Mormons in Media

McKay Coppins is here to blow up my theory that owning Mormonism will ruin your media career. We talk about how Mormonism has shaped his career from Buzzfeed to The Atlantic, what it's like living in DC right now, and the time he got marooned at Mar A Lago.

Our guy Andy Reid had a real bad day. We talk about what makes him so great, whether member athletes benefit from double standards, and a few stealth Mormons who made ads and won rings.

Conclave is a 2024 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci that has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards. In this episode, Rebbie and Meg ask their Catholic friend Cristina many dumb questions about the religion, its media depictions, and learn she somehow knows more about Mormonism than they do.

Rebbie and Lindsey dissect The Washington Post's piece that claims 2024 was the year of Mormon women. Is Hannah Neeleman ambitious or repressed? Is influencing working or "shilling?" We also get into women's (in)visibility at church from Amy Watkins Jensen's recent op-ed and discuss public figures leaving the church a la Rosie Card.

From New York to LA, the theater to The Groundlings, Shelley and Rebbie debate the likeliness of making it as a funny person when you're full in on church. Do all the best comics make dirty jokes? Does sobriety inhibit funniness, and are all our post-Mormon friends doing mushrooms?? (yes) We'd like to break the myth that clean stuff can't be funny but we're mostly breaking our brains.

In this crossover episode, Rebbie talks with Mallory Everton and Diana Brown about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. We discuss the especially Mormon aspects of Twilight (do soulmates = eternal companions?), debate whether the dream that inspired the series was a vision, and make a case for why members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should embrace the mystical elements of their faith. 

Check out more from The Soloists here and Faith Matters here.

A horror movie about sister missionaries. A religious film that’s rated R.  Hugh Grant quoting Gordon B Hinckley!!! Heretic is the movie none of us expected, but we're thrilled to process together. We discuss whether it's offensive, how it triggered us, what it does for Mormon representation, and the scene that made two of us kind of weepy in that churchy way? We're as surprised as you are.

Rebbie is joined by Neylan Mcbaine, her favorite voice on Mormon women. We discuss how being raised by a famous opera singer in New York City shaped Neylan's view of Latter-day Saint women's role in the arts, unpack the media’s current obsession with LDS women, and examine how the church has elevated female artists in the past vs now.

Neylan’s projects:

- LDS Women Project

- Women at Church

- Better Days 2020

- Faith Matters 'Restore' Conference Presentation

And the book/movie you must read/watch:

Small Things Like These novella by Claire Keegan, now in theaters starring Cillian Murphy. 

Rebbie is in the church while Eli is out, Rebbie hasn’t tweeted in years while Eli has 80k followers. But for all our differences we share a love of Mormon stories and a distaste for hearing them told just one way. In this episode, we discuss how Mormonism has shaped our creative paths, how the comments hit harder when you're writing on religion, and we even pitch the books we’ve written that no one wants to publish (yet!). It’s a compliment fight between two people who will someday, mark our words, be David Sedarises!

Some of Eli's writing we reference:

- Growing up in the heart of Mormonism

- When a senior missionary offered to take he and his husband's photo

- Coming out to the best family ever

And Rebbie's:

- I sold my sanity for the perfect family picture

- Missionary season in Utah County will melt your cold dead heart

Rebbie is joined by her sportsy friends Jake Welch and Scott Stevens to talk about the role BYU Athletics plays in representing the church. We do a "where are they now" for every LDS-ish athlete in the NFL, discuss the BYU Cruise (!!!), and whether or not sports are an ice breaker when you find yourself set with Tom Brady. We throw in a dose of nerd by reminiscing about our old YSA pal J.D. Payne, who is now the showrunner for Amazon's The Ring of Power and whom we will defend in the comments against every angry Tolkienhead.