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I know we’re not the main target all the time, but often growing up it would be Mormons everyone would make fun of. I see it on the internet, every day it seems like. Even in my college class today they were making fun of Mormons. Or the other day I was waiting for class and I was overhearing a girl talking about how she finds Mormons so annoying. This really hurt my feelings, but I just got myself thinking what if she said something like “Jews are annoying”. Good question. I’ve often wondered myself. I bet a good social scientist has some data on some theories…but here are my guesses: 1) We try to project a high standard and stand out from the world, so people pick on us for it.
2) We are so nice, we probably will take it and not fight back
3) some of it is true…we have some weird things about us.
4) people don’t know much about us, except the anecdotal jokes…that’s all they know (white shirts and bicycle helmets, no swearing, no coke, etc)
But, like you said…substitute “Mormon” with another religion…and it sounds so wrong…so…why does it seem ok? I think it has just become some stereotype and people parrot it.
I don’t know if we should feel flattered there is a whole broadway show about us, or feel offended.
The flip side is that maybe we don’t get made fun of any more than other religions, but we focus on it because we feel that persecution just proves how right we are. Don’t take it so seriously, because it is the best way a person has of making anything you say or do mean nothing. When you react badly to mockery, you make yourself into a mockery and no one will take you seriously. In the “Can’t take a joke”, too uptight and serious way. Tell people that they shouldn’t say nasty things that aren’t true, but shrug off the other comments. People will try to mock things so they don’t have to take it seriously or give it power. Think about if you had some people just laughing off the Holocaust; it is about make the object matter less, as a sort of defensive mechanism.
People make fun of Mormons because they want to not have to take seriously anything said because then they don’t really have to pay attention anymore. Don’t take the comments personally, It is not your task to defend whether anything that happens is humor inducing or not.
Edit: We may take offense more because we have a “Persecution Complex” from being persecuted earlier and so immediately identify with anybody saying anything disparaging as “persecution”.
(Nothing I am saying is probably anything anybody wants to hear actually. But I will still leave it here for a bit perhaps before erasing it.)
Heber13 wrote:3) some of it is true…we have some weird things about us.
Yeah, we’ve got a foundational narrative that probably sounds silly to most people that aren’t familiar with it/don’t have a testimony of it.
Mormons aren’t alone, I don’t even think we’re the biggest target. I hear a lot more people making fun of Scientology and JWs than I do Mormons. Some people like to make fun of things that are different, religious beliefs can be the lowest of the hanging fruit.
We did make it in an episode of Elementary recently. Sherlock asked a young man whose tattooed girlfriend with whom he’d been making counterfeit drugs and had been murdered, what his bishop would have to say about all he’d been doing. Sherlock, had commented earlier that the boy friend not been tattooed himself because he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was all straight forward, not tongue in cheek or sarcastic so I chose not to be offended. Because we are “peculiar” – and because we generally don’t seek revenge. Collectively, we are nice enough to mock without serious repercussions.
Otoh, we do it, as well – so we really shouldn’t complain. We just do it among ourselves, mostly.
nibbler wrote:I hear a lot more people making fun of Scientology and JWs than I do Mormons.
I believe that all the things that apply to mocking these other religious groups would apply to mocking us. We are relatively new with weird beliefs and some weird practices. We are also well enough known that many people will have a common idea of what a Mormon is.
It just wouldn’t work to make fun of some obscure religion that none of your friends have heard of. Nobody cares. But to mock the Mormons, Scientologists, or JWs might become bonding with others over shared perspectives and experiences.
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