May 23, 2013

Mormons in Hollywood

The Mormon sensibility in show biz is a long-term interest of mine. From my 2004 review in The American Conservative of Jared Hess's "Napoleon Dynamite:"
At the screening I attended, Hollywood's Bright Young Mormons were out in force as the theatre resounded with the lovely laughter of wholesome-looking starlets from the Great Basin. The twenty-something crowd found the small town misadventures and eventual triumph of an ornery high school geek (voted "Most Likely to Find Sasquatch") a cartoonish but redolent delight. This mild, PG-rated film is winning bellylaughs from gentiles under-25 too, so the studio is now rolling it out to 1,200 theatres. 
Personally, I didn't find the movie terribly funny, which made me feel downright wizened to realize that I'm too over-the-hill to get the jokes that are slaying all the Mormon hipsters. 
... One of the less remarked demographic trends is that the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite" represent the future. As coastal sophisticates fail to reproduce themselves, an ever-increasing percentage of young white people come from conservative, religious backgrounds. Mormon Utah has by far the highest birthrate, of course, but in the 2000 election, the 19 states with the highest white fertility all voted for Bush, while nine of the ten states at the bottom of the white birthrate list voted for Gore.

From this week's NYT Magazine:
When Hollywood Wants Good, Clean Fun, It Goes to Mormon Country 
Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. — a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies. Unlikely as it sounds, young Mormons are being sucked out of the middle of Utah and into the very centers of American pop-culture manufacturing. 
Praising the program in a speech on campus in 2008, the president of Pixar, Edwin Catmull, noted: “It’s the perception not just of Pixar, but also at the other studios, that something pretty remarkable is happening here.” ... 

One thing to keep in mind about BYU is that it's less stratified by SAT scores than almost all private colleges these days. The range from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of incoming freshmen's test scores is very wide. It draws both very smart Mormons and not so smart Mormons. Also, it has quite low tuition for a private college (no real secret -- it just has big average class sizes). In various ways, BYU is kind of like how American colleges are described in Heinlein novels.
The typical B.Y.U. student doesn’t seem like a natural fit for Hollywood. Mormon culture tends to see the entertainment industry as both a reflection of and contributor to our “morally bereft society,” as one alumnus put it. ... 
The B.Y.U. program is designed to be a similar kind of ethical counterweight: it’s trying to unleash values-oriented filmmakers into the industry who can inflect its sensibility.  
At first, I struggled to understand the specifics of that mission. Everyone talked about wanting to make “clean movies” or “movies I wouldn’t be afraid to take my mother to,” but these phrases were shibboleths, loaded and tough to pin down. It wasn’t simply a matter of avoiding sex and violence. (A few times, I heard even “Shrek” described disapprovingly: too many fart jokes, too much cynicism.)

In retrospect, Shrek 2 was one of the most loathsome movies I've ever seen. Not surprisingly, it made the most money of the four Shrek films. In contrast, the studios treated Shrek 4 as a throwaway and let the animators do what they wanted on a tight budget. The result was a sweet little film that the people who worked on it wouldn't be ashamed to show their grandchildren someday. Of course, it didn't make as much money as its predecessors.

In general, animated feature films have been the most gentile of genres. The two major names, artistically, have been Disney and Pixar. You can read endless debates on the Internet over whether Walt Disney was anti-Semitic or not. Like most Hollywood moguls of his time, Disney hired his relatives and in-laws as studio executives. Theoretically, the Internet could also be filled with debates over whether the other moguls, who had the same nepotistic hiring practices as Disney, were anti-gentilic, but that word doesn't exist, so the thought never occurs to anybody. I would hardly be surprised if, someday after Pixar's John Lassetter (creator of Toy Story) is out of power, the sub-quarkian post-Internet isn't roiled by endless debates over whether Lassetter was anti-Semitic.

History is written less by the victors (there weren't many bigger victors in American culture than Walt Disney) than by the writers of history.

46 comments:

Ed said...

