From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #624 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, February 25 2002 Volume 01 : Number 624 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 16:20:16 -0700 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Cultural Imperialism ___ Tait ___ | Cultural Imperialism is the assumption that your culture is | superior to another and that your culture therefore should | be imposed on others for their own good. ___ While that is a common view of cultural imperialism, I think that in this day and age the meaning is somewhat different. Consider American pop culture. Many nations consider it a form of cultural imperialism. Some react to this by putting up quotas of how much American media is allowed in the country. (i.e. the limits on magazines and TV in Canada) This can't prevent people from choosing to read what they wish, of course. But it does attempt to prevent the local culture from being drowned out. I don't think Hollywood thinks that their product is "superior and therefore imposed." Rather they are simply business people who wish to open the markets and then sell as much of their product as possible. Perhaps the model is less the economic imperialism of the European powers and their colonies than it is the Yankee traders going to Asia in the 19th century. But beyond that there is the unconscious type of cultural imperialism. This is simply assuming that a way "works" and why would anyone even want to do something different? In this form of "imperialism" there isn't any force at all. It is just this subtle peer pressure, much akin to what drives fashion among teenagers (or even adults). This is the form that I think is typically found among Mormons. Realistically though, this is the least "imperialistic" of these sorts of things. Indeed one could argue that in the market of ideas, the ideas that win out win out *because* of this kind of imperialism. Now admittedly marketing helps, but what is chosen is chosen freely. ___ Tait ___ | The early missionary efforts of the church to non-white | peoples shared many of the same assumptions as their non- | Mormon counterparts--i.e., that they were bringing | "culture" and "enlightenment" to people who lived in | varying degrees of "darkness." ___ But didn't the Mormons feel exactly the same towards white peoples? Indeed don't we *still* intrinsically feel that way? If other paths were really equally valid, then why have missionaries? Where people have problems isn't really in feeling other cultures are wrong (clearly in different ways they are). It is in considering right what is arbitrary or even wrong amongst us. For instance the basketball court in non-US chapels seems an excellent example. Yet we'd not want to say that our social views of adultery are cultural imperialism, even though many cultures don't share them. Really what we have is a division between cultural imperialism and cultural relativism. There is then a sliding scale between them between how much value we place on the cultural item. Some things *are* relative. Other things are not. The trick is figuring out what is what. - -- Clark Goble --- clark@lextek.com ----------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 08:09:42 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] Mormon Culture in Japan I'd like to clear one thing up, American patriotic songs did not appear in the 1960 Japanese hymnbook, nor in the more recent 1989 version. July 4th is universally ignored in Japanese wards, it just doesn't come up. Of course, that does not mean that the one missionary wanted the ward to sing the songs, but he would have had a hard time doing it unless he had a bunch of English hymnbooks on hand. ___ John Williams wrote:___ >| For example, a Mormon professor I know here at UC Irvine served >| his mission in Japan in the 1960s, and had a companion who >| thought it entirely appropriate for the Japanese congregation >| to sing patriotic American hymns from the hymnbook on July >| 4th. It's in the hymnbook, right? It must be part of the >| gospel. Related to this, there is some confusion among Japanese members about how patriotic they should be. Outward signs of patriotism are looked down upon somewhat in general Japanese society, as many link them with the ultranationalism of the 30s and 40s. There are no specifically Japanese songs in the hymnbook, patriotic or not. (There are, however, a few LDS hymns from the old 1920s Sunday School hymnal that have stayed in the 1960 and 1989 Japan versions, which are not in the present English version. They became favorites here, and so they kept them. "Waiting for the Reapers" is an especially cool one). Unfortunately Easter is also usually ignored in Japan, since there is no tradition of celebrating it here, and the fact that it falls on different dates doesn't help. We often try to remind the chorister a week in advance to sing Easter hymns the next week. I occasionally wonder abou how much we do here is fundamentally gospel orientated, and how much is cultural and not necessary. I think on the whole that we are doing pretty good. A big example is our English classes. Weekly English classes are taught in every ward and branch in Japan by the missionaries, sometimes with the help of English speaking members. I am the coordinator of it in Fukuoka, part of my Stake Missionary responsiblities. It is a major missionary tool here. It gets people in the door of the Church, allows them to get to know the missionaries. Perhaps as a result people interested in English and Americans tend to join the Church more than others, but I don't think that it is by that much. Now, no one ever says that you need to go to English class to be a member, and only a very small number of baptized Japanese members attend. A lot of Japanese are very interested in learning English, and it is an area in which the missionaries can easily give service (not to say