“Making Mormon History” published in the Boston Globe over the weekend was written for me. Or so I like to think! Its been obvious for the past few years or so with Jon Krakaur’s book, the series Big Love, the pbs special, and the notable politicians Harry Reid and Mitt Romney that Mormonism is an official part of popular culture.

What I’ll concentrate on in this post is how Mormon and non-Mormon scholars approach the religion’s history.  One of the main but overlooked differences between Mormonism and other Christian religions (yes, I label it as a branch of Christianity) is that Mormons are not open about their history.  Mormons are quick to tell you about their religion but they are not open to various interpretations of it.  In fact, their archives are not free to the public.  What else sets Mormonism apart it the secretiveness and ritual of the religious ceremonies.  Additionally, Mormon officials are quick to officially exclude, or excommunicate, members who write questionable materials about the religion’s history.

A decade later, in 1993, the church excommunicated several scholars, including D. Michael Quinn, a tenured historian at Brigham Young University who had written a number of controversial works, including one about the persistence of church-sanctioned polygamy after its official ban in 1890. via

It’s not only a scholar’s research about Mormon history that raises eyebrows but its an individual’s political identifications that also causes potential issues.  It is believed that an invitation to speak at BYU was denied to acclaimed historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich because of her self-identified feminism.

The Mormon unwillingness to discuss the past was also evident in Mitt Romney’s speech last week.

Serious analysis of Mormonism has never been more important, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In Romney’s speech on faith last week, for example, the candidate spoke movingly about religious tolerance, and tried to highlight similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, but he said nothing substantive about Mormon theology or history.

I couldn’t agree more that now is the time that real work into the historical analysis of Mormonism is needed. It is also time to do some real comparative studies into similarities between Mormonism and other religious groups/minorities that are unique to the United States.   I hope to do some of that work.

Over at feministing today there was a great piece “There are better ways to keep mama happy” about a recent NYTimes article about men buying presents for their wives for giving birth. A push present.  I saw this term for the first time while reading Momzillas, a book about competitive motherhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

That’s “push” as in, “I the mother, having been through the wringer and pushed out this blessed event, hereby claim my reward.” Or “push” as in, “I’ve delivered something special and now I’m pushing you, my husband/boyfriend, to follow suit.” via

What the piece over at Feministing brings into the mix is how the NYTimes usually leaves socioeconomic class issues out of their articles that center around women’s issues. Of course, a family from a lower income bracket won’t be able to afford expensive jewelry or art pieces when there are more pressing financial to keep in mind as the family expands.

This piece also got me thinking of how often I link to pieces from the NYTimes on the space. It’s true I am a NYTimes fanatic. I love reading it every morning and reach for the Style section on Thursday and Sundays.  But I think its time to branch out and examine pieces about women and issues affecting women in other major newspapers to perhaps do a comparative analysis of the way women are being covered.  For example, would an article about a “push present” occur in a newspaper in Montana. I don’t know but I don’t think so.  I think its time to start looking at this more closely.

I am not saying I’m going to STOP linking to the NYTimes but I’m going to be more careful in how and why I link to certain stories in the future.

(1) Prez hopeful Romney is finally going to address the ISSUE at hand!

Trying to save his presidential campaign from an Iowa swoon, Republican Mitt Romney on Thursday will take on the issue of his Mormon faith by stressing America’s tradition of religious tolerance.

Romney is to make remarks at the presidential library of former President George H.W. Bush in College Station, Texas, not far up the road from Houston, where Democratic candidate John Kennedy in 1960 used a speech to ease concerns about his Catholic faith and went on to win the presidency.

I love how everyone is so quick to compare him to Kennedy on the religion issue and obviously his PR team is doing some great work by having him give this speech in Texas, at a presidential library to boot. But here is what I don’t understand, the complete disregard (on the side of the media) to weigh in on differences between Catholicism and Mormonism. The first one being that Catholicism is a VERY, VERY old religion and well Mormonism hasn’t even hit its second centennial (is there a better way to write that?)

I’ll be looking into that news story tomorrow!

(2) What is going on with beauty pageants?

Miss LA gets told she ain’t Miss California THEN has to call the actual winner and tell her. 

And then the whole pepper spray incident… 

Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling us that there is more to life than winning beauty contests. I am so a feminist!

I have gotten a lot of interesting responses to my decision to keep my last name upon matrimony. My father wishes I would have taken my husbands last name even though I am the last generation left with our last name of Rose. Many women my mother’s age think its cool and appropriate I kept my name. And then I have met those people who think it’ll be just a little time before I take my husband’s name or hyphenate it before having children.