I here all the time from Republican leaning commentators about the higher birth rates and domestic in-migration rates of red states and how they will simply outbreed and outgrow the blue staters, but although this has been going on my entire lifetime (I'm 43), they never seem to quite get there.

Of course there is a mirror argument among Democratic leaning commentators about how the shinking white percentage of the population will doom the Republican Party, and again while the white population has been shrinking for several decades, the "doom the Republican Party" part never quite seems to happen.

Steve Sailer said...

The usual line of thinking has been that Real Soon Now the arts and sciences in America will be full of Mexican superstars. After all, there are more Mexicans living with 200 miles of Hollywood and Silicon Valley alone than there are Mormons in all of America. So, simple arithmetic proves that the Dreamers will take over the creative jobs.

Dave Pinsen said...

Mormons on Wall Street now too: apparently, Goldman Sachs's fastest-growing office is now in Salt Lake City. The head of the office for some reason avoids saying the word "Mormon", but he talks about the benefit of hiring people who have had international missionary experience.

Anonymous said...

And congratulations to Mr. D. Hough for guiding Ms. Pickler to a win of "The Mirror Ball Trophy" on Dancing with the Stars! Mormon boy is the second coming of Fred Astaire! No blasphemy intended. The "Famous Mormons" web page is a help for identifying these intolerably nice people. And their revering of those who own Hollywood can't hurt their progress...

Steve Sailer said...

Back in the late 1980s, a veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist told me the best entrepreneurs to invest in were non-Mormons who grew up in Mormon neighborhoods. The demands of being an active Mormon, especially tithing, were too much, but somebody who had picked up the other Mormon virtues by osmosis was ideal.

I have no idea how true this is.

countenance said...

Dave Pinsen wrote:

Mormons on Wall Street now too: apparently, Goldman Sachs's fastest-growing office is now in Salt Lake City. The head of the office for some reason avoids saying the word "Mormon", but he talks about the benefit of hiring people who have had international missionary experience.

I respond:

This has been a point Steve Sailer has been making often in this space. Wall Street doesn't need to be on Wall Street or hire from schools close to Wall Street. That GS has an office in SLC is proof. Now, red state red team politicians need to start wielding influence to get GS to open up offices in red states and hire graduates from colleges in red states.

Anonymous said...

Has Lassetter ever worked on a character or story line sounding an even remotely recognizable anti-Semitic note, or is that just you projecting again? The guy certainly hasn't taken out a combative advertisement in the trades or gone on a drunken tirade--seems the industry's been good to him. But if Mr. Sailer's famous spidey sense detected the occluded anti-Semitic subversive tidbits in Pixar movies he might as well spill it now.

Cail Corishev said...

The main thing I notice in the animated shows I see kids watching is the cynicism you mentioned, and the sort of Daily Show-style world-weary, sneering humor. I don't know if it's targeted at the kids, or if it's to make their parents feel smart while the kids laugh at the fat jokes, but it's depressing to watch.

If you're looking for a sweet movie with really interesting animation and realism without cynicism, check out The Secret of Kells.

Kaz said...

@countenance

Wall Street does recruit in red states, in Duke, Georgia Tech, some in Texas, etc..

But there are simply less of these in the South than there are in the North.

'History is written less by the victors (there weren't many bigger victors in American culture than Walt Disney) than by the writers of history.'

I wouldn't say that the 'historians' won on that front.

Not many people care to hear about the anti-semitic history of Walt Disney, Ford, etc.. I rarely hear anyone speak of these men in a negative tone. It's mentioned, but often glazed over as just being part of the time period these men were in.

Anonymous said...

None of this should be surprising. Mormons are simply another "outcast" group that Jews can utilize to their own ends. Mormon social conservatism is no more of a deal breaker than black social conservatism, so long as they keep it relatively quiet. This explains the massive Jewish Republican support for Mitt Romney. Read the Wikipedia article on the extremely positive views Jews and Mormons have of each other.

Anonymous said...