that it is counted as a service activity, it is clearly a missionary tool). I think that all members here with any sense recognize that English speaking ability is not tied to the gospel. Then there is the area of Church traditions. Japanese Church leaders often seem to me to be a little too concerned that practices are the same as in America. Some unique practices have developed. For example, Japanese Mormons often say "Good Morning" to Heavenly Father in public prayers in the morning. Before the prayer they announce, "I humbly pray" (or perhaps it can be translated as the Protestant "Let us pray"), so that everyone knows to be quiet and bow their heads. As a newly baptized person comes out of the font, often the crowd gives them a hearty "Congratulations" in unison. I don't think any of these are tied to Japanese culture pe se, they are just traditions that have grown up in the the Church. Eler Kikuchi, a Japanese Seventy who has recently returned to be in the Area Presidency, seems to be very interested in removing traditions which differ from those in America. He has recently instructed Stake leaders here about correcting these things, although they aren't pushing it too strongly. Here in Fukuoka the Stake leaders have mentioned them in some leadership meetings, and encouraged leadership members to set examples for others, but have decided not to announce them in Sacrament Meeting. I have heard they were announced in a ward in Tokyo, however. I can see how they wold not want the Curch culture to become unrecognizable, but I do like the little local quirks. I would especially miss the "Good Morning". I really can't think of much that I find disturbingly imperialist here (of course, Japan is exteremly Westernized already). Sure, there are lots of lifestyle changes in joining the Church, but it is nothing different than what North Americans joining the Church go through. If making deacons wear white shirts is the worst thing we can come up with, than hurray for us. I suppose allowing some locally written hyms in the hymnbook would be nice. I don't doubt that my skewed perspective is missing something. You could change the general forms of universal Church practices (the way meetings are held, the pattern of prayer, Church titles, etc), but I don't see that as achieving much. There is something comforting to anyone who has moved around about having some basic universal forms, even if they in and of themselves are not intrinsic to the gospel. They serve to set us apart from the world, and create a sense of unity, I think. As for Mormon literature here, I'm sorry to say there isn't much. There are about 100,000 members of the Church in Japan, and so far no major artists have emerged. There are a couple of light inspirational pop singer/composers who have gone around and done concernts and firesides. There was a wonderful little semi-annual intellectual journal, Mormon Forum, around since 1987, which unfortunately stoped publishing last year. They tried to be a Japanese Dialogue, with articles about Church theology and history, personal essays, poetry, and at least one short story (SF about Adam and Eve as computer programs, not very good). Wards and Stakes often put on plays, but usually they are translations of Western children's plays (Wilde's Happy Prince is a favorite) or LDS musicals. There are a few translations of Orson Scott Card's novels by commercial publishers, including the first three in the Alvin Maker series, which I have reccomended to several friends. Unfortunately I haven't noticed any reading groups like the kinds that often spring up in American wards. Maybe I need to start one (which reminds me of my imperialist urges that often came out in our American reading groups, trying to get everyone to agree to read the Mormon lit that I suggest. Down imperialist urges, down!). Andrew Hall Fukuoka, Japan _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 02:19:51 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Redeeming the Past Bruce Young wrote: > So yes, we need to face and learn from--and to the extent that we are > implicated in them--repent of the evils and imperfections and distorted > understandings of the past. I think people are hiccupping on the word "repent." Repentance is confessing and making amends for sins I've committed. I didn't commit the sins of my fathers, so how can I repent of them? This has nothing to do with the obligation any Christian has to look at the world around him and try to make it better. If legacy consequences of sins from the past are still with us, then we ought to do what we can to ameliate them. But that doesn't mean we have to take on the burden of guilt for them. It's a matter of attitude. I'm not going to sit around and feel bad or worry about any racist ancestors I had. But if I see injustice going on around me, regardless of the source of that injustice, then I've taken on a duty as a Christian to do what I can about it. I'm not about to call it repentance, though. Please, I have enough of my own sins to repent of. Even if an argument can be made that it's proper to call it repentance, it's bad PR to take that approach. Nobody likes being called to repentance, and the common reaction is to turn a deaf ear to that message. But people like to feel noble, and addressing the injustices of past generations because we're noble and want to improve the world is likely to attract more flies than the vinegar of guilt-tripping. Now if we're talking about how we unwittingly perpetuate the injustices of the past through our own ignorance and upbringing, that's a whole other story. If _I'm_ telling non-American Mormons their culture is inferior because I haven't questioned questionable assumptions I've inherited, then I do have something repent of. