quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: It seemed the site quote addressed Glens questions pretty well. Was it intentional? Yes, according to Catherine Hicks.
How do you back this up?
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quote:Either apologize or stick to your original rudeness.
Justa, it's tacky to demand more than the original concession unless you've been genuinely harmed.
I think "harmed" isn't the right word. "Insulted repeatedly after being hounded to stop doing that same thing, and feeling an overwhelming sense of hypocrisy" is a better way of putting it. I don't really expect the apology, but this is the second time someone has deleted their ass-ish behavior toward me and then continued being high-and-mighty toward me in as many days. It is beginning to wear quite thin.
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quote:Are you all saying that quoting a source is not evidence?
Yes. Consider what your "source" is saying about Catherine Hicks: that she is from Scottsdale, and thus must know about the Mormons in Mesa, AZ, and thus must have been aware that the "LDS" acronym stood for "Latter-Day Saints." And then consider that your source is implying that she then influenced the scriptwriters.
At each stage, we're asked to make an increasingly unlikely assumption.
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quote:All this talk about intention is now irrelevant because functionally, it has become a Mormon joke. Not for everybody to be sure.
If by "not for everybody" you mean "not for most, except for a small segment of the US population almost entirely contained in the southeast" then I agree with you.
It has become a Mormon joke because Mormons and those familiar with Mormons read into a joke and attributed a larger intent, it seems. Even when explained, most people still wouldn't "get" the joke as being a Mormon one.
quote:But it has now for this particular community (Hatrack) -- as well as several others that I am aware of [thus my comments above about the Bay Area, California, Western U.S.].
Being part of this community, I still don't see it as a Mormon joke. I understand some do, but saying that the Hatrack community as a whole sees it that way is a bit of a stretch.
I'd say the Mormon community sees it as a Mormon reference/joke, and inasmuch as the Hatrack community overlaps with the Mormon community, there is a significant portion of the Hatrack community that views it in that light. But their view is likely determined from their existing culture outside of hatrack more than from any involvement with this community.
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posted
Pointing out that Catherine Hicks once lived somewhere where there are a lot of Mormons is not evidence that Catherine Hicks believed it was a Mormon reference, that "Dr. Taylor is clearly familiar with Latter-day Saints and the use of 'LDS' as an abbreviation for the Church," or that the writers intended for there to be an LDS reference in there. The logic of the author of that web page reminds of of Vizzini's in The Princess Bride.
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posted
Wow. I am really sorry for my part in critiscising kat unfairly-- I think that I may have set the tone that this thread has devolved into.
There's not a better example of what Jim-me and Dag were saying on the recent child abuse thread, about being mindful of where your actions will eventually lead, than this thread.
Why in the world did I take this so seriously?
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posted
I think the google search I mention is moderately good evidence at least one of the writers was well-acquainted with the LDS church.
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I just quoted a web-site in response Glenn's questions and you are all acting like I'm trying to cover up evidence in a freakin' police investigation. ex. "Not unless your source has evidence you can verify"
posted
This is still going on? Must be a very slow day today in the discussions department. I know there are a lot of Mormon topics that are much more interesting than this.
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posted
Wow. A lot of serious contention over a joke from a pretty old movie. You guys don't fool around with the analysis.
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quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: I just quoted a web-site in response Glenn's questions and you are all acting like I'm trying to cover up evidence in a freakin' police investigation. ex. "Not unless your source has evidence you can verify"
Jeez
No, you quoted a website in response to Glenn's questions and then insisted, several times, that that settled the issue. When it was pointed out to you that it does not (and that you have a poor grasp of the word 'evidence'), you got pissy and started playing the martyr.
quote: I just quoted a web-site in response Glenn's questions and you are all acting like I'm trying to cover up evidence in a freakin' police investigation. ex. "Not unless your source has evidence you can verify"
Frankly, I don't give a crap what you were responding to. I honestly didn't even read the second page of this thread when I posted that. I was addressing your seemingly foolish belief that quoting someone who says the same thing as you is evidence of something.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Yes. Consider what your "source" is saying about Catherine Hicks: that she is from Scottsdale, and thus must know about the Mormons in Mesa, AZ, and thus must have been aware that the "LDS" acronym stood for "Latter-Day Saints." And then consider that your source is implying that she then influenced the scriptwriters.