Goldman Sachs likes to hire Mormons for the same reason the FBI likes to hire them. Goldman is growing in Salt Lake City rapidly and it is clear that much of the future investment banking analysis will be done out of SLC by Mormons

Anonymous said...

As I've said before, Pixar is a rare example of pro-natalist liberalism in action. That place is a baby incubator, from Lasseter and his five kids on down, and its best film, The Incredibles, is all about a man figuring out how to feel fulfilled in his work while being a good husband and father. And its second-best film, Finding Nemo, is about a father learning to let his kid take risks and find his own way in the world.

DR said...

"This has been a point Steve Sailer has been making often in this space. Wall Street doesn't need to be on Wall Street or hire from schools close to Wall Street. That GS has an office in SLC is proof."

Well, no not really... GS offices in far-flung locations are mainly just there to either provide investment banking to mid-tier corporates, or market to customers for brokerage or investment funds. These aren't exactly the best positions at Goldman.

If you ever read Liar's Poker, you'll remember that getting assigned to "Equities in Dallas" was basically the worst insult that could happen to someone. The trading floors and prop desks that form the core of Goldman are almost completely concentrated in Manhattan.

If anything the concentration of the high finance part of finance in Manhattan is now greater than its ever been. Below are some excerpts from a WSJ detailing just how concentrated hedge funds, particularly new hedge funds are in Manhattan:

Of the new firms starting out in Manhattan, Greenwich or Stamford, about 86% picked the Big Apple, on average, from 2003 to 2008, according to eVestment, which tracks data on about 70% of U.S. hedge-fund firms. In 2009 and 2010, Manhattan was home to an average of 92% of the fund launches. Data for 2011 suggest the trend has continued...

Still, Bank of America Corp.'s prime-brokerage consultants regularly advise new funds they work with to launch out of Manhattan—particularly in a swath of Midtown between Third Avenue and Seventh Avenue, and from 42nd Street to 62nd Street.

"That's where the golden rectangle of investors is," says Chris Throop, the bank's head of business consulting. He estimated another location could mean 10% to 20% fewer investor meetings.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324595704578242081141198410.html

Whiskey said...

I could not detect anything anti-Semitic about Lasseter. After all, his main voice workers have been Jews like Billy Crystal. Shrek, it is important to note, came out of Dreamworks not Pixar. So there is a huge difference.

I would also argue that Disney himself LOST the culture wars. After all, Disney as it stands is basically pre-teen princesses who turn into nasty "sloooots" ala South Park's episode about Paris Hilton. Go watch any Disney stuff (I've seen my fair share and then some in hospital ERs) and you'll see what I mean.

Right now, PJM/Ed Driscoll is reporting that gays are pushing to lower the age of consent to ... 14. As I predicted. Some gay girl age 18 had sex with a girl age 14 in Florida and is being prosecuted over it. That is a direct consequence of pushing and normalizing sex out the Disney Princess stuff for older tweens and teens.

I would not put too much faith (pun not intended) on Mormons bailing us out of the cultural swamp we are in. It is the function of the pill, condom, and female hypergamy thus unleashed. Its an Alpha Male world: Clinton, Edwards, "Package" Weiner, etc. Which is a female driven world. I have no doubt that the two head-hacker killers in London will have women lining up to pine for them (and more).

Against this tidal wave of female hypergamy and sexual desire unleashed and uncontrolled, Mormons have family and society. They can IMHO fight a rear-guard action at best but the thing is, they LOSE a lot of people who find the outside world and sexual fulfillment (for women particularly, not so much for beta males or 90% of White guys) far more satisfying.

Corn said...

Hollywood studios are seeking out Mormons and Goldman Sachs are branching out to MoMoLand. I hope success doesn't spoil the Mormons.

"Now, red state red team politicians need to start wielding influence to get GS to open up offices in red states and hire graduates from colleges in red states."

I would rather the red states started producing more engineers and factory-starters than moneymen.

The Five Jays said...

