And not just on you, but on your role as a wife. Self-worth, in this narrative, is obtained through others placing an external, concrete monetary value on you. Good job!” or observing, “Mahana, you are very nice to others. How is it done? Through stating, “Hey, Mahana, I noticed that you are really good at sorting shells. But let’s imagine a ten-year-old girl and try to give her a sense of “building the self-worth of others” (the sub-title of the film). Some may accuse me of being intentionally obtuse. To which, I ask, where is the man with eight cows? Because, if a man had paid eight cows for you, you would instantly become beautiful. Therefore, if you feel ugly or are ugly, it is because you don’t value yourself enough or because no man has paid eight cows for you. Once you feel worthy you will become outwardly beautiful. To my mind, the moral of this movie is: you should try to find a man who will pay eight cows in order to marry you, for then you will know your true value (eight cows), and then you will feel worthy of eight cows (which, translated, means, what, about $15,000 per cow in 1960s dollars, so $120,000 or a literal fortune?). The point is, what was I doing watching a Mormon movie in a public elementary school? Maybe in fifth grade I had no idea what BYU was. ![]() When I looked it up (and found it on The Mormon Channel of YouTube), the credits it clearly states it was produced by Brigham Young University. It doesn’t seem plausible now, but I didn’t know the movie was a Mormon movie. I was, for all purposes, a pretty normal non-Mormon girl. I was sent to the euphemistically named “resource room” until I learned them, which took me approximately two days. In fifth grade, I refused to learn the multiplication tables on the grounds that I would never need to use them. I liked to read and I sometimes typed stories on my dad’s typewriter. I did gymnastics sometimes and played tennis. I liked to hike in the hills behind our houses with my friend Annette. I was somewhat of a tom boy I had short hair and I often word corduroy pants. My father may have stopped going to church by this time, but my mother still took me and my sisters to church on Sundays. We went to the United Presbyterian church, a more liberal, less rigid version of the same faith. The RPs don’t believe in cards, or music (they sing their hymns unaccompanied), they do believe in fire and brimstone, and, if memory serves, kindness. My grandfather was, at the time, a Reformed Presbyterian preacher. Now, let’s imagine how this movie might seem to a ten-year-old girl in Pocatello, Idaho who, for the record, is not Mormon and, honestly, does not fully understand Mormonism. He was tricked! Ha ha ha! She’s a ten cow woman. Her father says that maybe he should have gotten ten cows for her. When he returns from the trip with his wife, everyone is surprised to see how beautiful she is. Capitalism at its finest! He then takes his wife off on a trading trip. But he does, and he gives the eight cows and receives a wife in trade. He is supposed to come with the cows the next day, and many villagers assume that he will simply not show up. When the trader shows up to bargain with the father he shocks everyone by offering eight cows for the woman. Her father, therefore, asks for three cows, just to insure that if he has to bargain down he will get at least one. The woman this trader wants to marry, Mahana, is widely viewed as being ugly and worthless, that is, the trader won’t need very many cows in order obtain her hand in marriage. Some of the older village women stand around and brag about how many cows their husbands gave for them. The obtaining of a wife, in this culture, necessitates bargaining with the local currency: cows. ![]() The film, “Johnny Lingo,” is the story of a Polynesian trader who comes to a small village to find a wife. I think we watched it in both fifth and sixth grade, but I can’t be sure. But my concern today is a film, an actual film that was projected on a screen and came on reels. I am nostalgic for the film strips, with their accompanying tape deck soundtracks, which beeped when you needed to advance the film. In grade school, we often watched film strips. The majority of people who live in Pocatello are Mormon, or members of the LDS church. In grade school, I went to a public elementary, downtown, by the name of Bonneville. I grew up, from fourth grade until I graduated high school, in a small town in Southeast Idaho, Pocatello.
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