Monday, October 29, 2007

When Mormon Marketers Attack

I know that I've been annoyed by this before, but here's another group of stuff that bugs me. Everybody does it, but I think that your typical "I'm going after Mormons, and they'll buy anything tangentially related to their religion" products are pretty much the worst things out there.
Example 1: The Blatant Rip-offYou are reading that right...The Moroni Code. If I were Dan Brown, I'd be filing something in court right now. Replace Da Vinci with Moroni and a good book with unreadable schlock and you have yourself a surefire "bestseller" in the sense that they'll plop it on the cover of the next edition even though it's only the bestselling book at the Salt Lake City Deseret Book and not with anybody who matters. I've heard that Dan Brown's next book (if it is ever released) The Solomon Key will talk about the symbolism in the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. I'll wait for that rather than translating code that somebody put on a piece of paper that happens to be a family heirloom that an FBI agent is using for one purpose or another.

Example 2: The "We Can't Even Get a Slumming Actor" F-List film
Ah these gems of Mormon Cinema. I liked The Singles Ward all right and all, but I curse it for unleashing a torrent of garbage my way. Here's a movie that is certainly for LDS consumption, what with the use of a common LDS phraseology, but the guy who looks like he's constipated in the center is supposed to be a returned missionary (RM). This isn't an RM in the sense that he once went on a mission, this is straight from the mission field. Judging by the age of the characters, the age of missionaries has been raised from 19-26 to somewhere around 29-36, possibly even older. I would also like to mention how unattractive all 3 of the main characters are, aside from the main character bearing down, you've got the weathered "I hate men" lady with the scarf who looks like she'd like to kill someone and the spinster on the other side of him with the disapproving look. Of course, if someone was bearing down in front of me, I'd have that same look.

Example 3: The Disapproving Crap On The WallHere's what guilty people and/or haughty people put on their walls. "Oh, you like Christmas presents, do you? You're no better than the pharisees!" Apparently love and presents can't coexist at Christmas time. I could be mistaken, but love was indeed present as I unwrapped my presents from everyone. They did give them to me, didn't they? That cost money, right? Who gives money to those they don't love (excepting perhaps tax writeoffs and charitable causes, but that's beside the point)? Thanks for trying to bludgeon me with your too stringent application of gospel principles that aren't even really principles in the first place. I appreciate it.

Example 4: The Nonsensical SayingI don't get this saying. Perhaps because I think that those ellipses hide something that might help it make sense. Also because there must not be many people in love as only insomniacs can't sleep. I guess they're the ones who are in love.

3 comments:

Derek said...

I'm pretty sure that churning out all of this crap is not what is meant by being a peculiar people. It ends up being closer to being a "weird, annoying people". Some folks who have this stuff are good of course, but it reminds me of a really nice house I went to once a while ago. There were no scriptures to be found, but the Work and the Glory full shebang edition was displayed prominently on the fireplace mantle.

Carly said...

Ugh. These are among my biggest pet-peeves of all time.

EditorJack said...

The title "Moroni Code" is for *fun,* for heaven's sake. Where's your sense of humor. :)

You might actually like the book, if you tried reading it.