Did Someone Say Book of Mormon?!

Avid readers of the Law Weekly (I assume you exist) have probably noticed that when we publish after a break, the content tends to be . . . special. Convincing busy law students to write during their one-week reprieve from the spring semester is no easy feat. We encourage editors to write about what they did over spring break to make things easier.

Hence why I’m writing a review of a decade-old musical. The Book of Mormon has been playing at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre since it premiered there in 2011. I had the pleasure of seeing it during my visit to New York over the break.

As an aging gay man who spends more and more time in NYC, I’ve begun to develop a taste for Broadway shows. For me, The Book of Mormon is a (qualified) hit. With its catchy songs and frequent laughs, it’s no wonder the musical is among the most successful of all time.

The play owes its popularity—I can only assume—in no small part to the writers’ irreverent humor. Written by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with Robert Lopez of Avenue Q, the play is replete with profanity, digs at organized religion, and trampling of political correctness—a hook for even musical-averse viewers.

Despite its irreverence, the play is not entirely cynical. Much like South Park, The Book of Mormon sneaks a blaring liberal message into a script that is written to offend liberal audiences’ sensibilities. Unsurprisingly, the play has been criticized for its racist depiction of Ugandans, both at the time of its release and in recent years. The play was even revised when, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Black cast members wrote a letter warning that “when the show returns, all of our work will be viewed through a new lens.”

Even after the revisions, I left with ambivalent feelings about the play’s message. As anyone who has spent a Monday evening in the Law Weekly office will know, I am not easily put off by irreverence. I can’t help but level a “Come on, really?” at critics who deride the play for flouting political correctness.[1] At one point, the Mormon missionaries—all white men—gleefully sing “We are Africa.” If you feel uncomfortable, you’re supposed to. Just laugh! A little satire won’t hurt you.

The play’s ironic deployment of racist humor—while admittedly funny—fails to move beyond superficial absurdism. In the end, The Book of Mormon never subverts what it’s satirizing. Take for instance the play’s fourth musical number, “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” explicitly a riff on The Lion King’s “Hakuna Matata.” The Ugandan villagers—suffering from famine, war, AIDs, and female genital mutilation—introduce the recently arrived Mormon missionaries, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, to a local idiom meaning “f*** you, God.” By highlighting the Ugandans’ suffering, the song pokes fun at The Lion King’s problematic “noble savage” myth. For these villagers, Africa is not a land of no worries.

But Mormon’s answer to The Lion King’s gross oversimplification is nothing more than an oversimplification of its own. The noble savage is replaced with a caricature of a suffering African. Moreover, the musical’s generic depiction of Africans contrasts with its relatively well-researched satire of Mormon beliefs.[2] At one point, the play recounts a humorous, partially accurate history of Mormonism, explaining Joseph Smith’s legendary discovery of the golden plates that inspired the real Book of Mormon. By contrast, viewers learn next to nothing about Uganda. Instead, we learn—repeatedly—that the village doctor has maggots in his scrotum. The obvious disparity in the treatment of Mormons and Ugandans cheapens the satirical message. Far from using the play as an opportunity to correct the audience’s stereotypical views of Africa, Parker and Stone contribute to the ignorance that they deride.

Despite these problems, the play comes close to telling a successful story about the power of faith that evolves through the collaboration of the faithful. The play is bookended by two symmetrical musical numbers, “Hello!” and “Tomorrow is a Latter Day.” In the first, Mormon missionaries sing as they go door-to-door spreading the Book of Mormon. By the end, the American Mormons and the Ugandans are now going door-to-door together, promoting the newly created Book of Arnold (named for the uncouth missionary, Elder Cunningham).

In the play’s second act, Elder Cunningham, a pathological liar who has never actually read the Book of Mormon, tries to teach Ugandans about Mormonism. But faced with the challenge of promoting a faith he knows little about, Cunningham fabricates stories based on the real experiences of the Ugandan villagers. In a nod to liberal theology, the Ugandans conclude that Elder Cunningham’s fantastical stories are obvious metaphors, but they nevertheless choose to believe in them as a source of hope. “You can find salvation if you just believe,” they sing. Meanwhile, Elder Price, initially the most promising young missionary, doubts God’s existence by the play’s conclusion. But he consoles himself that “we can still all work together and make this our paradise planet.”

The play’s depiction of white Americans giving hope and meaning to otherwise aimless Ugandans was also criticized for following the “white savior” trope. While there is surely some truth to such criticisms, it’s hard to square with the bumbling fabrications of Elder Cunningham, who only succeeds in converting the Ugandan villagers by incorporating their experiences into Mormon beliefs. Ultimately, the Mormons and the Ugandans create something new together. But owing to the hollow depiction of the Ugandans, that new creation is just a weird-looking Mormonism. Without a meaningful contribution from them, the Ugandans appear to have less agency, detracting from what would otherwise be an uplifting story about community.

In the end, my feelings about The Book of Mormon are a lot like my feelings about South Park. I admire what Parker and Stone are trying to accomplish, but I think they get in their own way. Too much satire pushes the play into nihilistic territory, detracting from a touching message that would have made a great play phenomenal.

But, hey, you could do worse than great. Check it out next time you’re in NYC.

[1] “It’s called dark humor, liberal.”

[2] https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/a-cringe-worthy-depiction-of-africa/.