WAKE N BAKE

In which Erin informs you of the best movies to blaze to

Mormons and LDS people have a lot of experience being the butt of the country’s jokes.  Don’t get me wrong, they deserve a lot of it.  (Contributing funds to California’s Proposition 8 campaign?  The church should receive far worse than a snarky South Park episode and a hit musical.)  But even their conservative political allies are quick to condemn them, consistently reinforcing the idea that they’re weird (why can’t they just believe in something normal, like virgin births and resurrections?  Oh right, they already do.) Not only weird, but un-American (because there are never any Evangelical conservatives that belong to secessionist organizations!)

I could come up with a lot of adjectives that describe Mormonism, and “weird” definitely makes an appearance.  But the charge of “un-Americanism” is one I’ve never understood.  I think the religion’s weirdness is exactly what makes it so American; only in the 19th-century-onward U.S.A. would there exist people who thought that the insanity of garden-variety monotheism was just too dull.  They needed to introduce some characters, lay out some patterns for magic lingerie, and–at least until it became political suicide–OLD TESTAMENT POLYGAMY THROWBACK!  Those plain-vanilla Lutherans never saw THAT coming! Mormonism is a product of that good ol’ pioneer individualism, taken just a teensy bit too far.  (Not as far as systematically murdering people and taking their country away, but, you know, WOW, I AM REALLY FUN AT PARTIES.)

But yeah.  People make fun of Mormons a lot.  So what did a group of Mormon filmmakers do about it?  Get in on the action!  I didn’t know this, but there exists a film subculture of Mormons that seem to really enjoy poking fun at themselves.  (Napoleon Dynamite was the breakout picture of this theme–even though it wasn’t a movie about religion, there were apparently a lot of autobiographical and inside jokes about American LDS culture.)

So for our third installment in the Summer Music Mockumentary series, I chose Sons of Provo, a film documenting the progress and pratfalls of a Mormon boy-band.

Those hair-dos. Those mesh armlets.

Two reasons for this choice:  1) the clearly funny premise;  2)the prospect of toking to a movie made by people who shun even caffeine (which seems fishy, because I feel like you’d need some weapons-grade drugs to take the tenets of Mormonism seriously.)

Oh yeah, all of the movie’s songs are going on here. Wait, what is this?

Will and Danny Jensen (Will Swenson and Danny Tarasevich) are two brothers in Provo, UT who jumped on the boy band trend a decade too late.  The film starts as they’re looking for a third member to complete the group.  He’s got to have a great voice, of course.  And he’s got to have moves.  But they’re also looking for someone who is committed to spreading the Holy Spirit through their musical work–this is non-negotiable.  Otherwise, the dude would feel pretty funny singing songs like “I’m the Diddly Wack Mack Mormon Daddy” and “Dang, Fetch, Oh My Heck.”  After the obligatory audition montage (which will entertain anyone who did choir in high school), they find Kirby Heyborne (Kirby Laybourne)–a “scrapbook specialist” as well as backup singer/church chorister.  Will quickly grills Kirby on a few basic aspects of Mormon singing–asking him to sing an “oo” vowel with a mood of penitence–and decides that he is the perfect match for their band, dubbed “Everclean.”  Kirby shines.  Well, at least when the brothers let him get a musical phrase in edgewise.  And if they’re not ignoring all his good ideas and then stealing them.  Will and Danny are so arrogantly concerned with being the most “spiritchal” band ever, that they don’t even realize that Kirby is a better Mormon than either of them.  He’s kind, humble, and damn near incapable of jealousy.  But the stakes will have to be raised before the brothers can realize what a gold mine they’ve found in Kirby.  Until then, they decide to go on tour through the Midwest.

Things get off to a rocky start.  Their first gig involves donning smocks and singing a song about forgiveness as children pelt them with pies.  But they hit their stride eventually, under the auspices of a better manager, Jill (Jennifer Erekson)–Kirby’s awkward ex-girlfriend from high school who has theater tech experience and wears flannel and overalls wherever she goes.

Sons of Provo takes a few pages out of This is Spinal Tap’s book, which I think they acknowledge by interviewing a “boy band historian” named Professor Tufnel.  (Another notable interviewee is Alan Osmond, playing himself.)  Many of the jokes, as in Spinal Tap, arise out of the characters’ lack of self-awareness.  In one of the funniest scenes, Danny reads aloud a review of their album that’s so snobbishly brutal it goes right over their heads and inspires high fives around the table.

And, much like Spinal Tap, the greatest humor is in all the little details–Everclean signing ASL during a performance of a love ballad, Mrs. Jensen informing us that her sons were born 10 months apart, the creepy manager casually destroying idioms, like when he utters, “I’ll be running around like a chicken with his legs cut off.”  Also on Sons of Provo’s side is the phenomenal acting, on all counts.  It’s confident, natural, and never overstated, even when the brothers are being egotistical jackasses.  And the music positively channels Justin Timberlake.  It’s nothing short of perfect.  The sound (and singing!) is of professional quality, and the lyrics are inspired.  It sounds exactly as if 98Ëš were endorsing chastity and church attendance.

I smell a baked sing-along.  (Even if it’s by myself.)

It’s even got a surprisingly sincere and universal sentiment.  As the band reunites at the end, they perform a new song that Kirby has written.  It’s nothing especially great, but is pretty different from the juvenile pop bullshit they’ve been producing thus far.  It’s a nice departure, because after seeing interviews in which scholars point out boy bands’ low shelf lives, and Will emphasizing moisturizers because “it helps with the aging process,” the change of tone in Kirby’s piece suggests that we don’t wilt and die at the end of our run–we just turn into something else.  And that something else is okay.

Just like after we die, we inherit our own planet in the Celestial Kingdom.  Obviously.  (Unless you’re not a man.)

I have not verified this flowchart’s accuracy. It might have gotten all that fiction wrong.