By Mathew N. Schmalz
I. DO MORMONS LAUGH?
With the success of The Book of Mormon musical, Elna Baker’s memoir The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, and the editorial cartoons proliferating in the wake of Mormon presidential candidates’ campaigns, making fun of Mormons seems to have hit the big time.1 Some consider this phenomenon a sign that Mormons have “arrived”; others view it as just another iteration of the media playing fast and loose with Mormon stereotypes, the only difference being that the wild-eyed, bearded polygamist has been succeeded by the bespectacled, clean-cut Mormon missionary.
But do Mormons make fun of themselves? They do; and the humor that has arisen from Mormon culture provides insight into Mormonism’s sense of itself, which is both interesting and oddly compelling to an outsider like me (a Catholic), trying to understand LDS culture.
“Missionary Position” Allegedly Inappropriate.
OGDEN, UT—Sister Stella Reeves of the Ogden 44th Ward is circulating a petition asking for church leaders to rename the missionary position.
“Everyone knows missionaries shouldn’t even be having sex, so the very name promotes sin,” says Reeves. “Missionaries don’t need any excuses to fool around.”
Reeves suggests that the church change the name to the bishop’s position, the celestial position, or the one right and true position for husbands and wives eternally married and wanting to conceive children.2
Is this funny?
The answer partially depends on who’s listening and who’s laughing. But, laughter aside, if we look at the joke from the perspective of Sigmund Freud, still the definitive authority on the dynamics of joke-telling, we will see that it is a very well-constructed joke. It plays with words, creating a space for the subconscious to release repressed sexual feelings and hostile emotions—the very feelings and emotions that provide the energy for all forms of humor.
The “Missionary Position” news nugget is from The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer, a compilation of Mormon humor from a website called The Sugar Beet. From a strictly stylistic perspective, much of The Sugar Beet is satire, and Freudian understandings of joke-telling and its dynamics will show us how and why this satire works. I admit that the connection between Mormon humor and Sigmund Freud might seem like a joke itself, but Freud’s ideas, particularly because they are controversial, provide a useful method for understanding what the “Mormon subconscious” looks like. So with the cigar-chomping Austrian as our guide, let’s probe beneath the surface of how and why Mormons might laugh at the humor of The Sugar Beet.
II. WHY MORMONS LAUGH
In order for societies to survive, Freud argued, human beings must relinquish the right to spontaneously give in to their basic instincts for food and sex. Thus, life is a constant battle to keep these drives at bay—to repress them. Religion and morality play a crucial role in this struggle by not only providing means for repression but also by setting contexts for safely discharging or channeling these repressed instincts. The unconscious is the storage bin, like an attic or a cellar, for all these repressed instincts. The psychical energy humans expend to repress socially unacceptable instincts is always great and often not sufficient for the task. Thus, our cunning subconscious is always on the lookout for the opportunity to circumvent the strictures set to contain it.
