OCT 10, 2024 | OPINION | By Leigh Walden, Co Editor-in-Chief
The Hulu show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is probably the best reality television I’ve ever encountered. Granted, I am not a connoisseur of the genre — I’ve watched some Bachelor(ette) here and there and the very occasional “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” However, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is an absurd portrayal of a facet of American life I have rarely encountered. And I thoroughly enjoy it..
The show came to be after a group of Mormon housewives, coined “Mom-tok”, went viral for posting a video about swinging that was going on within the group. That’s how their fame STARTED.
Now, the show covers the complicated ins and outs of the women balancing their strict religion with being modern women, wives, and mothers. They manage their children, fame, and divorces, all while producing social media content in a way that feels way more dystopian than it is portrayed.
Being a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints comes with a whole host of rules for how to manage day-to-day life. Mormons are forbidden from drinking coffee, alcohol, or doing drugs. Strictly conforming Mormons wear modest garments, don’t party, and spend a year on mission proselytizing the Morman religion.
In this show, however, the moms (who admit they all vary in their participation with their religion) really push the ticket on what it means to be Mormon. One moment that absolutely stopped me in my tracks was the revelation that many of the moms regularly receive ketamine therapy treatments, yet refuse caffeine in their lives.
There’s a sort of mental dissonance that you accept as a viewer of the show, coming to terms with the way that the Mom-tok-ers can hold two paradoxical truths in one hand while holding their 42-ounce sugared-up soda in the other.
I think that is the heart of this series for me. Up until this point, I hadn’t really digested media that clearly showed me the ways that people weaponize their religion in their social lives. The women not adhering to some aspects of their religion when it’s convenient for them, but shunning their friends for doing the same is a pattern that is the heart of a lot of the drama on the show.
In one instance, one of the moms, Whitney, refuses to attend the baby shower for her “friend” Taylor. One of the reasons for not going is because Taylor was arrested for a conflict with her long-time boyfriend Dakota. While the whole truth is much messier than just that, it does indicate a shadow of judgment inherent to their friend group dynamic.
In another episode, titled “Sinners and Saints,” the audience enters what is a fractured friend group after a particularly brutal and judgment-filled sleepover. The episode explores the different ways the women approach their religion all while casting judgment in both directions about their close friends’ interpretations of it.
Anyone even casually following American politics has become accustomed to how religion is manipulated in politics. Former President Donald Trump manages to do it with an unprecedented level of success. He uses religion as a tool whenever it’s convenient. For instance, during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Trump famously stood outside of the St. John’s Episcopal Church, known as “the Church of the Presidents,” and held up a bible in a publicity stunt. Later that day, he called himself the “president of law and order.”
Today, some supporters refer to Trump as a candidate God Himself has chosen to bring holiness back to American life. Realistically, Trump leads a life far outside of the light of the lord according to the Bible. Paying prostitutes hush money, being married and divorced numerous times, actively denying needy people help in the form of healthcare, and using foul language to describe his colleagues are all just the start of the list. Yet in politics, some Americans are increasingly allowing their candidates to live lives completely disparate from the values they claim to hold dear.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” brings this contradiction home in a different context. It examines how religion can become a posturing tool not just in politics but in day-to-day interactions with friends and family. It shows how religion can be a tool not just to influence voters and elections, but to influence one’s friends and social circles.
These patterns have of course existed long before this show, but it does a particularly compelling job of putting them on display and of showing how social media can contribute to normalizing them. If you’re looking to examine mental dissonance on religion, there’s probably no better show to casually watch. Plus, it has the added benefit of being wildly entertaining.