Unpacking the Hidden Layers of Reality Show Drama

You can almost hear the producers trying to sell this show to Hulu: It’s hot Mormon moms… who are also swingers. Turns out only one of them was “swinging,” and the swinging was (in her words) “soft.” But it was enough to get Hulu — and now, millions of other viewers — on board with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which tracks the interlocking stories of eight Mormon influencers in Utah.

Like so much of contemporary reality television, this show is glossy, melodramatic, unhinged, and addictive. It’s entertainment, sure, but it’s also a way for us to think through some of our own understandings of marriage, sex, friendship, religion, and feminism — which is exactly what Sara Petersen and I try to work through in this episode. That, and whether Dakota is a paid actor.

Show Notes:

• Subscribe to Sara’s newsletter

• And read her latest piece on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

• The Us Weekly aggregation of “where the women stand with the church”

• The breakdown of Demi’s relationship with Bret

• The best thing I’ve read from the Mormon feminist perspective re: Secret Lives and the church’s reaction to it

• A big feature I wrote for BuzzFeed about the women who’d left the FLDS and were trying to remake their lives

• My interview with Meg Conley re: what got left out of LuLaRich and the role of MLMs in Mormon culture

• Sara’s excellent reflection on the Times Ballerina Farm profile (and Hannah Neeleman’s reaction)

For today’s discussion: How do you think about religious culture vs. religious belief? How toxic is Jen’s husband? Is influencing the new Mormon MLM????