I come from a long tradition of women keeping their last names. My mother and Aunt kept theirs and a lot of my mother’s friends reclaimed their last names after divorces or even reincorporated them into their married names while they were still with their husbands. Yet, I still have women in my life who question my thinking.

This is something I think about a lot as other friends of mine are becoming married and making decisions about changing the names they were given upon birth.

An article from yesterday’s NYTimes discusses different approaches couples are implementing to decide how to proceed with the name changes. One couple played a game of softball between families. The couple took the winning family’s name. Other couples chose a whole new name for both of them.

One aspect that often gets left out of this discussion is the emotional toll this choice takes on one’s identity. How does it feel to change one’s name? It’s a feeling I don’t know. I’ve heard women give into changing their names when they haven’t wanted to because their husband to be thought it was proper. The decision to change one’s name shouldn’t be taken lightly and it should also be seen as a gender issue given that women are the ones that are expected to change their name or at least consider the option.

Additionally, this article also brought up the point that many women who are only children don’t want to change their name. I am an only child but did not consider how that affected my decision.

Ultimately, I was always certain of my decision to keep my last name when I was a young woman. However, I am interested by the idea that this decision must be pondered at all.

So I have been observing my Veteran’s Day by watching CBS soap operas on mute. Yes, on mute. For those of you who don’t know I was a faithful summer ABC daytime viewer during the early to mid 90s and enjoyed a summer internship at a NYC based soap in 2001. Well, today I have been “busy” messing around online and looking up every few minutes and this is what I’ve learned about the status of soaps today…

• Minus a few, new characters, the exact same storylines have been happening for ten plus years.
• There are more blondes than brunettes.
• Actors skip and jump around like shows like they’re crossing the streets.

BEST DIALOGUE EVER:

DUDE: I am not a thorne in Carly’s side.

CHICK: She thinks you tried to kill her sister.

DUDE: Your mother hates me.

CHICK: You’re not welcome here.

DUDE: Well, your family better get used to be since you’re having my baby.

CHICK looks away guilty.

That’s it. The end.

It’s been a year since I first started blogging here. I thought about doing a recap of the last year but I think I’ll save that for another time.

Instead, I want to write about a movie I saw this weekend, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. From the beginning of this film, I started tot think about the representations of female super heroes we have in Western culture. There is Super Woman, Bat Woman, Wonder Woman, Shera Princess of Power and a few others. All of these super hero(ines) are seen in short skirts and high-heeled boots.

While these images are not realistic, neither is the idea of a super hero. My Super Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t disappoint in the unrealistic department. The film was funny in moments but what I found disturbing was the story behind the transformation of a normal adolescent to a super powered heroine. Uma Thurman plays G-Girl, a young woman who gained super powers when an asteroid hit the Earth. During the flashback of G-Girl gaining her power, she goes from thin, ungainly brunette to a busty, curvy blonde. That’s right as soon as you become a super hero, you get a sexier body. Or at least “sexy” as defined by Western traditions.

My first thought was how “sexist and typical” but then I started to think about how many young women go through that alteration every day by changing their looks through a bottle of dye or surgery. There are a lot of TV shows that revolve around these sorts of transformations. Are they sexist? Probably. But is also natural to doubt one’s appearance and wish to change it. It seems to be the means one goes through to change one’s appearance that defines whether the change is extreme. Is there a major distinction between a young woman getting highlights or getting a new set of breasts? Yes, I believe there is but I don’t think the thinking process behind the action is that different.

In the movie, Uma Thurman plays a neurotic woman looking to hold on to her man. What is funny about this film is that it abandons past stereotypes about super heroes being pillars of the society and using their powers for good only. Unfortunately, G-Girl uses her powers to scare her ex boyfriend after he broke up with her. She is also written as a crazy sex fiend who likes to use her super powers in the bedroom which in turn emasculates her boyfriend. This emasculation is, of course, used for laughs in the film. But it gets old when once the viewer realizes it’s a plot device that been used before.

As far as your average Luke Wilson romantic comedy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is standard. What I don’t get is why Uma Thurman would agree to be in this. She usually makes pretty smart movies. It does bring up some valid issues about the unfortunate ways women and their desires are portrayed.

I hope the next film that features a super heroine is more intelligent and does not rely on old tricks and gender conventions and stereotypes to tell its story.

