Jokes About Religion ?, Lesson Learned from “The Book of Mormon”
Magic is turning something expected into unexpected. In order to do so you need to take some risks, the bigger the odds — the bigger the surprise will. That’s what i also see in comedy, yes some people like Bill Maher or Stephen Colbert once said that “Comedy is a combination of tragedy and perfect timing” for me, playing with a tragedy to make a joke is kind of a risk to play. If you succeed you can make a poor guy’s day into a funny laugh for himself and for anyone else, but fail at it and either you be hated or it can mess with someone’s psychological trauma and it’s not an easy thing to evade.
Jokes can also be a form of criticism, we can ridicule our corrupt or incompetent politicians and government officials with memes, songs, pictures and so on. Awe can also do sarcasm to playfully insult them in an intelligent way but how about religious institutions and beliefs and believers? Can we make a joke on them? For me yes, yes we can and we should in a certain context and in certain topics. But it is not only about making jokes, it’s also about how to react upon jokes if it’s about your religion. The best example of this is The Book of Mormon.
The Book of Mormon is a broadway play about two Latter-Day Saints Missionaries or better known as Mormons and how they attempt to bring joy of God to the surpressed people of Uganda. I watched The Book of Mormon about two years ago, in my first encounter i am laughing to all the jokes and the songs in the play. But the thing that impressed me the most was the reaction of the Church of The Latter Day Saints to the play, they seems to stay cool with that although they also noted that the play itself should not be taken seriously as an accurate depiction of Mormon beliefs and just for entertainment purpose. There are no boycott attempts or mass media breakout, even the church uses the play to promote their “peculiar” believes and doctrines.
The Book of Mormon story chronicles the journey of Elder Price, the handsome, intelligent missionary and Elder Cunningham, the trouble maker. The two are being sent to Uganda against Elder Price’s wish to be located in Orlando (which has Sea World, Disneyland and Golf). They are being robbed and then rejected by the people of an Ugandan village that are being pressured by the local warlord, AIDS epidemy, famine and so on. The Elders that are being sent before them said that it is futile and that maybe God doesn’t love the Latter Day Saints anymore, Elder Price also has a huge doubt on his faith and left the church. Cunningham, although being doubted by the other elders managed to attract some Ugandans by telling a story of Jesus and Joseph Smith fused with some Science Fiction such as Darth Vader and Yoda with some callbacks to Star Trek and other popular shows. Unexpectedly, Cunningham was successful in converting some Ugandans with his stories. Elder Price affirms his beliefs and ashamed of his doubts and then attempts to conver the warlord and free the Ugandans.
There is a pattern on how the directors, writers and producers make jokes in this play. First it is not ridicule someone because they believe in something, in making jokes you need to understand that you can’t make a joke to deny someone’s right to believe something. For example, if there’s a friend of mine that are being baptist or born again, i may throw a joke like this picture of Eskimo Baptism.
For me it is mildly funny, but not to the point of insulting, it’s a joke about baptism but it doesn’t discourage or lead people who practice it to look at baptism and view it as something that is wrong or should not be practiced.
The other form of joke is a joke about stories inside the scripture, in the book of Mormon there are jokes about how some of their stories are miracles that are so unbelievable therefore the missionaries are forcing themselves to “Just Believe It” and “keep up the faith!”. Some stories in my religion are also kind of too good to be true, such as Noah and how did he gather exactly all species two by two? Or is it real that Moses did part the Teberau / Red Sea ?. if you want to criticize or acknowledge it’s nature of miracle that is uncomprehensible for human’s common sense then make a parody of it. Such as this illustration of an Israeli wearing a scuba diving gear because he doubted Moses’s claims that he could part the sea and take them into safety. You did pointed out the ridiculousness and the unbelievable part of the miracle but i don’t think this picture and the joke it present is anywhere near offensive because it still portray that the miracle did happen, it’s just that sometimes there is a doubt in our heart in believeing these too good to be true stories. Again, the joke is not about falsifying or make people comfortable with their beliefs, but only to point out certain things that have potential to be funny in the doctrine.
The other thing to play a joke that is safe is to connect them as a pun or anything to connect them into something that has no correlation with the main doctrine. The example featured here is the use of the title of a book in the bible, the book of numbers (for Indonesian audience may know it better as “kitab bilangan”). It is being used as a pick up line to ask the girls phone number. Some may see this as a degradation of honour for the bible, i will explain it later. The positive side of this is that the joke can also make you be seen as someone whom has learn the bible enough that you know little things about it that can be used in everyday conversation.
Okay, we have talked about some forms about how you can do a religious jokes, and i know i mainly talk about Christian jokes, it is because i don’t have an adequate knowledge for commenting on other religion even though i believe that a joke is a good tool for evangelism or religious education in the family. A joke can entice cognitive discussion about religion and also a good joker is not stupid, you need a great deal of research and knowledge to joke about a doctrine because the best jokes about religion is the one which understands the context of the stories or rituals and not simply mention a thing that is religious. A joke can be seen as dishonoring the religion, but then again what is religion but an idea? And every idea is open for criticism, to criticize it is an act of improvement and a joke is another tool to criticize a religion. By criticism, religion can continue to be relevant in the always changing generation mindset. Also a joke can be a celebration or a thing to remember God’s goodness for us, a joke can make us laugh and give another-more positive meaning to an unlucky or sometimes tragic experience. I need to emphasize that not every joke meant for everyone, there are people that are conservative at heart and reject the idea of jokes about religion, so know your audience too!.
Now let’s see the other side : how if we are the joke? What should i do when my religion is being laughed at by a comedian? The answer is either you laugh at it and find a new meaning or interpretation of scriptures or rituals or you can just skip them. The Latter Day Saints doesn’t get mad when their believes are pointed out in the Book of Mormon play, instead they just clarify that it is not an accurate representation of their believes and that’s all, when the play became successful, the Latter Day Saints members starts to advertise their local service schedules and some stars such as Josh Gad mentioned that there is someone whose are so moved by the play and then took the belief of Mormonism. One factor to make something or in this case a joke to be affirmed is the amount of attention people paid to them, if the jokes are insulting, just let them know that it is wrong and leave, don’t give them a laugh or something that can make people laugh at you, be kind.
All of these are from my perspective as an individual, i know that everyone has different opinion and so this should not be regarded as one true proposition, instead let’s discuss more about something like this and make it better for everyone. If there is any more precise or accurate sources please let me know to avoid plagiarism. God Bless You!
Sources :
“Church Statement Regarding The Book of Mormon Musical”. LDS Church. February 7, 2011. Retrieved February 6, 2011.
“The Book of Mormon: An Opportunity to Set the Record Straight”. www.abc.net.au. 2017–01–24. Retrieved 2017–05–22.
“Richard Bushman: ‘The Book of Mormon’ is like looking into a fun-house mirror; the reflection is hilarious but not really you”. CNN. June 27, 2011. Archived from the original on December 6, 2011.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-book-of-mormon-gets-rousing-reception-in-utah/
images :
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2343013255/2wordstory.jpg