In Freud’s view, jokes evoke pleasure by accessing modes of pleasure that are normally inaccessible.3 The pleasure of a joke is proportional to the amount of repression it relieves: the more psychical energy released from repression, the louder the laugh and the greater the pleasure. Freud argues that the joke-teller is seducing the audience to his or her side through an implicit offer of pleasure. Teller and audience become allies against the person or institution being ridiculed. The best jokes are “tendentious”—having a definite purpose.4
The most obvious expression of this complex dynamic comes in jokes involving what Freud would call “smut”5—material that the social structure judges borderline obscene. Now, given the LDS culture’s strong prohibitions against swearing and against speech that does not treat sexuality in a reverential manner associated exclusively with marriage, “smut” and “Mormon” hardly go together. Indeed, the strict Mormon boundaries around sexuality would easily qualify it as a repressive environment in Freud’s eyes. He would likely argue that Mormon encouragement for early marriage is an understandable—even necessary—outlet for the sexual energy that the Church so assiduously represses in other contexts. But this outlet is not enough; there has to be some kind of “Mormon smut” that will allow covert expression and discharge of libidinous energies. Let’s look at the Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer again:
What Positions Are We Trying
from the Mormon Kama Sutra?Retention and Reactivation
The Stripling Warrior
Urim and Thummim
I Have Two Little Hands
The Second Coming
Hie to Kolob
The PPI
I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go
“Give,” Said the Little Stream
The Burning Bush
A Banner Is Unfurled
The Secret Combination
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Come, Thou Font of Every Blessing
Hold to the Rod
Rameumptom6
This is high-end Mormon smut. More specifically, this is what Freud would call an “exposure joke.”7 It exposes, in a protected form, repressed sexual impulses. The brilliance of the joke is that it points out how crucial images within the LDS tradition can be imbued with sexual meaning. Indeed, apart from any effort made at humor, Freud himself would probably find great significance in the term “rod of iron” or the onomatopoetic “Rameumptom.” However, since those two terms can be easily linked to sexual images, they are actually less likely to evoke laughter from readers; sexual imagery is more humorous, the more covert it is. This joke’s potency relies largely on its using Mormon terms in contexts for which they were never intended, lending it an almost blasphemous quality. The only reason the writers are at all willing to voice the joke is because in the face of frowning authority, they can always protest, “I was only joking.”
One of Freud’s central observations is that humor provides a context in which the unspeakable can be spoken of. This applies not only to sexuality but also to hostile emotions. In addition to being chaste, Mormons are known for being relentlessly “nice” to everyone and diligently obedient to Church leaders. For this reason, many acculturated Mormons have trouble expressing angry feelings. What follows would be a textbook “hostile joke” in the Freudian sense.8
Area Man Believes Sheri Dew Is Condoleezza Rice.
MANTI, UTAH—Local resident Carl Sagers has put forward a theory that some experts are finding unexpectedly plausible: well-known Mormon women’s leader and Deseret Book executive Sheri Dew is leading a double life as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“Dew can rise only so far inside Mormonism,” says Sagers. “To fulfill her ambitions, she puts on black face and jumps into the national arena as Condoleezza.”
Sagers has produced a chart showing that neither woman’s public appearances have ever overlapped with each other. “When Dew disappears on some kind of mysterious business trip, that’s when Rice starts showing up in the media visiting all these hotspots around the world,” Sagers asserts.
In addition, he believes the name “Condoleezza” reveals clues to the Dew connection. “Dew owns a ‘condo’ and has a niece named ‘Eliza’—it’s not too much of a stretch to combine those two names. The double ZZ could reflect the boredom she feels in her Mormon role.”
When asked about the allegation, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, “Hah, that’s a hoot. As if a Mormon black woman could ever gain such a high office.”9
This joke has multiple targets. The first is obviously Sheri Dew, a controversial figure within and without the LDS Church.10 Here, she is being targeted for her ambition by being linked to Condoleezza Rice, another prominent woman who some feel has sacrificed principle for ambition. And both Rice and Dew are single, a status that has social implications about their ambition and sexuality. The joke also criticizes the limited roles granted to women by the patriarchal structure of the LDS Church. Then the article links the LDS Church to the Republican administration under George W. Bush, casting it as a repressive equivalent. But the denouement of the joke is perhaps its best part: being black, a woman, and Mormon are presented as being the equivalent of “three strikes and you’re out.” The absurdity is not Sheri Dew going out in blackface or even that she might be Condoleezza Rice; the absurdity is that someone who is black, female and Mormon could ever become secretary of state. As Freud writes about hostile jokes:
The prevention of invective or of insulting rejoinders by external circumstances is such a common case that tendentious jokes are especially favored in order to make aggressiveness or criticism possible against persons in exalted positions who claim to exercise authority. The joke then represents a rebellion against that authority, a liberation from its pressure. The charm of caricatures lies in this same factor: we laugh at them even if they are unsuccessful simply because we count rebellion against authority as merit.11
Hostile jokes are closely related to cynical jokes. While hostile jokes have people as their object, cynical jokes aim at institutions.12 What follows is a quite complex example of a cynical joke:
HMO Bans Preexistent Conditions.