The not-so-big secret about Pixar is that it was an almost entirely goyishe shop:

http://mypostingcareer.com/forums/topic/5624-bravery/page__st__40#entry111964

Most of the original executives, animators, and writers were practicing Christians, some of them very conservative, like Lassater who went to Pepperdine back when it was staunchly Church of Christ.

Anonymous said...

Alice Cullen rules!

Anonymous said...

Writers of history usually come from the group that wants to win.

Anonymous said...

http://www.amren.com/news/2013/05/the-geography-of-u-s-hate-mapped-using-twitter/

hate = red

no hate = blue

David H. said...

It's a little confusing that the two senses of ‹gentile›, non-mormon and non-jewish, are both used in this post.

>In general, animated feature films have been the most gentile of genres. The two major names, artistically, have been Disney and Pixar.
True. Outside of the US, I would add Ghibli. They've proved very influential in the West (especially to Pixar, who overdub and distribute their movies here). For visual éclat they leave western animation in the dust.

Putting these two observations together, it could be that animation is so gentiley (to use Larry David's word) because the jewish visuospatial IQ is below the gentile average, which is why they're not so overrepresented there than as among, say, physicists or broadway lyricists.

We can see the same pattern with east asians, whose cognitive profile is slanted towards visuospatial intelligence and score noticeably higher than europeans.

Anonymous said...

Jews don't have much of an advantage over Gentiles in the visual arts, that's why animation isn't as Jewish-dominated as the rest of Hollywood. Another way to see this is to think about all the cartoon shows out there and note the anti-correlation between cynicism of attitude and reliance on verbal humor on one hand, and visual beauty on the other hand.

Anonymous said...

Steve and VDARE call on us to give, to sacrifice to keep their message alive.

This is win/lose thinking.

We win by keeping the VDARE alive, but we lose by diminishing our own wealth.

I propose a win/win/win approach.

1. Boycott Hollywood and the mainstream media. Cancel your cable tv subscrition, stop going to the movies, cancel your netflix subscription, stop renting from red box, cancel your MSM newspaper and magazine subscriptions.

2. Keep half of the savings.

3. Donate the other half of the savings to VDARE.com

You win three ways. You keep VDARE alive, you increase your own wealth, and you decrease the wealth of your worst enemies.

Don't sacrifice for your ideals. Force your enemies to sacrifice for your ideals!

iSteve commenters, please suggest others ways we can implement win/win/win thinking.

Anonymous said...

Good thing Lucas is a liberal and engaged to a Negress.

His many borrowings from Riefenstahl and the many racial stereotypes in STAR WARS could have gotten him in trouble had he been a card-carrying Republican.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLhLn9hVkE

This is really cool stuff.

anony-mouse said...

http://www.cracked.com/video_18579_if-disney-songs-were-historically-accurate.html

Anonymous said...

There used to be a time when 'antisemitic' meant you either hated all Jews or blamed everything on Jews.

Now, not being sufficiently pro-Jewish is enough for you to be 'antisemitic'. Even if a politician doesn't oppose Israel, his failure to wave the AIPAC flag could lead to the charge of being anti-Jewish.

Same thing with the homo issue. It's not enough for you to tolerate homos. You MUST WELCOME, PRAISE, AND HONOR them. Otherwise, you are a closet-homophobe. Indeed, you are 'less evolved'.

Good behavior isn't enough. You must show excitement and enthusiasm.
It's like it wasn't enough to accept the reality of communism in Stalin's USSR. You had to show proper enthusiasm for Stalin or else you were a saboteur.

It's like the hapless guy who loses his head in SHOGUN. He didn't say anything nasty or hostile to the samurai named Omi. He merely failed to bow and show proper respect; that was enough for him to be decapitated. He wasn't anti-samurai but he wasn't sufficiently pro-samurai either.

So, even if a prominent figure isn't openly anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist, if he's not sufficiently pro-Jewish or pro-Zionist enough, he is suspect as a 'crypto-Nazi'.