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:33:20 -0800 From: "Tait Family" Subject: Re: [AML] Agendas in Lit Classes The controversy surrounding what should be offered in lit classes is not limited to BYU, of course. This is a debate that rages in universities around the world--and, I suspect, in many disciplines beyond English. The broader questions have to do with what qualifies as "literature" and what is the purpose for studying it in the first place? What about composition and rhetoric? What about cultural studies? So many doors have been opened and there are so many 'new' approaches to literature that just about everything in the "traditional" curriculum is being questioned. I say "traditional" because it's possible to argue that what most of us see as the "old" program for studying literature was itself a construct that developed fairly recently out of a specific tradition in literary criticism and cultural values. The view that there is some "fixed" way of teaching literature and a set canon of works to study is an illusion--maybe a comforting one, and maybe one with some merit, but an illusion nonetheless. Lisa Tait - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 08:55:47 -0500 From: "Kristy Thomas" Subject: [AML] Request for Critics Hi, My husband and I have written what we intend to be the text for a children's picture book about the creation. We would like to submit it to publishers, but first wanted to get unbiased, third party opinions. The manuscript is about 650 words short. :-) We are interested in those with a background (or at least interest) in children's literature. Please send me an e-mail directly if you are interested. Thanks! Brent & Kristy Thomas _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 13:03:41 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] Moral Lessons from the Olympics Sorry, folks, but I'm hooked. I'm completely bedazzled. I can't get = enough of it. Short track rocks, skeleton is the bomb, and curling is the = sport of the next millenium. In fact, I want to start the AML curling = club; any takers? NBC's coverage is, predictably, abysmal, but I've figured out how to deal = with it. Watch curling or hockey on MSNBC, while recording NBC. Then = skip the local news, and watch NBC's coverage at night while skipping the = commercials. I promise you, the Budweiser commercial where the guy skids = across the bed and out his window is ten times funnier in fast motion. My = method does require going to bed at one, which is kind of a problem if you = have to be up at six with the kids, like I do, but hey, it's the Olympics. = If they can sacrifice knee ligaments and shoulder joints, I can give up = a little sleep. =20 Commercial television is not, sad to say, a subtle artistic medium. Bob = Costas carefully explaining what all the symbolism meant in the opening = ceremonies set the tone; at every turn, TV jogs you on the elbow, = shouting, "get it? get it? get it? get it?" Jim Shea's grandpa was an = Olympian! And he died! But his presence is still felt! And, no fault to = Shea or his family, but an actual, honest-to-gosh human drama got = overhyped and overkilled. NBC even gave that ebullient force of nature, = Picabo Street, the bathetic teary eyed end-of-a-long-road-for-a-legend = treatment. It didn't take, thank heavens; she skiied, didn't medal, = looked bummed for about ten seconds, and then it was time to part-ay. = =20 But there are moral lessons to be learned from something as wonderful and = good as the Olympics, as is true of all art forms. And so, a few of my = favorite Olympic Moments: Moral Lesson 1: Trying really hard is overrated. Sometimes, it's better to take it easy = and hope all the folks ahead of you fall down. =20 My personal hero of these Olympic games is, hands down, Stephen Bradbury, = the Australian guy who won the 1000 m short track gold medal because, ten = meters from the finish line, all the guys ahead of him collided and fell. = Twice (it also happened in the semi-final). As Gary Kamiya quipped, = Bradbury's fate is an enviable one: free drinks for life in Sydney bars. = But there's a serious lesson to be learned here, and one we might want to = consider as a literary theme: the race does not always go to the swiftest. = Bradbury COUNTED on getting lucky. Maybe hard work is it's own punishment= . =20 Moral Lesson 2:=20 Teens sometimes do know best, but parents aren't necessarily dummies. =20 Even President Hinckley has weighed in on the merits of half-pipe, that = nutty Winter X-Games import contested on snowboards. It's very fun to = watch, as are all the snowboarding and moguls events. But I also couldn't = help speculate on the family dramas taking place behind the scenes, before = the Olympics. The snowboarding aesthetic is hardly white bread and middle = American. As the parent of three teenagers, I can well imagine the = standard when-will-you-make-something-of-yourself-instead-of-wasting-all-yo= ur-time-snowboarding-with-worthless-friends-who-do-no-believe-me-have-your-= best-interests-at-heart speech that particular set of Olympians undoubtedly= heard more than occasionally. (Notice how little attention NBC paid to = 18-year old gold medalist Kelly Clark's at least 35-year old husband? Bet = there's a story there!) And then that baggy pants kid turning up the = volume on Kid Rock or the Chili Peppers, turns out to be an Olympian. And = watching Danny Kass stand, misty-eyed, with his hand over his heart, while = they played the national anthem suggested to me at least the possibility = that his parents may have had the last laugh after all. Co-opted. Or at = least, a middle ground discovered. Moral Lesson 3: Repentance is good, but we also learn a lot by sinning. Apolo Anton Ohno, the short track sensation (he should get that on his = business cards, so often Bob Costas has repeated it) is the soap opera = story of the Olympics, or rather, would be, if it weren't for the = Sale/Pelletier vs. dark-browed Russkies colluding with the kooky French = judge brouhaha. (And Elena B, the Russian skater in that