A “new” Internet Legend?
May 1st, 2007 by Glenn
I came across an interesting post by “Random fellow” at BCC. He said:
The Los Angeles area singles ward had planned to watch the PBS show, but canceled the activity after several people sent the FHE committee the following email, allegedly sent from Dennis Holland, a Regional Public Affairs Director for the Church, (Elder Holland’s Brother):
“a less than firmly grounded Mormon seeing the first two
hours of “The Mormons” might well feel ashamed to be a Mormon, and
non-Mormons would carry away a strong distaste for Mormons. There is
little in the segment being shown on the 30th that gives a positive
Latter-day Saint viewpoint.”“While I had hopes that the program would be a fair-minded treatment of
the Mormons, I learn instead that it is an ‘expose’ of the ‘wrongs’ in
Mormon history. It is a smooth but bigoted and
unprincipled assault on the Church.”
It doesn’t take a near-PhD in Folkloristics to recognize that this sounds quite a bit like one of those suspicious email legends. Now, I must be careful here, because after all the “Steve Martin is a Mormon” business I did get burned a few years ago with Gladys Knight’s conversion to the church (and my mother-in-law will never let me forget it), but a common red flags in most urban legends is the presence of “pseudo-proof” – some element of believability that is intended to lend credibility to the story. In this case it comes in the form of a potential “pseudo-witness,” a figure of authority intended to lend credibility to the story, in this case Dennis Holland (Elder Holland’s Brother). The timing of the email, with all of the potential angst hanging around this PBS documentary also raises some eyebrows (or at least one eyebrow).
Now this email from Brother Holland may be exactly what it claims to be, but regardless of whether or not it is a hoax, it is clearly packed with Mormon values and it clearly functions to educate and to validate beliefs, two main functions of folklore. I will be interested to see what, if anything, becomes of this email in light of the recent PBS documentary. Can anyone shed any additional light on this?
I was forwarded that same email, since I’m on an unofficial list of people who are leaders in my ward. I’m not any kind of leader now, but I can’t seem to get off the list. I posted it yesterday at mormonstories, with the names out, but it was indeed supposed to be from Brother Holland. I removed all names, and replaced with capital letters, just being nice to those folks whose name’s are being forwarded arond the internet. “following is from GENERAL AUTHORITY’s brother…
Dear Stake Presidents and Public Affairs Directors,
I just found out recently about the upcoming PBS show on
“Mormons” on April 30th and May 1st. I had forwarded a
“trailer” of the show to the DPAs, as I felt I should share what little
I knew with you. Elder ZZZZZ and YYYYY, WWWWW Area
Director of Public Affairs, had contacted me a week ago concerning the
fact that they had heard there were stakes considering taking out ads
to promote the show. That was the first I’d even heard about it, but
it was evident that the Church was not behind promoting the show,
apparently for good reason.
Bishop QQQQQQQ from El Dorado Stake just copied me on an email
with comments by some members in Southern California that had been
interviewed as part of the show and had been given a preview of it.
Apparently the first segment is totally negative about polygamy and The
Mountain Meadows Massacre. Will Bagley, a Salt Lake City author, is
apparently the “historical advisor” for this project and Will is
certainly not particularly friendly to the Church and especially not to
Brigham Young. The comment from the members after watching the first
segment was that…
“a less than firmly grounded Mormon seeing the first two
hours of “The Mormons” might well feel ashamed to be a Mormon, and
non-Mormons would carry away a strong distaste for Mormons. There is
little in the segment being shown on the 30th that gives a positive
Latter-day Saint viewpoint.”
“While I had hopes that the program would be a fair-minded treatment of
the Mormons, I learn instead that it is an ‘expose’ of the ‘wrongs’ in
Mormon history. It is a smooth but bigoted and
unprincipled assault on the Church.”
They said after seeing parts of
the second two-hour segment that at least an LDS viewpoint was allowed
side-by-side criticism of the Church
(e.g., on the issue of ). They also thought that most
people would be so turned off by the first two-hour segment that they
wouldn’t want to see the second part.
I really know very little about this, but I just wanted to give
you a “heads-up” so you can be prepared to respond to any negative
reactions triggered by this show.
GENERAL AUTHORITY’s BROTHER
BBBBBBBB Multi-stake DPA”
It had been sent to a woman in our ward from her sister in Arizona.
[…] that could not handle the truth. The hysterical response of some believers to The Mormons and the apparent emergence of urban legends show that the correlated approach has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As was […]
I was very disgusted at the PBS program. When they started talking about Joesph Smith and those wives…well I through a fit pratically it wan’t at all true he wasn’t “married” to them just sealed so that they can live happy in heaven nothing more than that. Also about bringham young, well gee its so negative. I thought it’d be uplifting for people unmembered to be able to see how good of people us mormons are. Well Im angry nothing more to say.
sister_ab, I’m not so sure Joseph Smith had the nice and tidy distinction between being “married” and “sealed” that Mormons make for him today.
“In conclusion, though it is possible that Joseph had some marriages in which there were no sexual relations, there is no explicit or convincing evidence for this (except, perhaps, in the cases of the older wives, judging from later Mormon polygamy). And in a significant number of marriages, there is evidence for sexual relations.” - Todd Compton (Mormon), “In Sacred Loneliness”, p. 15
I was just looking at my friend’s blog and she had posted the advertisment of the PBS special. Then I noticed in the comments one of her friends had sent this “official messege” and the first friend quickly posted it to let everyone know it was no loner being supported. I just thought it was funny that it was taken as truth because fo the “pseudo-witness” thing.
- Apparently, there are over 600 Tongans living in Utah, upon the encouragement of Mormon missionaries. But of course.
I agree with most stuff on this site cool keep up the good work!!!
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