"Polygamy's abuse and depression," she opined. "Huge depression. It's hard to glamorize that. They should call the show Not Enough Love."
Or, when you think about a 14-year-old girl marrying a 60-year-old man: Big Eeeewww!
Fred Harper
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Petersen laughed when The Bird told her that maybe HBO should market its new show as a comedy rather than a drama.
"Everything in that show looks so rosy," she snarked, after watching clips from the pilot. "But believe me, polygamy doesn't work. In real life you've got the first wife, who is old and worn out and mad about the second wife, and then all of a sudden there's a third wife, a young one, and that causes all kinds of chaos because, of course, the guy is flipped over her -- she's young and skinny because she hasn't given birth to 12 kids -- and so the women hate her. Which leads to her getting all the hard chores of the house and watching the kids, plus she's dealing with women hating her, and the man wanting to be with her all the time.
"Being the third or fourth wife just sucks."
The show's creators got that part right, at least.
In the pilot, Bill's eldest wife gets even with his new, perky teenage bride by grounding her.
Some of the men in the real polygamist enclave have scores of wives, so imagine the child-care responsibilities of wife 60!
Realism aside, Big Love is hardly G-rated. Although the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doesn't make an appearance on the show, it does contain loads of sex and some behind-the-scenes Mormon stuff -- like a secret chant about moral purity that goes: "We can wait!/We can wait!/We can wait to procreate/'Til aaaaaaaaaaafter marriage! Yaaaaay!"
The Bird wishes it were kidding.
"Polygamy was a trip," Petersen scoffed. "But not a fun one. I don't know how they can portray it accurately and still make it entertaining, though. Unless they portray the women as dogs, it's not accurate. Who have [the writers] been talking to, anyhow?"
Big Love executive producer Tom Hanks, for one. Hanks was himself a Mormon for a couple of years when he was a kid, and has arranged to have each episode open with a disclaimer stating that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't sanction plural marriage -- a move that Olsen told The Bird was made without any prompting from the church.
Mainstream Mormon officials beg to differ. They say on their Web site (www.lds.org) that the church instigated placement of the disclaimer "dissociating the practice of polygamy today from the Church."
They go on to say that "it will be regrettable if this program, by making polygamy the subject of entertainment, minimizes the seriousness of the problems [of polygamy]."
Don't get The Bird wrong. It's not scandalized that HBO's airing a series on polygamy. Great idea! And it's probably best to feature good-looking actors. 'Cause, honey, nobody wants to see puffy girls with a lot of body hair and no makeup boning Bill Paxton.
The winged wonder just wishes that the creators of Big Love would plan some edgier episodes.
Maybe one on the church's prophet getting busted for marrying church members to underage brides, going on the lam and winding up on the FBI's most wanted list. Or one where the prophet is accused of having repeatedly raped a young nephew years ago. There could even be a flashback scene to Paxton's character being the one victimized. These are actual events in the life of church Prophet Warren Jeffs, who real polygamists believe is a God-like character sent to direct their every move on Earth.
The Bird was heartened to see in one of the trailers that venerable actor Harry Dean Stanton plays a money-grubbing, sleazoid church prophet in the HBO show.
"Hey, polygamy's a hot issue right now," Petersen proclaimed. "The only reason [a TV network] is doing a show about it is because it will make some money. I tell you, if there were money in rescuing girls from Colorado City, the Hollywood guys would be lining up to get those girls out right now."
Now, Pennie, Hollywood wouldn't give a good Jeffs-damn about getting the poor girls freed . . .
Unless it could somehow dramatize their release from captivity. Who knows, maybe Olsen and Scheffer will seize on the idea for an episode of Big Love after reading this column, like somebody did after reading all the polygamy coverage in the national press that was sparked by New Times.