mess, was she one = cynical kid or what?) Ohno, as was widely reported, was a street kid, a = juvie, a part-time gang banger and petty thief, who discovered a life's = vocation in short track speed skating. Well, we know all that from NBC. = What they've missed is just how sly and clever and sneaky-fast cunning = this kid is. Short track is the right sport for Ohno, because it's not = about a clock, it's about tactics. And Ohno brings street life survival = skills to it. He's the Artful Dodger, adept at slipping punches, sliding = through cracks, working the system, slyly feigning innocence. He won = silver in the 1000 through sheer toughness and presence of mind after a = Chinese skater, driven (it looked to me) to distraction, tackled him. He = won gold in the 1500 by a theatrical reaction which called attention to a = borderline illegal tactic by a Korean skater. I absolutely love the kid, = and I'm glad he's off the street and making something positive of his life = and all that, but let's also acknowledge that street life, which we're all = glad he escaped, also helped make him who he is. I cherish the chance for = repentance offered me by the gospel. But I'm also grateful for my sins, = and think I've learned a lot from them. Moral Lesson 4: Sometimes a real genius is the guy who does it his way. In other words, the Bode Miller story. America's best alpine skiier is = famous for being utterly uncoachable. He skiis too far back, takes too = tight a line, and is essentially always an inch from falling. And when = coaches tell him how to fix his problems, he blows them off. So far, he's = won silver twice by nearly falling on his first run, falling way way = behind, and then blowing away everyone on his second run. He's sort of = grumpy with the media, and his interviews have been great ("How does it = feel to be in tenth place after your first run?" "It sucks. I'm skiing = like crap. What more do you want?") The point is, this guy is like Babe = Ruth. Ruth is the greatest baseball player ever because, basically, he = didn't listen to anyone. Everyone knew that you can't try to hit home = runs every pitch, because you'll strike out too much. Ruth ignored them, = and revolutionized his world. Miller is very young, and the best American = skiier in the world. And utterly uncoachable. Kinda reminds me of Scott = Card. (Mormon lit connection!) Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:20:57 -0600 From: James Picht Subject: Re: [AML] Cultural Imperialism "Cultural imperialism" seems to cover everything from the forcible Europeanization of conquered native Americans by the U.S. to the conquest of mainland China by Colonel Sanders. The first case is clear to me as a case of CI, but satisfaction of the Chinese desire to eat Kentucky fried chicken has been accomplished not only without military force (I believe the Colonel's rank was purely honorary), but with the enthusiastic cooperation of our new fellow finger-lickers. If it's imperialism to introduce people to new ideas and products, then I'm all for it. LDS missionary efforts around the world are firmly on the Colonel Sanders side of CI, I think. Oh, some of our efforts to standardize church practices are a bit high handed. I've attended LDS services in a lot of countries, and I find transplanted Utah practices sometimes incongruous, sometimes bizarre. But people have shown themselves to be able and willing to walk away from the entire church package - gospel, white shirts, lime jello and all. Some accept the gospel part and resist the rest, and their resistance is not futile. President Hinckley isn't the Borg queen, and international saints will only be assimilated to the point that they're willing. But I'll have more to say about that shortly. "In the beginning God gave to every people a cup of clay, and from this cup they drank their life." (Digger Indian proverb) Cultures are like personalities ("personality writ large," says Benedict) - they aren't a single note, and they only exist in a pure state to the extent that they're kept isolated or preserved as museum specimens. The United States doesn't possess a single culture. I have students whose families preserve varients of Cajun culture, though often the kids no longer speak French. I recently attended a Black Bible church and had lunch with the congregation afterwards, and realized that I was surrounded by a culture that was at once familiar and foreign. If culture is that cup of clay, then many Americans often have a cupboard full from which they can choose. We're interracial and interethnic. We're many cultures, sometimes simultaneously. What we're not is homogenized. Yes, you can find a McDonalds, a Starbucks, a Barnes and Noble and a Pottery Barn in just about any mall - sometimes in a shopping mall I experience a sense of unreality, as if I don't really exist in a particular place, and as if I can walk out the door and be in just about any city in America. But culture is much more than our shopping habits. It's music, language, food, marriage rites, puberty rites (yes, we have them), religion, our attitudes toward money and toward time. There are some things common to USAmerican culture, but in some sense it's like trying to define race; any one characteristic can be far removed from its racial mean (skin color, facial structure, hair texture) and a person can still be "black," but then what is it to be black? Biologists tell us there's no such thing; are they right? When I interact with others, it affects my personality in small, subtle ways. Now I think my character is pretty set, but I notice that my students' personalities can be amazingly plastic. Do I have a pure personality that is essentially me? We could only find that out if I could be somehow isolated and kept from going mad, perhaps if I could be raised in isolation and still develop a human mind. The exercise seems pointless and hopeless. I think it makes no more sense