At each stage, we're asked to make an increasingly unlikely assumption.
Honestly, I think it's a perfectly safe assumption that someone from Scottsdale would know that there are Mormons in Mesa. The two cities border each other, and there are quite a lot of Mormons in the area, not just in Mesa. But I do agree that everything past that point is increasingly unlikely, particularly the last one.
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quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: Was it intentional? Yes, according to Catherine Hicks.
I'm not sure how you're coming to this conclusion. The two paragraphs you linked do not claim in any way that Catherine Hicks herself said that the line was intended to mean Latter Day Saints. It just says that Catherine Hicks grew up in Scottsdale then the character she was playing in a movie reacted oddly to the term LDS.
I can certainly see how the LDS line would have gotten a laugh out of me for totally different reasons if I was a Mormon. I would totally have thought it was some kind of inside joke meant just for me and people like me. Any person who came to me later and said that I was mistaken about what the line meant would be met with hostility and I probably wouldn't approach that rationally, especially since all of the Star Trek movies have a special place in my childhood.
So, I can understand some of the reactions in this thread. I just wanted to try and explain why the rest of us saw it the way we did and why it seems most plausible that it was the author's original intent to make a damned dirty hippy joke.
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quote:Originally posted by Krankykat: El, Ic, Muc, Xav,
I just quoted a web-site in response Glenn's questions and you are all acting like I'm trying to cover up evidence in a freakin' police investigation. ex. "Not unless your source has evidence you can verify"
Jeez
I don't believe I have acted this way.
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quote:Bear in mind that Mormons are not as rare in California as they are in the rest of the country. There are more Mormons in California and Arizona than in Utah and Idaho combined.
No, I don't think so. I think that is totally wrong. I just read (yesterday) that there are 750,000 Mormons in the state of California. There are roughly 1.5 million in the state of Utah. California does contain the second-largest total LDS population of any state in the country, but if you look at it as a percentage of California's 34 million people -- it's slightly over two percent. I lived in Orange County for several years, and found that many more people than I expected were baffled by Mormonism and suspicious of me because I was from Utah -- and at the time I wasn't saying, "I'm not LDS," to people, I was saying, "I'm not practicing right now, but yes, I'm LDS." I ran into folks who were conversant about the church, also. Don't get me wrong.
Point is: California, largely, taken as a whole, is not a mecca of LDS knowledge.
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posted
I apologize if this seems dispassionate or going-all-meta or lecturing whatever. I don't see myself as above the fray, but I think what happened here is entirely predictable, and I think it might be good to do a little post-mortem on this because it seems to be an ongoing issue in this and other forums I am involved in.
First, LDS have a tendency to want to claim persons, moments, places, memes, cultural products, positive attributes, positive habits, etc. as their own or inspired by them. This shouldn't come as a surprise -- we all fall prey to exceptionalism even if it is only on an individual level instead of religious/ethnic/socio-political.
Sometimes these claims are dubious; sometimes they aren't. But from the perspective of the group, they are harmless, fun, interesting and something to be proud of.
Then someone takes exception with the claim and/or downplays the quality/uniqueness of it -- which is easy to do because exceptionalism is difficult to determine in many cases and/or tastes vary. It's even worse in cases like this one where the meaning doesn't not necessarily follow from the intentions of the original creators of the cultural product. They then accuse the group of puffery or bad taste or mis-reading. Sometimes this is done with good or neutral intentions and approached in a civil manner; sometimes not. Sometimes this is done because the original claims may seem to demean or ignore other groups.
Naturally, members of the group reacts negatively to these disputation or denigrating of claims -- even if it's not something that an individual member really feels all that strongly about, it is seen as an attack and is felt as a blow to pride [see Scott R's comment above].
The reaction leads to reaction and things tend to devolve from there.
I'm not saying anything really surprising here. But what I am trying to do is remind us that because of the dynamics of Hatrack, we should always be mindful of how we approach Mormon topics. Mormon jatraqueros should be careful about their claims of exceptionalism; non-Mormon Jatraqueros should be more understanding of such claims, of why they are made, and also take them on good faith.
And we all should be more civil in discussing such claims.
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I don't know if this helps, but I really don't care what the writers intended. I was just curious to see how Mormons react to it.
