’re referring to, but I can think of several. A friend of mine speaking about this issue made the good point of “if you want to distance yourself from the Church and your niche fanbase fine, but then you don’t get any extra credit consideration for me and I’ll judge your product based on its generic quality relative to all of the artists in the world, and that usually doesn’t go well for the artist.”

  2. LHL

    This article contains just a “wee bit too much” Virtue Signalling for me. Everyone has to wend their way through life – as best they can- and (unfortunately) the various paths we take are sometimes “not tidy”. Sometimes “Mormonism” demands tidiness; when it’s really not realistic.

  3. ReTx

    What an artist (using artist as a catch-all) owes fans is such and interesting conversation. It seems you feel they do owe early fans and should accommodate the artist’s life/art to them in someway. Would you agree with my take? If yes, why? And do you do this to your early career influencers?

    Not trying to be argumentative. It’s a topic that interests me.

  4. Ivan Wolfe

    Two thoughts:

    1. I think of how many Bluegrass musicians sometimes make it into the mainstream (pop, jazz, country, etc.) The ones that seem to have “staying power” in the mainstream tend to embrace their Bluegrass roots, even when they rarely play it; they talk about how great it is, how they loved it, how they grew up in it, etc. And the Bluegrass community will often stick with them, even when they aren’t “doing Bluegrass.” The ones that outright reject it or even talk down about those hicks who like banjo tend to vanish.

    2. It seems to me this maybe works for a particular subset of LDS celebrity that has reached a modicum of fame built on the backs of LDS support, but not sure how it applies to those that, while they had their LDS fanbase, basically made it big outside the LDS markets and don’t need LDS support. Even if they are so successful as to be “cancel proof” (or at least strong enough to endure some cancelling) some stay strong and others reject it (whether by degrees or all at once). I’m not sure how/if this applies to them.

  5. Jonathan Green

    Stephen, that’s similar to how I look at it.

    LHL, I think people overestimate how much tidiness is expected. Ward councils spend a lot of time discussing how to help people with messy lives feel welcome.

    ReTx and Ivan raise similar points. It’s fair to distinguish between people who achieve celebrity status in their field and also happen to be church members, and people who got a boost early on from an LDS fanbase or similar support. The first group is still disappointing, but can say that my expectations are my own business; the second group participated in creating those expectations and benefited from them.

  6. Gilgamesh

    You see this happen in the Christian music world all the time. A somewhat decent band plays with a mega church. They make some headway on Christian radio. They gain a fanbase and put out some albums. They explore their musical influenses and their fans love that Christians, with Christian messages can play their favorite style of music (rock, hip-hop, rap, grunge, emo, etc…) and share a good, clean message. Then the fame gets to them. They think they are bigger than they really are. They feel the “Christian” part of their music is what is holding them back. They start acting opposite of their message. They claim they have grown beyond their Christian roots. They dismiss their fans as simplistic. Then they discover that it was the “Christian” part of their music that was the only thing setting them apart from a thousand other bands. It is the same in Mormondom. Once you have offended your core base, it is hard to gain them back. Few have the actual talent to find an all knew base. Fame is fleeting.

  7. Jack

    Ivan Wolfe,

    If you’re saying that we should have more artists like Billy Strings–I agree!

  8. Ivan Wolfe

    Jack –

    well, yes, Billy Strings is one. But also Bela Fleck, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, Ricky Skaggs, Zach Top, Vince Gill, Sierra Hull, Alison Krauss . . . the list goes on and on.

  9. RL

    Have many music artists moved past Mormonism and been that successful? Imagine Dragons may be the exception. I’m not sure Exmo content is that great for a general audience, maybe too niche. Neon Trees guy, Archuleta, maybe other lesser folks kind or moved away for LDS identity after fame did too. But Low and the Killers stay LDS the way Springsteen is Catholic which is the best way IMO and produced the best LDS pop music of our generation. They happen to be LDS and stay LDS in their own way. The Osmonds The Plan is fun overt LDS album from the past but were before my time. Jets. I’m not super familiar with the Jello Belt regional folks currently.

    It’s kind of weird to imagine there will be a lot of devout LDS pop stars in the future as there seems to be fewer stars in general and hip hop rules and may not mix with what’s in demand now.

  10. Jack

    Yes! And Mark O’Connor–his bop’s always got a bit of hoedown in it.

    Sorry for the threadjack, Jonathan.

  11. Kent Larsen

    Jonathan: I’m wounded!!

    RexTx:
    I can suggest one quasi-Mormon approach to the question of what an artist owes to his fans. In his book “The Company We Keep”, the highly-regarded English professor (the man responsible for identifying the “unreliable narrator”) and sometime Mormon Wayne Booth examines “ethical criticism” — the idea that what art gets produced and how we see it should be examined from an ethical standpoint. Booth suggests that both the author AND the reader have ethical responsibilities to each other and to the community. IMO much of the problems we have with fans and the famous come because few people have thought much about these ethical responsibilities.

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