As regards the documentaries, I have been thinking about what I would tell Helen Whitney if I had a chance to meet with her again personally (I had the pleasure of having a long conversation with her in person when she was researching the documentaries). Here are my current thoughts:

(1) First I would thank her for devoting three years of her life and career to working on a documentary about us, and for her efforts to get a fuller picture than the standard media and popular stereotypes. I would also express my appreciation for her struggle to get financing, and to negotiate with the PBS people to get such a wide exposure for this material. (She is an independent filmmaker, and had to work long and hard to get Frontline and American Experience to sign on. My understanding is that these operations generally produce their own material, and are quite resistant to accepting indie offerings.)

(2) I would have to ask her about the rumors that Frontline and American Experience forced her to edit in a more critical perspective than in the first version she submitted to them.

(3) If the answer to #2 is positive, I would be curious to know if there is any prospect of her ever getting to do a “director’s cut.”

(4) I would apologize for any rude or uncharitable comments directed toward her personally by Church members. Monday morning quarterbacking is a universal human trait. Everyone has ideas about how they would do a documentary about the Church. The obvious response is that they should go out and work and scrape for three years to make a documentary, and then beg and plead to get it past the very much NIH (not invented here) oriented insiders at Frontline and American Experience. Then you can positively criticize what she produced by doing it your way.

(5) Finally, recognizing that she was making her documentary, not mine, I would suggest that the following edits would have made it more balanced, while still keeping it her documentary rather than the one I would have made:

(a) Showing the modern polygamous family at the end of the first episode merely reinforced the most persistent inaccurate stereotype and defeated her purported purpose of getting past old stereotypes about the Mormons. While it is true that she had statements from Pres. Hinckley as well as voiceover stating the modern Church’s position, visuals always trump verbiage in film, and the uninformed viewer is left with the impression that the polygamous family are the “Mormons” which are the subject of the documentary (which they are not — in fact I suspect that family wasn’t even representative of FLDS families, let alone LDS ones).

(b) In the second episode, she could have devoted a few seconds to having one believing talking head give the believer’s perspective on the issues of BoM historicity and anti-intellectualism. Surely she could have spared for those topics at least the same few seconds that she gave to Dr. Osborn-Poelman to rebut the many minutes of time devoted to feminist criticisms. The allocation of time is her editorial decision, but a short counter-voice on those topics should have been included just for balance.

(6) Lastly, I assume she is aware that many Mormons do not feel that the documentary portrayed their religious experience. Her whole career has been making documentaries on religious and spiritual topics. I would ask her if she thinks there is any chance that any documentary about the religious experience of any faith community can achieve significant public distribution without some nasty “newsy” hook.

I can’t believe you let Hellmut get away with that. You wuss.

I thought the missionary story was that the BRANCH president left a note on the door saying “your mother has died, call home”. Not the MISSION president.

Did I hear that wrong?

Many members of the Church are not used to this level or type of language being used to describe the church our doctrine or practices, and I believe, they interpret that as negative. Right or wrong, its a reaction to unfamiliarity.

Sorry I am late to see one of your questions:

“And does it appear to be true that he pressured women and young girls into marriage?”

You may want to check out my recent post on M* for some perspective on this. PBS, Polygamy, and Pressure

http://millennialstar.org/index.php/2007/05/01/p2033

I would be happy to answer any further questions you might have about the subject there.