What's your propaganda limit?

I recently attended a Mormon movie with my dad. It was a hard film to swallow. The hero Joseph Smith was perfect, his followers were perfect and all who opposed him were evil. The movie was propaganda. Expensive propaganda. And did I mention it was super boring?

It was a squandered opportunity to make a serious movie about Joseph Smith and the early Mormon experience. Religious persecution is a complicated and important topic and the Mormon trek across America was an epic journey filled with interesting conflicts but this movie (by Mormons about Mormons for Mormons) was so just so damn simple.

Why are religious people afraid of having their movements and leaders seen as complicated? Joseph Smith was loved and hated both from outsiders and people inside his church. Why? Show it. Most people who lead large groups of people are manipulative, ambitious, demanding assholes. They have to be to accomplish anything.

Who was Joseph Smith? I have no idea and yet I sat thru a 90 minute movie about his life.

I recently watched 30 minutes of Triumph of the Will, the propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl about Nazi Germany. It was frightening for the first 20 minutes and then I just lost interest.

I've often felt uncomfortable at the gay pride parade and now I know why. It, too, is a form of propaganda. And watching the gays smile as the parade goes by feels akin to watching the Mormons smiling at the Joseph Smith movie. I always smile when I see an individual hanging a flag outside their house whether it's Red White and Blue or rainbow. I'm inspired by individual acts of self-expression and pride. But mass-flag-waving makes me nervous whether those flags are American, rainbow or swaztikas. Every time I go to a gay pride parade I get bored after about 30 minutes.

I guess 30 minutes is my tolerance level for propaganda, whether it's gay, Mormon or Nazi.