to think of applying it to cultures. They aren't museum pieces - they're living things that interact, and in their interractions they necessarily change themselves and each other. Is that bad? In my opinion it's essential. It also means that culture is far more plastic a concept than race or ethnicity.Perhaps what makes a black American black is a set of biological characteristics plus a culture. In the course of interaction some cultures will flourish, some will wither and die. Is that bad? It's life. Cultures aren't artifacts, but living things, and living things change and die. Some elements of them can be preserved and incorporated into other cultures, but the original culture is gone and our understanding of the surviving element is different than it was. What do you understand when you read Exodus? Whatever it is, it's surely not what an Israelite of 2300 years ago would have understood. It's amazing to me that we understand it at all. It's amazing that we understand Shakespeare (and experience tells me that many people don't), Milton, or Dante. As we look at literature closer in time and space to ourselves, it gets much easier to understand what the author intended us to understand, but I'm reasonably certain that some here (where's "here?") won't perfectly understand _me_. Culture writ small in personality will get in the way. There are things that I understand as a Mormon and as an American that are a part of my cultural heritage. Some of the things we teach new Mormons are far from the central core of the Gospel, but when we decry that, we forget that we're a people with a culture, not just a religion. Perhaps one can't truly understand the church manuals if one doesn't understand lime jello. I think that the religion is the essential part of our culture, and it bothers me that some people forget that, but I have to remind myself that they're trying to create a common grammar, a common basis of understanding of what it is to be Mormon. Sometimes we make mistakes - Mormonism and Americanism aren't the same culture, for instance - but it isn't because we want to obliterate Japanese-ness or Somoan-ness, but because we want to create a community that has a basis for mutual understanding that goes beyond "I, Nephi..." You can be a member of the church without any of the other cultural elements that go with it, but you can't be a member of the community. Isn't community important, and can't you reside simultaneously in different communities? It bothers me not at all that there are Africans, even many Africans, working for Coca Cola. They do it because there are things they want that they didn't know of before our culture met theirs, things they want from our culture. Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, has been famously worried that Fanta and Coke have displaced kvass as Russians' soft-drink of choice, upset that Russian culture is being lost. Well, what _is_ Russian culture - the culture imposed by Peter the Great? The culture that absorbed the styles and manners of the Golden Horde? The culture that invited Cyril and Methodius in from Byzantium and was baptized en masse in the Dnieper? And what of the plains Indians culture? It's mostly gone, but it itself was the result of interaction between an older culture and Europeans with their horses and glass beads. What some of us worry about as cultural imperialism seems to me to be simply the natural interactions and changes of cultures. It happens faster now - until the 19th century, cultural interactions were slow and limited - but it doesn't mean wholesale cultural extinction and homogenization. Minnesota will always be different from Louisiana, Iceland from Samoa, Japan from Brazil, even if they all adopted the same language and religion. Nature itself, even in this age of air conditioning and central heat, places constraints and imperatives on us that limit what's possible. Muscovites will watch _Baywatch_, but they'll never be mistaken for the denizens of Santa Monica. This grows longer than I intended, and various lines of thought are branching out that resist being formed into a single logical structure. I suppose my central thesis is that culture isn't the simple set of discrete characteristics that critics of McDonald's seem to suppose, and that given its protean nature, its ability to grow and assimilate and be assimilated and be created anew, only genuine force can be a basis for "cultural imperialism." And even then, I think, what we get is a new culture, not simply the expansion of the conquering imperial culture. I ran into the following, but will leave exploration of that line of thought for another day: "Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat." - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey Jim Picht - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 21:50:35 GMT From: "pdhunter" Subject: [AML] Average Reviews of 5 LDS-themed Movies 22 February 2002 - Two years into the post-Dutcher era of LDS filmmaking there have now been five LDS-themed feature films released, by four different directors. Four Utah newspapers have consistently reviewed (and scored) these movies: The Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Ogden Standard-Examiner, and The Daily Herald. Combining the reviewers' scores from these newspapers, the best-reviewed of these five films were Dutcher's "God's Army" and "Brigham City." Although a plurality of national reviews expressed preference for "Brigham City" as the better film, the numerical average score from the local newspapers is actually identical. After Dutcher's films, the best locally reviewed film is Cary Derbridge and Ryan Little's "Out of Step," the lowest-budgeted of the bunch. Title (Year) Budget OpWknd Thtr STr DN OSE DH Avg. - ------------------------------------------------------------ - ------------ God's Army (2000) $ 300,000 $ 88,584 3 2.5 3 2.5 B+ 71 Brigham City (2001) 1,000,000 103,629 51 3 2.5 B 71 Other Side of Heaven (2001) 7,000,000 55,765 2 2.5 2.5 2.5 C+ 62 The Singles Ward (2002) 425,000 46,649 11 1 2 2.5 C- 45 Out of Step (2002) 200,000 7 3 2.5 2 B 66 OpWknd: Total gross box office ticket sales in the opening weekend. Thtr: Number of theaters movie played in on its opening weekend. SLT: Salt Lake Tribune DN: Deseret News OSE: Ogden Standard-Examiner DH: Daily Herald (Utah County) Avg: Movie reviews combined into a numerical average. Stars 4 = 100 3.5 = 88 3 = 75 2.5 = 63 2 = 50 1.5 = 38 1 = 25 0 = 0 Letter Grade A = 100 A- = 92 B+ = 84 B = 75 B- = 67 C+ = 59 C = 50 C- = 42 D+ = 34 D = 25 D- = 17 F = 0 Scores from other local reviews: Utah Statesman (Utah State College) gave an A- to "The Singles Ward", but reviews of other movies not found. Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah) gave 2 stars out of 4 to "Brigham City", but other reviews not found. Reviewers Average Scores on LDS-themed movies - --------------------------------------------- Salt Lake Tribune (Sean P. Means): 60.2 Deseret News (Jeff Vice): 62.8 Ogden Standard-Examiner (Steve Salles): 59.8 Daily Herald (Eric D. Snider): 67.0 Numerically speaking, Eric D. Snider at the Daily Herald actually has given, on average, the highest marks to LDS-themed movies. But this may be partially due to the fact that he assigns letter grades rather than using the 4-star system that the other reviewers use. Snider reviewed 438 movies in the years 2000 and 2001 that he assigned a letter grade to. The average numerical score from ALL of his reviews was 63. The Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, and Ogden Standard-Examiner all award up to 4 stars, including possible half-stars. Among these three newspapers, the numerical average of reviews ranges from 59.8 to 62.8 -- a span of only 3 percentage points. So, while the Deseret News technically has the highest average score and the Ogden Standard-Examiner technically has the lowest, the difference is purely academic. - - Preston Hunter - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:03:47 -0700 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Cultural Imperialism - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Langford" >(I hate the phrase "consumers of art," by the way; it > sounds so passive. Alternatives, anyone?) ***** How about "patrons of art?" [MOD: Sounds good to me. I'll try to remember that for next time.] ***** >* First, it seems clear that there's a great deal of >disagreement about >whether the "imperialism" part of the phrase "cultural >imperialism" is really appropriate. This is a question of >definitions, and so at some level ultimately unresolvable. >I think it's appropriate for people to share their >understanding of what cultural imperialism means-- On >the other hand, I don't think it's useful to argue further >over whether particular uses of the term are justified or >not. ******* I agree this is an important topic of discussion with many literary implications. The fact is cultural imperialism does exist, but a less invasive form of cultural imposition is cultural hegemony. As Jacob suggest there are several other forms of cultural change out there (Cultural Emigration, Cultural Proselytizing, Cultural Success and Cultural Homicide) and I think this is what living is all about. In any event every individual has the ability to choose alternatives to the cultural choices in which they are immersed and the inherent rewards and consequences of those choices. Even if there are no choices an individual can still choose nonconformance. I agree with Jonathan that it would not be productive for us to get bogged down in a quagmire of semantics. We as writers have the opportunity to try out these various forms of cultural imposition and change in our fictional world with our fictional characters. We also have the opportunity to investigate and report on the effects cultural changes have on various segments of humanity. I for one cannot understand why human nature is such that we insist on trying to impose our individual or collective wills on those around us who are different. I think it is much better to try and learn from each other. As long as the individual cultures do not conflict with the freedoms of each other and there is peace and tolerance, what else matters? Let each do whatever they choose. I thought the modesty issue was a very interesting cultural puzzle. We can teach modesty to those we are converting to the gospel, but "we don't have to impose our knickers and neckties on them." As Jacob so aptly put it. Why not just teach them to cover themselves with the clothing of their own culture, in a more modest way. If they don't wear clothes, then perhaps we should show them the advantages of protective covering and help them to fashion suitable garments from the indigenous materials in their natural environment. I think the most important objective here is understanding. By writing about and examining the various cultures, understanding of the diversity of humanity can be vastly improved. Bill Willson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:09:17 -0700 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Cultural Imperialism This one is much shorter, though I respond to both Lisa and Todd in it :). I've tried very hard to be relevant to the list and not political. - ---Original Message From: Todd Petersen > Jacob asked: Which is why I re-iterate my original query--is > there something more significant in the term Cultural > Imperialism that I am missing? > > Quite simply that Imperialism requires physical force. > > There are all kinds of force that don't involve guns and > fists. A man doesn't have to his his wife or children to > abuse them. The same is true with Imperialism. The film EL > NORTE discusses this magnificently. > > Imperialism is the policy of extending the rule or authority > of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of > acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies. Cultural > Imperialism is extending one's culture, in addition to one's > empire, over the colony. The problem is that cultures devour > other cultures and American culture tends to be the big fish > gobbling up all the others little ones. > > You can say this isn't damage unless it's your culture that > is suddenly gone, your religion, your ceremonies, your > language, your stories, your cuisine, your agricultural > crops, your forms of government, your rites of passage, your > local newspapers, your vernacular architecture, your clothes > and cosutumes, your siestas (Terry Tempest Williams has a > great discussion of how corporate America effective destroyed > the tradition of the siesta in a section of Spain in her book LEAP). > > You get the idea. > > And just because you're not like this doesn't mean that > Mormons in general aren't. Okay. I can understand that force doesn't have to equal holding a gun to somebody's head. So what kind of force is it that you are decrying? How are Mormons (or the U.S.) forcing others to adopt our culture? What is it that we are doing that would earn such a strong judgement against us? How is China welcoming McDonalds different than, say, Americans adopting acupuncture? American culture is big. True. But are we big because we forced others to be like us? Or did they want to be like us to have the same things we have? Are we Hard-Rock Cafe, or Dachau? Where does invitation end and compulsion begin? You still haven't answered the core question of where have we crossed the line so badly that we should be willing to accept the accusation of Imperialism? (That isn't to say that I don't appreciate this elaboration. I do appreciate your clarification.) I like your example of the siesta in Spain and would like to explore it with my questions in mind. Did corporate America run around in Spain kicking people awake at lunch time? Or did they simply offer well-paying jobs that required a shorter lunch? In other words, did the people choose the prosperity of the U.S. over the luxury of the traditional siesta or were they forced to accept a foreign tradition over their objections? My word-choice reveals my obvious bias, but the questions really are sincere. What force was applied sufficient to make us a target for the harsh term "Imperialist"? The assumption is that corporate executives entered Spain with the intent to "reform the heathen" and teach them to be American (still not Imperialism, IMO, just condescending). The implication of the label "Imperialist" is that some people not only had the intent to change the culture but applied force to do so. I guess that the relevant question is "how do we determine force?" Is it sufficient to say that a culture changed from a local custom to a dominant, popular custom and thus force *must* have been applied? Peer pressure *is* a way to apply force--be like us or we won't like you *is* a kind of tyranny. Is that what you mean, or is there something more sinister that should be explored? To me, compulsion is active and has to be evident and visible. That way, accusations of compulsion aren't just matters of opinion and interpretation. Is that off-base? Do you mean something else when you talk about force? The reason I want to explore this further here is that we Mormons *are* open to cliquish accusations--be like us or we won't like you. I think that is something we are trying to change, but it hasn't fully penetrated, yet. Is *that* what you mean by Imperialism, though? It seems to me that you are as impatient with our "public" literature as I am (remember that public literature was defined as those works where Mormonism was open and pervasive--works like those by Rachel Nunes or Gerald Lund), so that doesn't really make sense as Imperialism. And is that really enough force to qualify as Imperialism, really? - ---Original Message From: Lisa Tait > Just to clarify for Jacob and others: The "force" behind > cultural imperialism does not have to be military or physical > in nature. The threat (or self-righteous belief) that someone > who does not accept certain cultural assumptions will not > gain exaltation is about as imperialistic as it can get, IMO. > > This is where there is a huge area of opportunity for LDS > literature to serve as a dialogue WITHIN the church--both to > examine those assumptions and to explore how they are played > out in various settings. I don't think it would necessarily > have to be fiction or drama, either. What forms might such a > dialogue take? Oral history comes to mind immediately. > Poetry, maybe, though maybe in different forms than we're used to. > > Am I asking new questions here, or just displaying my > ignorance?Has this subject been discussed elsewhere (Dialogue > maybe)? I'm sincerely asking what anyone knows. I agree that force doesn't have to be military in nature. However, force does have to be credible and does have to be active (IMO). I can walk around all day long and tell people I meet on the street that unless they are baptized, I will fire them from their job and sell their children into slavery. But that isn't force even though it is active (i.e. it isn't credible). And I could believe in my heart of hearts that some young man is unfit to date my daughter, but unless I run him off with a curse and a threat, that isn't force, either (i.e. it isn't active). Denying exaltation *is* a potent threat and would qualify as Imperialistic. But are we credible and active in that threat such that we can be said to apply force? For one, we don't have the power to determine the exaltation of another. Any who claim to are usurping the authority of God and will be judged for their presumption. It is an active message of the gospel that God will judge the worthiness of individuals and that we should not. Bishops are sort of an exception because they are called as "judges in Israel" so they *do* wield