Same with MLK. It's not enough to not say bad things about him. Indeed, it's not even enough for you to say good things about him. You must say great things about him, get on your knees and weep tears and speak in hushed reverential tones. If you don't, you are a 'racist'.

So, while Disney may have been suspected of antisemitism because of what he may have done or said, Lasseter and others could come under suspicion merely for what they didn't do.

It's like even if you don't make anti-black movies, if your movies are not sufficiently black enough, you could be charged with 'racism'.

Anonymous said...

don bluth (a mormon) left disney back in the late 70s or early 80s to make "the secret of NIMH" (a family friendly animated film) & went on to make other movies. the mormon guy who made mormon movies for a while (army of god, etc.) is no longer an active mormon. aaron eckhart went to BYU (no longer an active mormon). i got a couple of grad degrees at BYU in the 80s (but - you guessed it - am no longer an active mormon)!

Anonymous said...

Somewhat o/t but "wholesome" entertainment such as Disney is really creepy. It was all my parents would let us watch and I think it warped the hell out of us. Any kid who's not a moron can see how phony it is.

The surface is wholesome, but underneath it's rotten. Hunting is a great way for blue-collar country people to get protein, but with Disney- "Bambi"- it's evil. Nice upper middle-class girls getting knocked up by charming bums is a parent's nightmare, but with Disney- "Lady and the Tramp"- it's romantic. Elderly, illiterate farm laborers are sources of deep wisdom- "Song of the South". (How is this movie racist? It's pretty much straight-up pro-black propaganda. I'll skip the princess movies, plenty has been said about them.

Anonymous said...

Mormons can't be all bad because a Mormon author created Alice Cullen, the bestest friend in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6YVy0cvzlQ

Anonymous said...

"Hunting is a great way for blue-collar country people to get protein, but with Disney- "Bambi"- it's evil."

A lot of people hunt for sport.
Also, whatever value the meat might have for humans, it's sad for animals to get killed. This is true within nature as well. Wolves gotta eat but when they bring down a moose or caribou, it's a sad sight.

David said...

>young Mormons are being sucked out of the middle of Utah and into the very centers of American pop-culture manufacturing<

>apparently, Goldman Sachs's fastest-growing office is now in Salt Lake City<

Either the Mormons are innocents who are being corrupted, or else they are eagerly seeking corruption.

Anonymous said...

"The surface is wholesome, but underneath it's rotten. Hunting is a great way for blue-collar country people to get protein, but with Disney- "Bambi"- it's evil. Nice upper middle-class girls getting knocked up by charming bums is a parent's nightmare, but with Disney- "Lady and the Tramp"- it's romantic. Elderly, illiterate farm laborers are sources of deep wisdom- "Song of the South". (How is this movie racist? It's pretty much straight-up pro-black propaganda. I'll skip the princess movies, plenty has been said about them."

You've cherry picked the worst of Disney. What's wrong with Disney era Disney - Snow White, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Old Yeller, Darby O'Gill, Shaggy Dog, not to mention all the Mickey, Donald, Goofy cartoons?

If you think that's bad, take a look at Warner Brothers cartoons.

I am a parent and I've found much that is good about Disney. It is very difficult to find material that was produced post 1970 that I approve of letting my children watch, whether by Disney or anyone else.

Matthew said...

"Mormons on Wall Street now too: apparently, Goldman Sachs's fastest-growing office is now in Salt Lake City."

Uh, yeah sure. I briefly shared an office with Goldman Sachs in Salt Lake, until they moved into the most expensive office building in probably all of Utah. The staff was very, very Indian. It may have been half white or more, but given the fact that the Indians had obviously been recruited from elsewhere, I assume that's also true of much of the white staff. The G.S. staff in Salt Lake may be no more Mormon than the starting line-up of the Utah Jazz.

"Back in the late 1980s, a veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist told me the best entrepreneurs to invest in were non-Mormons who grew up in Mormon neighborhoods."

