Why Writers Victimized LDS Sister Missionaries – Deseret News

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There will be many different opinions about “Heretic,” the horror movie that hits theaters this week about a man who captures two sister missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One topic people are already debating is the use of women as victims in this and other horror films.

“Heretics” is, of course, full of the tropes that come with the horror genre, including the bad guy who terrorizes women and the last girl trope, where a girl or woman is the last person standing after defeating the bad guy .

The writers and directors of “Heretic,” Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, long ago cast female Latter-day Saint missionaries as protagonists for the genre. After the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, they said they wrote the first scenes in the film involving the sister missionaries 10 years ago because the writers thought they were such a good hook. Then they put the project aside to work on other parts of it.

The final girl trope is much debated in film circles.

Here’s what one essayist wrote about the final girl character that almost foretold the ending of “Heretics”:

“But what exactly does a Final Girl do? She is virtuous. She abstains from drink, from drugs and from premarital sex,” wrote Grace Pulliam. “Final Girl is unassuming. She’s beautiful but doesn’t realize it. Awkward. She plays fair. A good girl. That’s why she lives while her more promiscuous peers die. Final Girl is the gold standard, the paragon of the impressionable female viewer.”

Pulliam found the trope to be misogynistic because filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s used it to punish women who did not conform to social norms. The idealized final girl survives because she behaves as the filmmakers demand or they kill her.

The last girl trope shares commonalities with the long-standing cinematic trope of the naïve or naturally sane Latter-day Saint.

“Sister missionaries are really compelling characters, well-dressed young women who we assume are innocent, kind and devoted. Of course, they’re the ideal victims in a story like this,” said Christine Blythe, co-host of the podcast “Angels and Seerstones: A Latter-day Saint Folklore Podcast.”

Blythe hasn’t seen the movie yet, but she has read the script and was disappointed.

“We’re taking these young, vulnerable 19- and 20-year-olds who are just incredible — they’re sacrificing a year and a half of their lives to do something really healthy and good — but instead of focusing on that, (the filmmakers) look at their immaturity and their naivety, which is certainly there because they are young and want to make that sort of thing the center of the discussion, a kind of humiliation of the whole faith.”

Such misrepresentations of faith and believers are one of the reasons why so many Christians, from evangelicals to Catholics and Latter-day Saints, react so strongly to “The Chosen.” In it they feel represented, a sentiment so many Latter-day Saint students at BYU conveyed when they gave a standing ovation last week to Dallas Jenkins, creator of “The Chosen.”

My latest stories

The Trouble With ‘Heretic,’ Hugh Grant’s New Latter-day Saint Missionary Horror Film (Oct. 31)

About the church

How the church keeps missionaries safe.

Single men over 40 can now serve full-time missions. And women over 40 have expanded missionary opportunities.

Church leaders broke ground for Tarawa Kiribati Templegiving the church 53 temples under construction.

Elder David A. Bednar spoke at a young adult worldwide devotional about artificial intelligence and moral agency.

The First Presidency announced placements for Colorado Springs Colorado Temple and Missoula Montana Temple.

The orchestra in Temple Square celebrated its 25th anniversary.

What I read

In response to another religious film in theaters now, “Conclave,” our Kelsey Dallas asks the question, “How should Hollywood handle religion?”

I previously recommended a great book by Garrett M. Graff, “The Only Plane in the Sky,” an oral history of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001. I am now reading his new book, “When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day,” and it’s a terrific window into the minds of planners, soldiers, and civilians. I’ve read a lot about World War II, but here’s a detail I didn’t know: American automakers built 3 million cars in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, they built only 139 more through the end of the war as they switched to manufacturing aircraft, tanks, and other war necessities.