I guess making assumptions about the writers's intentions is part of how people react to it, but the fact is that no proof is required. If you believe that the writers intended it that way, then say so. No citations or evidence needed.
I was more interested in whether Mormons thought it was funny, or if they were somehow offended by it. You can never tell how someone will react.
BTW, I get touchy when people spell my name with one n.
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However, I would also say that it doesn't take much knowledge of LDS to get the LDS/LSD joke, indeed, it's not that insidery off all. As long as someone has a cursory knowledge that a) Mormons are don't do drugs and b) Mormons are also called LDS that joke has currency.
Also, it seems to me that media coverage of LDS (which in the past 15-20 years has tended to use LDS Church as that is AP style) is fairly wide-spread in California. In other words, cultural awareness of Mormonism is most likely greater than that 2% figure might suggest -- at least if we're talking about a very basic cultural awareness.
In addition, if we're talking about the joke in any sort of Star Trek context, I would suggest [again, I can't prove this, but this is my experience] that the science fiction/LDS communities have a greater percentage of overlap and awareness of each other than the normal population. This is due in no small part, of course, to our host --- but there are other factors involved as well.
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: BTW, I get touchy when people spell my name with one n.
Yeah, me too. Same for when they spell it with an "e." It's just so wrong.
I hope I haven't led to hurt feelings. I've been making a conscious effort to be civil, though I've been known to step on toes both intentionally and otherwise. I was just hoping to bring a little extra to the table. I don't really participate in religious, political or moral debates, but that doesn't mean I don't like a good superfluous argument.
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I think it would have been funnier if Spock would have asked to buy some LDS and been sent to some Mormon missionaries who just happened to be hanging out in the area.
As it is, I didn't find it funny because I really don't find the attempts at humour in Star Trek to be all the funny. But no, I wasn't offended by it.
Of course, I'm a curmudgeon and not the best data point. Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I don't think it was intended. The science fiction/LDS communities weren't made up of the same stuff in 1986.
In 1986, the Mormon church wasn't often referred to as LDS, or the LDS church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Church has been fighting the media for legitimacy for years, and one of the aspects of the struggle has been to get them to stop using the word "Mormon" and start using proper terminology.
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quote:Originally posted by Zalmoxis: In addition, if we're talking about the joke in any sort of Star Trek context, I would suggest [again, I can't prove this, but this is my experience] that the science fiction/LDS communities have a greater percentage of overlap and awareness of each other than the normal population. This is due in no small part, of course, to our host --- but there are other factors involved as well.
I would suggest [again, I can't prove this, but this is my experience] that the science fiction/secular humanist communities have a greater percentage of overlap and awareness of each other than the normal population. This is due in no small part, of course, to the large number of secular humanist science fiction writers that practically define the genre --- but there are other factors involved as well.
See, I can do it too.
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posted
km "Wow. A lot of serious contention over a joke from a pretty old movie. You guys don't fool around with the analysis."
Primal Curve:
I realize that "The two paragraphs you linked do not claim in any way that Catherine Hicks herself said that the line was intended to mean Latter Day Saints." Read my 5th post on this page. I said "Mucus: ok missed a couple of words "according to the [i]quote about Catherine Hicks."
El & Xav:
I fully understand the meaning of source...evidence...verify.
I didn't wake up this morning thinking I would become a pissy martyr by the end of the day.
I will make a point to from now on to do the source, evidence, verify thing to avoid any more contention.
posted
*blink* Um, I am one of the most touchy Mormons on Hatrack, and I still don't get what is up with this? I happen to agree that it is astounding to me personally that it would NOT be intended as a "Mormon" joke.
On the other hand, I agree that there isn't much proof or even evidence without a direct comment from a script writer. As far as I am concerned until more "light and knowledge" is given, the amount of attention to this baffles me.
Yet, I can't get myself to ignore the topic. The LDS/Sci-Fi literature is an interesting sidenote, and one that has been noted many times. Far more than this simple joke.
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Again, I'm not saying that it was intended. I'm talking about the currency that the joke has now and has had in the past 15 years or so.
PC:
I'm not sure what your point is. But it may be that you have confused me with those who are arguing for intention. I am not. I don't think the intention matters.