Or it may have had more to do with the fact that the University of Utah in the 70s was one of the prime hotspots for computer technology. Ed Catmull (Pixar), Alan Kay (Apple), Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics, etc.), Alan Ashton (WordPerfect), Nolan Bushnell (Atari), and John Warnock (Adobe) all did their grad work there.

" I hope success doesn't spoil the Mormons."

It already has. Jeff Flake and Orrin Hatch both voted the amnesty bill out of committee. Both had elections in 2012. Both lied their asses off claiming they opposed amnesty. The Mormon Church has no official position on immigration/amnesty, but unofficially everybody knows they're pro-immivasion.

Matthew said...

You can't really speak of Disney anymore as a gentile shop - certainly not since the late 80s, at least. Disney's animation renaissance came under Michael Eisner (Jewish), Jeffrey Katzenberg (Jewish), and Howard Ashman (Jewish).

Ashman was the lyricist and producer behind The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin - and he did all that before he was 41, when he died of AIDs. Roy Disney allegedly claimed Ashman had more influence on Disney than anyone but Walt himself.

"Hunting is a great way for blue-collar country people to get protein, but with Disney- "Bambi"- it's evil."

When I think of hunters in Disney movies, I think of Gaston. Not a good image, that one. Ashman's lyrics in the opening song are pretty subversive: Belle's basically bitching about how the people in small towns are mostly just a bunch of illiterate, small-minded, backwoods hicks. Is it shocking that a gay man would make a guy like Gaston the villain? Nope, not at all.

Dave Pinsen said...

"The surface is wholesome, but underneath it's rotten. Hunting is a great way for blue-collar country people to get protein, but with Disney- "Bambi"- it's evil. Nice upper middle-class girls getting knocked up by charming bums is a parent's nightmare, but with Disney- "Lady and the Tramp"- it's romantic."

Whit Stillman beat you to it by 15 years.

Prof. Woland said...

I am in financial services and a lot of insurance companies, banks, actuaries, insurance and pension TPAs, and other "back office" operations are located in fly over country. Much of the work is handled via internet and telephone anyway so there is absolutely no reason to pay for class A space in a coastal city somewhere. For that matter, there is no reason to over pay the executives who are top heavy and not necessary for such run of the mill work. They can keep good staff at all levels and not have to pay a fortune like in the big city. It does not hurt that they have the values and communication skills that are increasingly rare. One of the dirty secrets of my business is that brokers rarely lose a pension account due to the returns on the funds. It is always the due to the lack of competence of the TPA that fucked things up.

Matthew said...

"One thing to keep in mind about BYU is that it's less stratified by SAT scores than almost all private colleges these days. The range from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of incoming freshmen's test scores is very wide. It draws both very smart Mormons and not so smart Mormons."

I don't know why any smart Mormon would want to go to BYU. My brother and sister went there, and they both hated it.

Turning 18 and going to college is about learning who you are and what you believe. It's one thing to attend a religious university that takes religion seriously, but by all reports religion at BYU is taken a little too seriously. They presume you already know what you believe, and questioning the church or deviating much from the script isn't allowed.

When I asked my older brother, who could've gone to far better colleges than BYU, why he hated it there, he responded, "Do you have friends at high school who aren't Mormon? Do you like that they have different outlooks on life than you?" "Yes," I replied. "Well you won't have many friends like that at BYU." I went to college elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

"...for the same reason the FBI likes to hire them."

Same with the CIA and Edward Luttwak doesn't like it.

"The Mormons and cow-college graduates who have come to fill the ranks of the Directorate of Operations since the Ivy League's post-Vietnam desertion are simply too provincial for the basic craft of the espionage trade, the recruitment and handling of foreigners as agents." -Edward Luttwak

Anonymous said...

"Goldman Sachs likes to hire Mormons for the same reason the FBI likes to hire them."

Competing with all those Armenians, Lebanese, Indians etc who play by the same rules getting them down?