power over membership in the church (though the power over exaltation is still reserved to God). But a bishop who refuses baptism to someone based on cultural assumptions will deserve the censure he receives (by the church if he is caught and by God when he gives an accounting of his stewardship). A bishop who initiates an excommunication based on cultural assumptions will deserve the same. That said, you have a very good point that I'd like to explore. We should *not* be so eager to judge the cultures of others and we should *not* be trying to replace aspects of others that they hold dear. We *should* be accepting of others and try to find the good of others--frankly, with an eye to adopting new things that we find are worthwhile. I think we have two different aspects here that are important to discuss. One aspect is how we affect others. Are people discarding their culture in favor of our own and if so, why? Is it beneficial for others to adopt aspects of our culture that we disagree with, and should we prevent them from doing so even if we could? As such a large, prosperous people (whether you are talking about the U.S. or about Mormons), do we carry some blame for people changing their customs to conform to our own? This aspect of our discussion is at the heart of the term Imperialism and bears careful thought and discussion. I don't think we deserve the label because we don't wield active, credible threats against others. I recognize that I've expanded my definition here based on comments by Todd and Lisa, adding the qualifiers active and credible. In doing so, I have tried to clarify what I believe is the definition of force as it applies to Imperialism in acknowledgement of the existence of non-military compulsion. The other aspect, that Lisa does so well in articulating, is the importance of our intentions and how our intentions reflect back on us. Even if we aren't Imperialistic because we lack credible, active threats, we might very well be crossing important lines by our intentions towards others. We should not judge other cultures based simply on our own cultural norms. We should welcome other viewpoints and look for the best that others have to offer us. We should not have an attitude of cultural superiority and condescension. Such attitudes are harmful to us personally and can damage our relationships with others. I want to be careful here because I don't believe in relativism and I don't believe that all cultures are good and certainly not that all cultures are equal. But we *should* be humble. We *should* be honest and open to new ideas and recognize that some people have better ideas than we do. We should *not* be telling others what they can and cannot do, though we should certainly discuss our views and invite others to accept what we hold dear. And finally, if we are going to discern for ourselves what we accept and reject, we should be careful that we are using eternal truths as our baseline and not the philosophies of men. Kathy Tyner said it well (and shorter): "[W]e LDS also need to think twice about whether we are trying to get someone to conform to a cultural norm or a Gospel principle, which if truly a Gospel principle, we would not be coercive, but gently advising with love unfeigned. . . . [W]e have to really think about what the Savior meant, he said, "If ye are not one, ye are not mine"." I think we have plenty of literature that scolds us for our weaknesses. There is plenty out there showing us the unrighteous dominion over others and the pain and suffering that brings. We've read about the pedophile Bishop and the conceited Elders' Quorum President. We have a lot of exploration of our own form of Priestcraft brought about by the use of priesthood authority to dictate the actions of others. What I would like to see is literature that can welcome the things we do right, things that explore our strengths. How can we be a missionary people and not trample the culture of our converts? How can we encourage others to follow gospel principles without enforcing our private cultural assumptions? In the history of the church, somebody *must* have done it right somewhere. I want to see that story and know how it can be done realistically, in all its complex glory. What happened with the African village where the church came in and taught them Western irrigation and farming techniques? I read an article about it at the time in the Ensign or Church News. Is that Imperialism? What effect did that *really* have on the people of that village? How did we choose *that* village and *that* method of assistance? What cultural changes were made and why and who wanted the change? We are such an active, proselytizing church that we really *do* need to explore the ways we treat other cultures and how we can fulfill God's commandment to preach unto all nations with faith and love and care. I've seen enough exploration of how we can do that wrong. Let's see how we can do that right. I've seen the villains, where are the heroes? I think that Eric Samuelsen is very good at doing this right. His plays depict tough situations and can scold our weaknesses. But he takes great pains to make sure that we simultaneously see how it is done right. In "Gadianton", we see the weak shallowness of the company president, but also the authentic devotion of the bishop (I wish I were better at remembering names). In "The Way We're Wired" we see the abuse of an (ex) husband and the damaging cultural assumptions about single people, but we also see caring people come together to help one another with love and caring. I would like more of that kind of exploration--involving people who are not just kind-hearted, but who are effective in their devotion. Too often, the sincere people in our literature are simple and ineffectual and cut-off from reality and only the villains depth. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #624 ******************************