Morality, Religion, Justice and The Book of Mormon Musical

 

    When we learned about morality, religion, and justice my multicultural psychology class, we talked about the controversy in Denmark that sparks international crisis in 2005. A Danish man wanted to write a children's book about the prophet Muhammad, and was looking for a Muslim person to illustrate the book. He couldn't find anyone to illustrate his book because in the Muslim faith while there is no explicit ban on depicting the prophet Muhammad it is considered extremely disrespectful. The Danish author became frustrated and published a cartoon in his local paper depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb on his turban. This caused outrage in the Muslim community world wide; riots were held and people died. Despite this, the man behind the cartoon, Kurt Westergaard, the newspaper, and the Danish government did not apologize because Kurt Westergaard was expressing his freedom of speech. My professor asked the class who was morally right - the Muslim community or the Danes. I sided with the Muslim community because while freedom of speech is protected, purposefully doing something incredibly disrespectful to a marginalized group of people is wrong and mean. 

    Recently, my sister went to New York City and saw The Book of Mormon musical on Broadway. We both grew up in Utah, but not as a member of the Latter-day Saints (LDS) faith. When she got home she told me all about the musical. The musical is a satirical examination of beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The story line follows two LDS missionaries who travel to a remote Ugandan village to preach their faith to the village's inhabitants. The locals aren't interested, as they have to worry about more pressing issues like HIV/AIDS, famine, female genital mutilation, child molestation, and oppression by a local warlord. So one of the missionaries tweaks the story of the Book of Mormon in order to make it more relatable to Ugandan villagers. The musical is very raunchy, especially by LDS standards. My sister described the plot to my parents and I and played some of the songs sang in the musical. We all laughed so hard, my mom actually started crying. After I finished laughing, it hit me that  this musical is probably extremely disrespectful and offensive to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I started thinking of the morality of the musical. I thought it was fine, funny, and the writers and producers had every right to make it. Something made me think of the controversy in Denmark and the Book of Mormon Musical - why did I think one was morally wrong and one was morally right when both could be interpreted as a satirical take on religion? 

    I began by thinking about the Danish cartoon: a picture depicting the prophet Muhammad, one of the most respected and revered figures in Islam, wearing a turban with a picture of a bomb on it. I thought about why I thought this was morally wrong. The first reason I came up with was that it is disrespectful and offensive to Muslim people to depict the prophet Muhammad. But that alone didn't feel like enough to make the issue morally wrong. I thought about the Kurt Westergaard's intent which seemed to be to "get back" at Muslims in his community for not helping him, which obviously isn't kind or respectful. The last aspect of the situation I thought about was a picture of a bomb on the prophet's turban - which is out right racist and spreading a negative and harmful stereotype. I think the last two things I thought about was what moralized this issue in a negative way for me: the intent to harm and continue a very harmful stereotype narrative. To those that would argue that depicting a bomb on the prophet's turban, I would tell them that because of the a) Kurt Westergaard's intent when creating the image and b) the negative and harmful narrative perpetuated in creating that cartoon it's not satirical but harmful because it insinuates that most respected and revered figures in Islam is violent and plays into the untrue narrative that all Muslims are terrorists. 

    Then I thought about the Book of Mormon. The creators are ex-LDS, and the musical was meant to be funny. The offensiveness and disrespect comes into play when one of the missionaries changes what happens in the Book of Mormon to be more relatable to the Ugandans, but it's made very clear that it is not the truth, as it mentions Hulk and Star Trek. I guess the musical isn't actively creating negative stereotypes or narratives about the LDS church and the Danish cartoon was.