SANDY, UT—In an effort to brake ever-increasing health insurance expenses, especially for psychotropic drugs such as Prozac, Utah-based Altius Healthcare Corporation is no longer honoring claims for conditions arising from a person’s spiritual preexistence, prior to coming to this earth.
“We have a new rubric that helps us determine when a mental or physical condition stems from a person’s personality or covenants as determined during premortality,” said Altius CEO Jeffrey Bangerter, who recently completed a three-year term serving as an LDS mission president in Angola. “We’re here to help people with health problems that arise spontaneously in this fallen world. When someone faces some inherent spiritual flaw such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder or contracts a disease that is a predetermined part of their mortal program, they need to either get healed by their bishop or endure to the end. It doesn’t do any good to incur needless medical expenses.”
Bangerter cites the example of Charles Yates of Riverton, Utah, who came down with leukemia three years ago. “He spent the first year relying upon the arm of flesh by patronizing doctors and hospitals, and he almost lost his life before his appointed time,” said Bangerter. “But in doing some soul-searching, Charles realized that this disease was something he previously agreed to endure as part of his earthly challenge. When he exercised his faith enough to rely solely upon blessings from his bishop, the disease went into remission for two full years before taking him. What an inspiration to us all!”13
Cynical jokes are told in order to undermine the authority of institutions by attacking their ideology. This joke is particularly clever because it foregrounds an easy target—a greedy HMO—thus easily enlisting the audience as an ally. The real target, of course, is aspects of LDS theology that can be deployed to dismiss the reality of human suffering. It targets the somewhat Hindu idea that our problems on earth come about because of decisions we made in the previous life. It also targets Church authorities by casting the bishop in a role of a prolonger instead of an alleviator of pain. Overall, the joke critiques the Mormon version of salvation as an essentially exploitative capitalist economy that preaches the survival of the fittest.
From Freud’s perspective, jokes are also commentaries on the human condition. To varying degrees, we must all subject ourselves to reason—and in doing so give up a variety of pleasures. This never-ending string of compromises leaves us with a deep, and usually unacknowledged, urge to return to a child-like state of freedom and pure egoism. In service of this urge are what Freud calls skeptical jokes: those that question our attempts to understand what is going on around us.14
Though We Didn’t Seem to Be Listening, We Really Were.
Guest Columnists:
Brother Mack’s Young Men Class
Dear Brother Mack,
We are writing you this letter because we realize that you probably thought your time as our Young Men instructor was a complete waste. You came to church every Sunday with a lesson prepared for us. But despite your efforts, we never seemed to listen. Most likely you went home disheartened because you could not reach us. No doubt you yearned to share your knowledge and testimony with us. But our bad behavior thwarted you every time.
Well, to tell you the truth, Brother Mack, we really were listening. It may have looked to you like we were pretending to sleep and making loud snoring noises and calling out Lara Croft’s name in our sleep, but we really were listening. And we thank you for all you taught us.
We’re sure you remember the class when we pretended to be playing Death Pit Xtreme 5: Fountains of Blood on imaginary Playstations, completely ignoring you and making fighting noises so loudly that we disturbed the other classes around us, forcing the bishop to chastise you for your inability to control us. But you can rest easy, because we really were listening. And now, three years later, we still remember your lesson that day.15
This joke creates a bond with two groups: those who have taught a Sunday school class and those who have deliberately tortured a Sunday school teacher—in other words, all of Christendom. Acknowledgment of both guilt and repressed hostility come together to release psychical energy in the form of laughter. To this extent, the joke is both a hostile and cynical joke; later on, even smutty elements arise.
