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| Broadway Cast Performing 'Turn It Off' 2012 |
Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and Robert Lopez are truly the masters of irreverent farce. ‘The Book of Mormon’ is about as funny as it gets. But, it is also - in the cleverly honest ways comedy has – a show that puts quite serious matters right ‘in your face’. And one serious matter is this: “Turning Off” your feelings isn’t funny.
In my last post, on the Academy Award winning movie ‘The Artist’, I talked about feelings that are silenced by mocking internal voices that say “Don’t be a fool; you’ll just be hurt.” The ‘Book of Mormon’ song “Turn It Off” tells us something else that silences feelings: believing certain feelings are bad.
If you feel that way, you are living in your own version of ‘Mormon Hell’ – a place of terrible self-judgment. To add to that hell, you probably believe other people are judging you, as well. It’s so unbearable to feel that way – maybe you do what Elder McKinley does as he struggles with his gay feelings: “Turn It Off – like a light switch”. Or, if that doesn’t work - “imagine that your brain is made of tiny boxes. And find the box that has that (‘curse of a feeling in it’) - and crush it!”
More important, though, is why you have to use these methods to silence your feelings in the first place. It’s because you believe there’s something wrong with them. So wrong that a voice in your mind (not unlike the “The Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”) tells you - you are ‘worse than your own version of Ghenghis Khan, Adolph Hitler, and Jeffrey Dahmer’. What do you do when you believe your feelings and thoughts are that bad?
Probably you have no choice but to turn them off, dim them down, crush them, or lie to yourself about them. Maybe there’s some truth to the idea - “it’s OK to have certain feelings if you don’t act on them”, as the song says. But, most feelings aren’t dangerous to others. Turning them off, though, is not at all good for you. Nor is having to deny who you are to please someone else - or living up to a code of behavior that isn’t really you. Isn’t that it’s own kind of hell?
What does it take to break free? It takes the kind of new, strong, and heartfelt belief that ‘The Book of Mormon’ ends with: There is nothing bad or sacrilegious about finding your own personal way of seeing things. Especially when it comes to defining who you are. Isn’t that what Elder McKinley needed? Isn’t it what you (and I and everyone) need – the freedom to be openly yourself, with all of your feelings? Without the “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” telling you – you are the worst of the worst if you do.
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