.
"are simply too provincial for the basic craft of the espionage trade, the recruitment and handling of foreigners as agents." -Edward Luttwak"

He means too honest. They can do it but you have to make it a game.

Harry Baldwin said...

I found "Napoleon Dynamite" very funny, but while it's never vulgar or offensive it does deliver a liberal message.

White-bread (bred) blond girl running for class president is classic negative stereotype. She loses election to the low-charisma Pedro, a Mexican immigrant. Yay!

Bullies are white jocks. Pedro's gang-banger cousins are used to intimidate the bullies. Yay!

Napoleon's nerd brother Kip finds love with a black girl from the city, Lafawnduh, who gets him to act black. Yay!

Funny, but very pro-multi-culti.

onotern said...

Bank of America Corp.'s prime-brokerage consultants regularly advise new funds ...

Anyone else find that line funny?

JI said...

The reason the Mormons are getting into the movie business in a big way is simple - that's where the money is in our post-manufacturing economy. Mormons will do anything for money since their religion allows them to profit from sin. They can't consume alcohol, coffee, tea or tobacco, or watch porn, but they sure as heck can make money by selling those things to others.

Anonymous said...

already has. Jeff Flake and Orrin Hatch both voted the amnesty bill out of committee. Both had elections in 2012. Both lied their asses off claiming they opposed amnesty. The Mormon Church has no official position on immigration/amnesty, but unofficially everybody knows they're pro-immivasion. The worst was the state of Texas on illegal immirgation, Bush, Perry and now the died Bob Perry. He was a Texas developer that changed the construcation industry in Texas and he gave a lot of money to Bush and the Swift Boat Ads were from money from Bob Perry. The Texas Republican Platfrom wanted the Utah guestworker program and Utah is still only 15 percent Mexican compared to Texas's 38 percent. Also, teen marrieds have dropped out of Utah and less teens having babies. Texas top all states in teen births with 43,000 because of the high Hispanic population about 2/3's. What good news is that Hispanic teen births dropped from75 per 1,000 to 49 per 1,000 in the past 5 years.

Anonymous said...

Also, Mormons unlike Evangelicals practice what they preach more and Evangelical leadership from Richard Land to Rick Warren also believes in legalizing millions of Hispanics since Hispanics have went into evangelical churches. People here like the evangelicals better because they based is more against it but they leadership supports the gang of 8 bill. I agree with the Eastern Orthodox guy here that his church as little to gain by illegal immirgation since most illegals immirgants are Roman Catholic or Evangelical and a few mormon. the Orthodox Church has about the least but their leadership is liberal on these issues but the church leadership in the Eastern Orthodox churches are more interested in the enviroment and so forth than legal or illegal immirgation issues.

Matthew said...

The question that remains hanging in the air is...if Mormons are at all influential in film, why is "Napoleon Dynamite" - released 9 years ago - the last Mormon-made movie to cause a stir (unless you count "2016: Obama's America" by by Gerald Molen)?

Mormons are under-represented in film by my estimate, even after accounting for the over-representation of Jews. While Mormonism has a lot of good values, it is entirely too conventional - has elevated conventionality almost to a commandment. The Church is pretty damn clear about what righteous Mormon men are expected to do: graduate from high school, go on a mission, then get married ASAP - no time for adventure, no time for risk taking, no time for thinking for yourself.

Mormonism is basically a narrow little cultural cul de sac which, despite its many positives, takes good minds and obsessively beats into them a tiny handful of topics - how many times can you hear about the pioneers crossing the plains? - while ignoring the larger, more fascinating, more ancient aspects of Christianity. It is isolated both physically and intellectually from the mainstream of Western thought, and that's why Mormons will never be a major force in Hollywood.

Dr Van Nostrand said...

plains? - while ignoring the larger, more fascinating, more ancient aspects of Christianity. It is isolated both physically and intellectually from the mainstream of Western thought,

Thats what Christians said about Jews and now look at them. Although they main gripe with them was that Jews focussed too much on the ancient aspects of Christianity!