My point was only that if LDS and others are aware of and have appropriated the joke (and I think they have) and that's how they read it (and I think they do) then that is due in some part to the overlap between the LDS and speculative fiction communities.
I would fully agree that secular humanists and their values dominate the speculative fiction genre. I also think that's a good thing, esp. since there has also been room for writers from across the religious spectrum -- something that appears to be lacking in mainstream American literary fiction.
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posted
I admit that I figured the sudden and vehement objections to it possibly being a joke involving the church was due to bristling at my use of the word "shout out."
However, Glenn wanted to know reactions. That was my reaction. I was not SAYING it was a shoutout - I was saying at the time I saw it - in the 80s - I was delighted with what I percieved to be a shout out. That's still true. That was my reaction then.
I still think it was, although I don't know for sure. It is entirely possible both ways and in the lack of testimony from the jokemakers the argument comes down to "Is too." "Is not." which is hardly definitive.
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quote:I admit that I figured the sudden and vehement objections to it possibly being a joke involving the church was due to bristling at my use of the word "shout out."
I don't think there were any sudden or vehement objections to it being a joke involving the church. The first vehemence I saw in this thread was yours. I know you don't want this thread to be about you, but then you go back and reiterate your view of things as if it was the definitive one. I'm sorry if it ticks you off, but I'm going to answer and say that's not at all how I saw this thread shake down.
I will say that I think a lot of us misinterpreted your line about our guesses saying more about us than about anything else. Since you were responding to Tom, and since you had already been somewhat vehement in your out of hand rejection of his interpretation (which I happen to share). It almost looked at the time like you were suggesting that it was an obvious shout out, and that anybody at all culturally literate could see it, unless they had some sort of anti-LDS bias. I realized eventually that this wasn't your intent, but since a lot of your interactions with Tom go that way, that's how I saw it. I think that's specifically what TL and JT were seeing.
I think we were mistaken in our read of you, but I still reject the characterization that there was some knee-jerk rejection of the likelihood that this was a joke.
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quote:The first vehemence I saw in this thread was yours.
That's fine that you see it that way. I disagree, and I think my interpretation is correct. I am also not responsible for others' misinterpretations.
I answered the blasted question that started the thread. If someone wants to get mad at the ten-year-old I was at the time, I suppose they are welcome to it. I don't think it's cool.
This actually isn't the first time it's happened - I'll answer a question and volunteer requested information, and then I get blasted like I'd just started a thread all special in order to plaster it across the home page. There are many, many things that I would never bring up out of the blue because that would be tacky but will say if directly asked.
posted
I don't think anybody's referring to your answer of the original question. Nobody's mad at the ten-year-old that you used to be. Do you really believe that's what it's about? Some people have objected to your perceived shortness and vehemence in replying to other's opinions. I think a lot of it was a misunderstanding. But you keep on making it out to be people jumping all over you, and I do not believe that has happened in this thread.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'd be surprised if the writers even realized that "LDS" was an acronym for a church. My guess is that they thought it was an amusing way to screw up the term.
I guess I just find that implausible. Screwing up a term is just lots funnier if it gets turned into something that has a meaning than it is just a bunch a random letters. The LDS church has had a substantial presence in California since the 1850s so even if the original writer didn't know that LDS was an acronym for a church its hard to imagine that no one involved in the production recognized it and pointed it out.
I've also been told than in a big productions (like the Star Trek movies) there is always a someone paid to make sure that things things like LDS or the name of an alien planet or some other nonsense word isn't accidentally an obscure racial slur or sexual reference. All these things given, it just seems highly unlikely that the producers, directors and writers were totally unaware that they had made a reference to the Mormon church. They probaby didn't think it was all that important but its just not reasonable to assume they didn't even know they'd done it.
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quote:I guess I just find that implausible. Screwing up a term is just lots funnier if it gets turned into something that has a meaning than it is just a bunch a random letters. The LDS church has had a substantial presence in California since the 1850s so even if the original writer didn't know that LDS was an acronym for a church its hard to imagine that no one involved in the production recognized it and pointed it out.
If I were LDS, I'd probably agree with this.
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quote:If someone wants to get mad at the ten-year-old I was at the time, I suppose they are welcome to it. I don't think it's cool.
Katie, can I get mad at the grown woman you're supposed to be now? Or do I have to be mad at the ten-year-old girl you're acting like?