1. Whenever I sign onto amazon, there is a recommendation for the OJ Simpson book, If I did it. Ummm why? I clicked on “why this was recommended for you” button and it said because I had bought two books about polygamy…yeah…failing to see the connections beyond on an assumption of polygamy equaling abused wives.
2. Sweetest Day: OK this hallmark holiday is all about chocolate. Why am I concerned with this? It seems as though only people in my home state in the Midwest seem to celebrate it. I never got the point of it as it seems like a watered down version of Valentine’s Day. As wikipedia states, “Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October^[1]. It is described by Retail Confectioners International, as “much more important for candymakers in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities)” It never seemed to catch on in NYC.
3. Andy Cooper over there at CNN is sick of the planet being in peril because he’s bored of it. Poor Andy.

This weekend I saw Eastern Promises and Elizabeth, The Golden Age.

Eastern Promises was beyond violent. I thought I was accustomed to violence on the big screen. WRONG! I have never seen such graphic displays of violence…against men. And a baby came thisclose to being killed but she was saved at the last minute. I am not calling for violence against women in film, TV or any other sort of media BUT it is unrealistic to have no violence against women. I am obliged to mention that a rape involving several of the characters occurred before the actual film took place, but that doesn’t count in my eyes.

The acting was superb as usual with this bunch (Viggo et al.). But the film did play into the whole good girl/bad girl dynamic. Prostitute dies because she’s a prostitute. Blonde, virginal looking woman lives despite hanging out with the Russian mob. And the whole Virgin Birth idea plays out when the blonde gets to raise the dead prostitute’s baby. Oh how I love a happy Hollywood ending.

The audience during this film was oh so pleasant! There was a woman in the front row who kept chatting on her cell phone at top volume. Two other audience members actually got up out of their rows, walked down to her and told her to shut up. This happened two seperate times. Then there were the ladies behind me who cooed loudly whenever the baby was on screen. Like they’ve never seen a baby before.

And speaking of virgins…I saw Elizabeth, The Golden Age. Senior year of high school, I was obsessed with the first movie and Joseph Fiennes. I tortured my college roomates with a poster of Joseph Fiennes from the Elizabeth film, with the word

LOVER in huge capital letters, above or below his face. One of roomates said it bothered her. She later moved out of our room leaving our other roomate and I to our shenanigans.

Not the poster I had, but a pic none the less.

OK OFF TOPIC! I loved everything about this film except the ending which involved another baby. All the reviews said it was over the top, but wasn’t the first one? I also did feel as though the filmakers were trying to show a cautionary tale of what happens when one has too much power. Of course, our heroine does everything right in the end and atones for all of her prior mistakes. Cate Blanchett rocks!

We did have a lovely couple next to us and who spent the whole film mucning loudly on their popcorn. Halfway through the film, I thought about asking if I could have any but I didn’t. Because I’m polite like that.

This weekend, I flew to Austin TX with one of my good friends (half of this cool comedy show) to visit another of my good friends who really doesn’t have an online persona (though she should!)

I picked up People mag.  Well, I learned some new things…like

Mary Louise Parker adopted an African baby…I thought it was People doing a spoof picture until I realized it was true…

Weeds star Mary-Louise Parker has adopted a baby girl from Africa, her reps confirmed exclusively to PEOPLE.

Parker, who was nominated for two Emmy awards Sunday night, was spotted with her new daughter over the weekend as they traveled to the show.
(via PEOPLE)

And I learned from other stuff about that one chick who the media should leave alone!

Why am I posting about this??  Because I am happy I am not that up to date with celebrity goings on.  And why is that you may inquire…

It’s been two years since I last read US magazine (no links because that would mean I have to go to their page and look at it!). I gave it up when I decided I could be following other more intellectually stimulating pursuits like reading books and applying to grad school!
You may wonder why I read People then…well I can put People down and don’t have the urge to buy it every week…US is another story.

Yeah for me! And Mary Louise Parker!

I was just logged onto gmail when I saw an ad for this site come up:

DatingAWife.com is a sophisticated dating site geared more towards interaction with a male companion where it is lacking at home. These girls don’t want to lose their families and most of them are looking for a good friend. We respect the privacy of our profiles and ask that you do the same.

Seems kinda sketchy, not to mention the idea that women seek intimacy through adultery instead of working on their relationships. YEAH! Thumbs up!

The real reason I was checking my gmail was to look at this which my friend Hanvnah sent me:

One of the main characters on “The Young and the Restless” for a Yom Kippur episode on September 21st is going to do tshuvah.

But wait its gets better and even, more random:

But last year the soap dropped a bombshell: The upwardly mobile stud was actually a Hebrew hunk. It turns out that Brad had been hiding his Jewish identity to protect himself and his mother, who had drawn the ire of Nazis because of her work as a Holocaust art restitution investigator.

I’ve never heard of the term “Holocaust art restitution investigator.” If you google it with quotation marks, its just links about the particular soap opera but if you google it without quotations, this page about Holocaust era assets comes up.