Will MomTok Even Survive This?!?!

Culture Study Podcast

Anne Helen Petersen

Fashion & Beauty, Society & Culture, Arts

4.6 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2024

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode of the Culture Study podcast is sponsored by the 19th.
0:05.4	The 19th is an independent, non-profit newsroom whose reporting centers those who have been
0:10.6	traditionally shut out of politics and policy.
0:13.9	Ahead of the election, the 19th wants to help you make sense of how people from underrepresented
0:18.4	communities are impacted by U.S. politics and policy.
0:22.2	Women's rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ plus rights, they're all on the ballot this November.
0:28.3	I love the 19th. I really do. And it's like the only news newsletter that I actually open.
0:35.6	And they're always approaching stories through a lens that I
0:38.2	don't see elsewhere. I mean, they have reporters who are completely dedicated just to thinking
0:44.4	about caregiving, which is not something that you're going to see at most news outlets.
0:48.7	You can also listen to the 19th podcast wherever you're listening to this one.
0:53.3	Erin Haynes, who's an editor at large,
0:55.1	she's so awesome. She's also the host of the amendment, which sheds light on our politics
0:59.7	during a critical election year where the work of our democracy is still unfinished.
1:04.6	So ahead of this election this fall, subscribe to the 19th free newsletter. It's at 19th news.org slash culture study to stay informed on the
1:14.6	issues that represent those underserved by and underrepresented in American media. That's 19th News,
1:21.1	19th news, 19th news.org backslash culture study. Thank you so much to the 19th for sponsoring today's
1:29.6	episode. Okay, today we're talking about the Hulu show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And to start,
1:37.9	we're going to describe a moment that made you raise your eyebrows, drop your jaw.
1:44.9	I was watching this show with my partner, Charlie,
1:47.5	and I would say moments when he's like, what the fuck?
1:52.0	But you go first.
	...

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