Seriously, you got huffy about a throwaway joke in a movie. I can say with complete confidence that Zal's read on this -- that the Mormons who've clung to this as an example of a cultural in-joke are reluctant to let go of it -- is absolutely the case; I don't get the impression that the rest of us even particularly care.
And once that became obvious from your reaction, everyone but Justa backed off. And even he eventually let it go.
Are you really going to get additionally huffy over what you perceive as people not sufficiently understanding the reasons behind your over-reaction? Please, seriously, don't.
You keep insisting that this thread shouldn't be about you, and in so doing implying that other people are trying to make it about you, to read something into your personality from it. By doing so, you are ensuring that this exact thing happens.
I can't speak for everyone else in this thread, but I can say with surety that nothing I've said in this thread has been meant with any animosity. Your continual attempts to read animosity into the thread, however, are upsetting me.
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Zal, why do you think Mormons on Hatrack deserve any more gentle treatment than members of any other faith? The TOS isn't Mormon-specific.
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quote:Screwing up a term is just lots funnier if it gets turned into something that has a meaning than it is just a bunch a random letters.
The theater in Detroit where I saw it laughed at that line. I seriously doubt that audience had a single Mormon in it.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I guess I just find that implausible.
. . .
They probaby didn't think it was all that important but its just not reasonable to assume they didn't even know they'd done it.
From where I sit, it's not only reasonable to assume they didn't know, it's faintly ridiculous to think they did. But like kat has said, there's no way we'll ever know either way.
I certainly didn't make the connection at the time, and it's pretty doubtful I would have seeing it now, either, in that context. It's not an acronym I've ever encountered outside of Hatrack.
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posted
Informal evidence: A poll of one person familiar with the joke but not strongly enough immersed in Hatrack to know what 'LDS' stands for reveals that 100% of the American population, ([size = 1]error of 100%[/size] believes that 'LDS' was simply intended as a slip for 'LSD'.
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posted
Well Glen, I’m a Mormon. (Oh sorry, I meant “Glenn“ ) And in answer to your question: My family and I thought it was quite funny. We understood it as a LSD/Mormon play on words. We certainly were not offended by it. (We like most Mormon jokes. And puns are especially fun.)
Anyway there was a lot of laughter in the theater here in Page, AZ.
I’ve always assumed that the joke was a deliberate LSD/Mormon play on words. That assumption is probably a result of the fact that I have lived my whole life in the western USA were there are a lot of Mormons and a lot of people who know a Mormon or two or a dozen.
The assumption is also probably due in part because of my perception of Southern California (were the movie was produced). There are a lot of Mormons in Southern California. I served a mission for the church there in the 70’s (much of my time was spent in the Hollywood vicinity) and I met very few people who hadn’t heard of the church. Also I heard the church referred to as the “LDS Church” as much as I heard it referred to as the “Mormon Church.” (What they called it when I wasn’t around to hear, I don’t know.)
So anyway this thread is the first time I’ve heard that assumption questioned. You folks may well be right who say that it was not intended by the writers. And I can now see how it could be understood differently than I did. But for now, despite only anecdotal “evidence,” I’m sticking with my first assumption. (Although it would be fun to know for sure what the writers intended.) But whichever is the truth, I’m not losing any sleep over it.
And speaking of Mormon jokes, I really liked the one I heard a couple of years ago about BYU producing a musical called “Seven Brides for One Brother.”
To Primal Curve:
Another thought that may or may not be apropos to this thread but I'm going to say it anyway -R.A. Heinlien was certainly aware of the Mormon Church. I always get a kick out of "Double Star" and "The Menace From Earth."
So was Tom Clancy
Oh and another thing, please stop beating up on Katharina. She didn't say anything wrong.
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posted
I remember Heinlein mentioning the Mormons in If This Goes On --, but I don't recall any mention of them in Double Star.
*goes to check*
Oh yes, no Mormon characters, but it draws an analogy between the Salt Lake temple and the Martian inner nest.
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posted
No one has beaten up on Katharina, and it's the propagating of the story that anyone has that will keep me pointing it out.
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) And in answer to your question: My family and I thought it was quite funny. We understood it as a LSD/Mormon play on words. We certainly were not offended by it. (We like most Mormon jokes. And puns are especially fun.) ![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