But perhaps the joke’s main focus concerns what Freud would call wish fulfillment: it calls attention to something we all would like to be true. Whether Sunday school teachers or college professors like me, we all have ample evidence that no one listens to a word we say. Because of this dispiriting knowledge, we are especially vulnerable to the wiles of people who tell us what we want to hear about ourselves: that we are interesting. By presenting an absurd letter to “Brother Mack,” the joke reveals our very human wish to be affirmed. It also reveals the tension between that wish and cold, hard reality—between what we would like to see and what actually stands in front of us.
III. LAUGHING WITH MORMONS
Freud helps us see that Mormon humor helps Latter-day Saints continue in the Church by discharging the energy associated with their repressed instincts, their sexuality, and their egos as they participate in a hierarchical institution that limits certain forms of personal expression and gender roles. Humor creates a relatively safe place within these structures for the expression of impulses and opinions otherwise circumscribed or forbidden.
But no one should conclude from the foregoing that the humor of The Sugar Beet is destructive. On the contrary, Freud helps us see that it is profoundly constructive. Freud himself reflected deeply on how Jewish humor reaffirmed bonds within the community. The same can be said for the humor of The Sugar Beet. A shared knowledge is required in order for the humor to be effective. Mormon humor does criticize and critique, but it also reaffirms the bonds of being Mormon and the power of a shared and distinctive culture.
By way of conclusion, I want to share a major reservation I had while writing this article. As I reflected on my childhood—something Freud would find significant—I remembered that often when people would make fun of me, they’d say, “Mathew, we’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing with you.” The problem was—I wasn’t laughing.
Indeed, while Freud is a proponent of humor, he also warns us of its darker side. One of my concerns in writing about the humor of The Sugar Beet was that it might seem that I, a non-Mormon, am laughing at, not with, Mormons. In response, I want to say that in laughing along with The Sugar Beet jokes, I feel that I am laughing with Mormons. Why? Because when I “get” the joke, I feel as though the distance between Mormons and Catholics is temporarily closed. I was particularly pleased, for example, when I picked up the reference to the Rameumptom—the “holy stand” mentioned in Alma 31:21. Of course, many parallel jokes in my own Catholic tradition poke fun at Catholic attitudes about sexuality, authority, and gender. In this spirit, I end with a faux advertisement from The Sugar Beet that offers Latter-day Saints and Catholics an opportunity to see part of themselves in each other—and to have a good laugh.
NOTES
1. For a discussion of whether The Book of Mormon musical is funny, see the discussion, “‘The Book of Mormon’: Is Faith Funny?” The Washington Post: On Faith, 13 June 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/the-book-of-mormon-is-faith-funny/2011/06/13/AGOZcWTH_blog.html (accessed 21 November 2011).
2. Christopher Kimball Bigelow, ed. The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer, (Salt Lake City: Pince-Nez Press, 2007), 27.
3. Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, translated by James Strachey (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 147.
3. Freud, Jokes, 145.
4. Freud, Jokes, 140–46.
5. Freud, Jokes, 136.
6. Freud, Jokes, 141–42.
7. On hostile jokes, see Freud, Jokes, 146–49.
8. “Area Man Believes Sheri Dew Is Condoleezza Rice,” The Sugar Beet, http://sugar-beet.blogspot.com/2006/02/area-man-believes-sheri-dew-is.html (accessed 21 November 2011).
9. For a vigorous defense of Sheri Dew, see Lee Davidson, “Deseret Book President Attacked Unfairly,” Deseret News, 17 March 2004, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/595049466/Deseret-Book-president-attacked-unfairly.html (accessed 21 November 2011).
10. Freud, Jokes, 149.
11. On cynical jokes, see Freud, Jokes, 155–61.
12. “HMO Bans Preexistent Conditions,” The Sugar Beet, http://sugar-beet.blogspot.com/2007/02/hmo-bans-preexistent-conditions.html (accessed 21 November 2011).
13. On skeptical jokes, see Freud, Jokes, 161.
14. “Though We Didn’t Seem to Be Listening, We Really Were,” The Sugar Beet, http://sugar-beet.blogspot.com/2005/08/though-we-didnt-seem-to-be-listening.html (accessed 21 November 2011).
