8: The Mormon Proposition

I will try my darnedest to be fair and honest in my review of this film. I've been interested in seeing it since it was playing at the Newport Film Festival, but didn't want to support the film monetarily because from everything I'd seen and heard it had an agenda and portrayed what I believe in an unfair way. And now after having seen it, I agree. But as a critic, I give my unbiased review below.

8: The Mormon Proposition - I can categorize most modern documentaries into 2 categories, based on Michael Moore's last 2 films, Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story. Sicko being on the good side of the scale and Capitalism on the other. While both appear to tackle a contemporary issue, Sicko does it well. Capitalism seemed to be too little, too late. Everything in the film had already been in the news so much over the previous few years that the film was merely acting as a receptacle for the topic; gathering it into one place, then vaguely putting a spin on it. The film never attempts to offer any new insight into the issue, other than saying that Americans have a love affair with capitalism to their detriment. You sort of get a sense that Moore is hinting that communism is a better system, but he never addresses it or offers any insight into changing America's apparently screwed up system.
Sicko headbutts the healthcare debacle and doesn't care who stands in its way. Moore gets right into the middle of the issue from the get go. He hits the audience where it's vulnerable and like it or not, what he presents is hard to ignore. By the end, even if you don't agree with Moore's stance, you agree that something has to be done to fix the problem. And maybe because the first time I saw it I was in a dark theater, I actually cried during the film. (Email me if you want to know at what part.) (A hint, it actually was during a part that had little to do with healthcare.)
So where does 8 stand? Closer to Capitalism. It basically is a collection of news and events we've all seen so many times over the last 2 years since Prop 8 passed. It pushes back the curtain on the Mormon church's involvement, showing internal documents about their strategies and showing some video footage of church leaders rallying Mormons to action, but how revealing is that? Everyone knows the Mormon church was involved. And guess what, any organization that's involved in something is going to have "internal documents." Mormons aren't psychic. (Yet.) And what did they reveal? The church wanted to stay out of the public eye, use coalitions, and guess what....get their members involved. This is what Mormons were so worried about getting revealed? I actually was worried that they had footage from the broadcast that I attended, where they asked members to get involved. I thought, 'Oh man, what are they going to show that's going to be out of context and revealing?' Footage of the broadcast was shown intermittently throughout the film, masked behind secret looking graphics(probably because the quality was poor because it was a bootleg copy), but what was said may be shocking to those who have no clue what the Mormons are about, but to anyone else, it was pretty basic. Mormons believe in their religion and beliefs pretty strongly, so why is it a surprise that in the broadcast to members, they invoke the name of their savior and tell the members to use Twitter and blog?
Again, without taking sides, this wasn't very shocking. In fact, any of the tidbits and reveals dealing with Prop 8 weren't shocking at all. In fact, the film is actually very "vanilla" when it deals with Prop 8 and gay marriage in general. Never does the film offer any insight into the issue, any solutions or any unbiased presentation of the pro-Prop 8 stance. It actually hardly even presents the gay marriage stance. What was the point of this film then?
The last section of the film was actually the most thought provoking and eye opening. It deals with the Mormon culture's acceptance of homosexuality (or lack thereof). It looks, very briefly into gay teens, teen homelessness in Utah, and the suicide rate among gay teens. This should have taken up more time. If the filmmakers were bolder, more daring and dare I say it, more like Michael Moore, they would have honestly and directly faced these issues. But they spend a sparse few minutes with a group of homeless teens in Salt Lake, and spend just barely enough time on the suicide rate. But even then, they never get in too deeply into the reasons behind it or offer any solutions or direction.

But this film wasn't about the particulars of gay culture in Utah, it was about Proposition 8, and the Mormon ties to it. It's a shame they never got anyone within the church to be in the film, because I feel like there are so many Latter Day Saints that could have represented the church's side well. And because of that, we were left watching ex-Mormons saying why the church is bad, upset gay couples, liberal politicians, and some stock footage of Utah politicians with big mouths. It's a shame that this film didn't actually address the core of the issue and the points of view involved, because this is such a divisive and pressing issue, and rarely has logic been presented on either side effectively.