I am really irritated by that article. McKay clearly states that he just wants to be accepted warts and all, and has a problem of people pointing out the warts.
Modern Church leaders are Scooby-Doo villains who monologue about “the communists at the NAACP”
Apparently McKay is unaware of what Ezra Taft Benson spoke about in General Conference in 1967. The apostle that would be prophet when McKay was born and prophet almost until McKay would have been baptized. Of course the church has memory holed that talk. I know many members who still wholeheartedly repeated this well into the 90s and early 2000s. You can still find far right extremist Mormons that quote extensively from Benson.
I was in high school when it came out, busy waging a delicate campaign to convince my suburban-Massachusetts classmates that Mormons could be, if not cool, then at least normal.
He then says they got some things right, but this guy was born in 1987 and grew up in Massachusetts, far away from Utah County. The over use of Heavenly Father is rightly criticized and Lindsay Hansen Park wishes she had been brought in to tone it down earlier, but to me it helps give you the context quickly of how Mormons are different in their beliefs about god.
Joseph Smith is a charlatan and a pervert; Brigham Young is a power-mad tyrant.
Historically backed up.
The purpose of all the quasi-history is to draw a direct line from the founding of Mormonism to the murders at the center of the show. The real-life radicalization of the men who killed Brenda Lafferty involved a far-right anti-government group, festering misogyny, family dysfunction, and severe mental illness. (Both men had already been excommunicated from the Church for their extreme views by the time they killed Brenda.)
The excommunications were part of the show, they didn't try to hide it. You can't remove the Mormonism and blood atonement from the Lafferty's experience. Sure they had other things going on, but part of what got them in on this were Mormon in origin.
Black did not hire any practicing Mormons to write or consult on the show.
Factually wrong, Lindsay Hansen Park consulted, and in an
interview on YouTube she says that active members were consulted, bishops, relief society presidents, temple workers. I am also unsure why it is necessary to be a practicing member to understand the culture. I suppose the church of Scientology should have consulted on Leah Rimini's project.
After attending the premiere in Salt Lake City, Patrick Mason, a historian of Mormonism at Utah State University, tweeted, “It’s a problem for the show that none of the Mormon scholars I was sitting with—all of whom know full well how to apply an open, critical gaze to our own culture and tradition—recognized ourselves or our people in the show.”
I grew up in the same ward (or the one next door as boundaries were changed, and changed back) as Patrick. He is roughly 4 years older than me, and his family moved within the stake when he was in high school. I can say that there were people in that ward that I recognized in the show. So I guess Patrick has a blindspot, or just didn't get to know some people the way I did with my parents still living in the home I grew up in. I am unsure what is more damning that Patrick is a liar, or so out of touch with being able to observe people around him that it calls into his question to draw good conclusions about historical figures.