Nerding Day: Singles Ward (Patreon)

So let’s imagine we’re a young mother in perhaps the year 2000. Blessed, yes but also full of worries about how we will help our little babies we love so much get thru the sufferin and strife we see ‘bout us every day. Also to make this article work right we are a mormon gal. And so one of our major worries is Entertainment and Media: we realize we cant fully shield the eyes of the children from all music and film but gosh-darnit it is upsettin how hard it is to find unobjectable contents for familes out there. Even Misses Doubtfire had that part about foreskins what caused some uncomfortable and unanswered questions on the way home so we all just quietly looked at the moon for the rest of the ride. So it is that we find ourselves in need of some film entertainment…but godly…but also funny!

A Singles Ward is a mormon thing where all the unmarrieds have their sunday school together and this is a movie about the romantic and comic potentials of this reality. This was a nother ‘portant artifact i was a little worried about being able to source so I was happy that there were a couple of DVDs available but when it got here it wouldnt play no matter how many times i wiped it with a clean cloth from center to edge and honestly? I was a little despaired. But after almost a whole hour of searchin i found a promised land of streamings:

And made the sacrifice of givin em my credit card number for a free 7-day trial. But hell if I might not keep it goin, i’m impressed so far look at the Family Patriarch photo they chose for me:

And they got some real good options for cautious parents:

(One thing though is that they dont have Revelation Road directed by Gabriel Sabloff even if you choose the “Protestant” option, maybe he should reach out)

And my goodness they got a whole stand-up comedy section!

Now i will tell you seeing all those in the Dry Bar Comedy section was kinda a dark temptation unto me, like a cursed amulet of power: i beheld there a rich and maybe endless vein of hot dog article content and maybe licked my lips but a angel or somethin gave me a smack an helped me see that in time it would become a twisted path of cruelty and bitterness and so I shook satan from my back and re-trained my eyes up on the one true prize.

Okay so with this cult your all contechs we are probly ready to give this one a proper look now. We are not going to review the plot because: it is a romantic comedy. But rather we will xzibit elements of this one that will better help us understand this time period and pacifically what they thought was COOL.

Yes in Provo in 2002 the highest calling a person could have was to bring laughter up and down the Wasatch Front. The main guy in this movie, Jonathan, makes a bmw-buying living being a stand-up comedian in the greater salt-lake area. Huh. All I can guess is that Seinfeld gave a great hope to so many at that time. Here is a way the movie shows us being funny is his identity with a little me’s on seen.

And here is a example of his good comedy:

“Some guys hide their girly magazine from their wives. I’ll hide my Popular Mechanics. I don’t want her to know I can fix stuff and have that ruining my weekend!”

Ok ok i admit it I did watch some of the dry bar stand-ups and I laughed to spite myself at some of them, way more than I did at Jonathan there. (and like a wise bud watchin it with me said: “It’s probably actually harder to get laughs at a dry bar.”) But back to this movie it is very important that Jonanthan is hilarious: he overcomes his first romanticular hurdle by being funny at a nursing home to win a reluctant future wife’s heart so you know he’s a real cutup.

A nother way the movies show us funny is with the following sound effects used quite a lot and all the time through the whole thing:

GUNSHOT

WHIPCRACK
RICHOCHET
TUBA FART

BALOON SQUEAK? RUSTY HINGE?

WHIMSACAL FLUTE

STORMTROOPER YELL

WOOD BLOCK

For myself I can say that I had a for real out loud laugh one time when i watched this movie, because a when this little church kid looks right down the camera:

and no other time.

Here are the LDS mens fashion choices for a cool, hatter o’sexual comedian:

For our dear sisters the options are: harlot

Observe the exposed shoulders, assistant pharmacist haircut, and real lack of revrence for the Mary Kay Makeup Color Wheel

Or: our heroin Cammie

Who: I can not lie, is pure and actual loveliness. Curly hair, feminine yet demurr wrap-sweater and skirt, almost-but-not-quite-a choker. I know why I can’t be mad at this and I think they did it on purpose too: Cammie’s styling is distilled from the 1990s wholesomest sex cymbal, Sarah McGlocklin. So lets just accept that Jonathan and me and you are gonna be a little bit in love with Cammie here for as long as we’re here today isnt that right Cammie?

Oh yeah this was her too:

which i think shows her wide range.

One other thing I will note: now i have learnt lets try not to comment on womens bodies, so I will just say that between social pressure and such this era was a particlarly hard time for a lady not to catch a underweight problem.

Anyway Cammies pretty great.

You might member that it was around this 2002 time that there was a Utah olympics and that the people livin there were pretty happy to have a chance to show every body that you know what? Mormons are pretty cool after all!

So a running joke in Singels Ward is that the characters are always saying “Did you hear that so-and-so is actually mormon?’’ They chose: Lionel Richie, Walter Mathau, Steve Martin, Christina Aquilera and the guy who created Battlestar Galactica. I think that last one might be extra funny because maybe he is really but I aint lookin it up.

And then we have our cameos of actual celebrity mormons, the movie helps point these out because when they show up everyone stops talking for a minute so i could tell LaRene, ‘’Hey That’s Steve Young I think!”

also we got:

The rest of the Famous Celebritys:

Pretty damn cool, mormons.

The soundtrack is just: they took mormon kids songs and did covers of them that were pop and punk and ska and whatever kinda reggae/dub this one is:

Wow I don’t quite know what to call that. whatevers’ whiter than cod maybe?

Yes this one is maybe the most awesome (god and 80s sense both) of them all: our dear Cammie gets sad and confused when Jonathan starts making fun of mormons one performance when he is bombing (“I was in a X-rated mormon movie once. Don’t worry, there was no sex in it. ONLY GUILT!”) and she decides to go on a mission instead of dating him and so he drives up into the mountains and first we get this pretty kinda Michael Mann shot of downtown SLC

And then we get the privalege of watching a actor, using only the power of facial expression and lil laughs, show us the anguish of kneeling humbly before Heavenly father to face your fuck-ups:

So the lesson he learns is: it is unrighteous to make fun of the church. He stops that but the movie keeps doing it so i dont feel too bad.

In closing today i am thankful for this chance to have learnt about a different life experience and maybe you can too! Like now that we’ve been in the birkenstocks of that young mormon mother we will not so easily just make fun of a LDS streaming service! No we can have empathy and b grateful that it exists for them as wants it

AND make fun of it.

Also let us give thank yous to somethin I never would of seen without the lords hand guiding my eye which is that this young Singles Ward actor

is also a stuntman and he made a beautful vhs demo reel with him in it jumpin off a buildings with uzis and runnin a wheelbarrow past Eugene Levy and making the perfect end-credits roll and also just HANDLIN a Mercury Sable into moves so Xtreme i bet it even gave ol Henry Ford down in Hell a moments smile.

In the Name of Jesus Christ Amen.

(Special gratatude to My grand’s son Trayton and also to Sister Stella and Brother Lucas: without whoms’ expert cosmatalogy and sedan ID consultation this film essay would never of been made)

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