Do Mormons deserve good PR?
On the cognitive dissonance at play with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
The reality TV genre of “Rich Wife-core” may have a new hit on its hands: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu. I regret to inform haters of reality TV that may read this Substack that it is fantastic — it’s the exact strain of brain rot that I find entertaining, sorry!!!
The eight-episode series follows eight women who are members of “#MomTok,” a troupe of Mormon moms on TikTok who have created a brand around softening the perception of the Mormon religion to the public. They do this by creating fun, dancey, and humorous videos to endear each of their personalities to their followers. The show begins in the aftermath of what pseudo-protagonist Taylor Frankie Paul called a “soft swinging scandal,” wherein she blew the lid off MomTok by disclosing that she, other members of MomTok1, and their husbands had swapped partners. They apparently did everything up to penetration, hence “soft swinging.”
Yet, this clearly was just a selling point for the show, because the conflicts across the season mostly2 had nothing to do with anything that preceded filming. The main conflicts revolved around de-facto villain Whitney and her self-isolation from the group, Taylor and her baby-daddy Dakota’s toxic relationship, and Jen Affleck (different Jen, same Afflecks!) being subjected to her controlling husband’s bullshit.
I’ll admit, I had trouble getting invested at first because it was hard to tell most of the wives apart (one cast member even remarks that Mormon communities have a lot of blondes), but by episode 3 I was locked in. Episode 4 was when shit got into high gear — and when I finally could tell the wives apart, thanks to totally-not-producer-provided black sweatshirts with each of their names on them.
By this point, the cast was neatly categorized for viewers into two groups:
The saints: These are the women who believe MomTok should reflect positively on the Mormon faith in society. They are committed to the status quo and the opinions of other Mormons.
The sinners: These are the women who believe MomTok should bend tradition and modernize Mornonism for their audience. They are open to the opinions of non-Mormons.
Episode by episode, I got more invested in the key plotlines. I felt myself warming to the women, especially Demi and Jessi, who are two of the realest bitches on reality TV, period. These two specifically used words like “typical Mormon man,” “controlling,” “narcissistic,” and “misogyny” to describe spouses Zac and Dakota. I was gobsmacked — these women, who are my age, seem not too unlike me. They are aware of the archaic traditions of their religion and want to change them for the better. I’m sure they are imperfect, perhaps even overall conservative (too early to tell for some), but I found myself identifying with their opinions and sass as portrayed on the show.
Finishing the series, I felt…strange. I wasn’t expecting to like anyone on this show, because they’re Mormons! Mormons be crazy amirite?? If this series was a secret psy-op to get people to sympathize with Mormons, I’ll be honest, it might have worked. But do they deserve that sympathy?
Anything I’ve learned about Mormonism, up until this show, has been against my will. Our preconceived notions about Mormons are that they are, somehow, whiter and more fundamentalist than the most devout Christians. They exist in the vacuums of their own communities, untouched by the sins of society at large. We categorize them as religious outcasts in the vein of the Amish and Scientologists. When someone leaves the religion, it’s treated as a betrayal of an entire community; you can’t casually check out, as is more common with other faiths.
Considering it broadly, the marginalization of Mormonism in America makes sense. The Book of Mormon is comparatively a very young holy text, coming to prominence only in the 19th century; it doesn’t have centuries of followers to legitimize it as other theologies do. But, like Christianity and Catholicism, the the Mormon Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) has had its share of criminal coverups of sexual abuses. And, like other religions, subscribes to sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. I have to again point out, as well, that the thing about Mormonism that is most off-putting to me is how white it is; at least with other faiths, there’s more diverse followings that can change the flavor of the religion somewhat. Mormonism is the Wonder bread among them all. Though, I’d be remiss to not mention Mormon Wives’ attempt to complicate even this stereotype, by including two wives with parents of color.
Let’s be honest, though: all of this is pretty par for the course for religions across the world. I can’t think of a religion that hasn’t been founded upon or warped by patriarchal, cishetero systems of oppression. This hasn’t stopped people from all backgrounds from devoting themselves to a church. Individuals and societies have cherry-picked the parts of their chosen sects to subscribe to for centuries. Religion has been used to justify atrocities and uplift liberation movements, and followers have reconciled their cognitive dissonance about what it’s all “really” about so they can sleep at night. On a micro level, this is what the women MomTok are trying to do. And, I guess similarly, what many viewers did in order to enjoy the series.
The sinners continue to stay in the Church because of their faith in God, despite their disagreement with the misogynistic leanings of Mormon culture. The saints remain steadfast in their strict interpretation of their holy text, and must confront the fact that others don’t want to live as rigidly as they do. Audiences witness it all, knowing what we know about how fucked Mormon society is, and choose to be entertained anyway. Allowances all around.
On principle, I don’t think Mormonism deserves positive shine. It, like so many other faiths, has too much blood on its hands for that. Yet I don’t think good PR is necessarily the goal of Mormon Wives. The Church is certainly a character on the show; it looms over everything that the women do. But it’s also the central antagonist (yes, even more than Whitney), the friction that brushes up against each woman’s sense of self and their place in the group. I’m not sure I can fault any one of them for staying true to being Mormon; I’ve known very kind Catholics who have remained faithful as their priests or neighbors committed hate crimes in Jesus’ name. Anger at the transgressions of the few shouldn’t be taken out on the many, but! It is the responsibility of the many to call those in who are misconstruing their divination to harm others, and change the perception of what it means to practice that religion. In their own small way, the women of MomTok might be doing just that. And not for nothing, the show’s existence is stirring heated discussions within the Mormon community.
MomTok doesn’t deserve our pity or applause for being “cool” Mormons. They miiiight deserve at least two more seasons though. Just to see what will happen, why not?
From what I skimmed online, I believe there are other members of MomTok that opted not to appear on the show. We’re led to believe the swinging involved these women, as exactly zero of the other women on the show admitted to engaging in anything Taylor referenced in her original expose.
The season did end on a cliffhanger regarding Taylor’s baby daddy cheating on her before the show started. That’s how you end a first season!!!