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08/10/2004: "Next up: the joys of polygamy"
HBO, which gave us Sex and the City, is seeking a new avenue for ground-breaking programming:
Think Tony Soprano, but without all the violence or swearing—and with a wife who doesn’t care if he sleeps with other women.
That’s the star of HBO’s new original drama series, the Tom Hanks-produced "Big Love," about a polygamous, fictional Utah family living in the present day.
Whether "Big Love" will follow that tradition remains to be seen, but it will be closely watched in Utah, which still carries some stigma for its polygamous history.
Polygamy is among the teachings of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith. But the practice was abandoned by the church more than a century ago as the territory sought statehood. The Utah Constitution bans it and the mainstream Mormon church now excommunicates those who advocate it.
But it’s believed that tens of thousands in Utah continue the practice, including the well-documented, present-day polygamists in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
Many remaining polygamists describe themselves as fundamentalist Mormons, living ultra-religious lives in small, secretive sects in the West.
HBO spokeswoman Mara Mikialian said she hadn’t seen the pilot, so she couldn’t provide many specifics about the show. She said the family would not be Mormon, and the show would be shot in California—not Utah. It’s scheduled to premiere in 2005.
The most interesting thing about this to me is that the family won't be Mormon. That means HBO is likely to take the slant that polygamy isn't just something done be ultra-fundamentalist nut cases, but by normal, hard-working, Americans just like your neighbors. Consider this the likely opening salvo in the elite effort to give polygamy the same normalization treatment given to homosexuality over the last thirty years.
(Hat tip: Philippa)
