'Big Love': Area Mormons no fans of hit show
 
By Stephanie Vosk
The Patriot Ledger - Quincy, Massachusetts
 
With HBO’s hit drama about a modern-day polygamist family set to end its first season Sunday night, local Mormons are weighing in on the show’s impact.

"Big Love" began its 12-episode run in March and followed the daily life of Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton), his three wives and seven children, and their extended family.

Lorie Burningham, public affairs director for the Hingham Stake (dioceses) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said she was disappointed with the show, from the few episodes she saw.

"It just didn't put Mormons in the best light, it kind of lumped them into a Utah Mormon stereotypical mold, and I believe most of the members of my faith are not like that," she said.

Burningham does not believe in plural marriage, something the LDS church outlawed in 1890. But, she joked, "if I could find somebody who would do dishes and toilets it might be tempting."

However, she added, "my husband says he couldn't handle more than one of me anyway."

And her husband, Greg, also said he was not a fan.

"It was all about this guy having to take Viagra so he could satisfy all these women," Greg Burningham said. "It wasn't a male fantasy, for me it was just disgusting."

He did say he appreciated the fact that the show’s writers made it clear that the Henricksons are not members of the LDS church, but, he said they went "out of their way to portray this polygamist family as being the normal ones surrounded by all these wacky Mormons."

Shannon Zollo, a member of the High Council within the Hingham Stake, said he believes the show’s producers have not made enough of an effort to show that the LDS church does not support polygamy. While a disclaimer was posted after the first episode, Zollo said that is not enough.

"It would be better I think and more genuine if it were shown after or prior to every show," he said.

Whitney Johnson, public affairs director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for Greater Boston, said she has not seen the show at all. She doesn’t have HBO, but she also has no interest.

"Polygamy's one of those things that people look at it and say, ‘Oh, you're a Mormon, how many wives do you have?’ And because it's something we don't practice, you just sort of say, ‘I'm not going to watch this because it doesn't relate to who we are,’" Johnson said. "It's trying to legitimize something that I don't agree with."

Anne Wilde, who lived in a polygamist household in Utah for 33 years until her husband died four years ago, said she appreciates the accuracy of the show.

Wilde serves as the community relations director for Principle Voices, an organization set up to work with and for Fundamentalist Mormons, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her book, "Voices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage," and "Mormon Focus," a magazine for which she was the managing editor, were used as source material by the show’s writers, she said.

"I feel like one of the main things is it shows the diversity of those who live it as consenting adults," she said. "That some may live in an isolated community and others may live in a subdivision and blend in with society."

The leader of the show’s isolated commune, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton), is also accurately portrayed, she said. His characteristics are similar to those of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is currently on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list.

There’s only one thing, however, that Wilde said she dislikes about the show: "the sex part."

"I'm not saying that isn't part of any marriage. We certainly believe in large families and as far as I know there's no other way of having that then being intimate," Wilde said of the numerous sex scenes between Bill Henrickson and his wives, particularly in the first couple of episodes.

But, she conceded, "this is HBO."

Lorie Burningham said she was also turned off by the crude scenes in the show.

"As a parent of all daughters, I thought there was just way too much sex, and I'm not an HBO person to begin with," she said.

The season finale will air Sunday night on HBO at 10 p.m.

Stephanie Vosk may be reached at svosk@ledger.com.
 
ledger.southofboston.com
Originally published June 3, 2006
 
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