Utah: Difference between revisions

Utah's [[Facebook]] relationship status with [[The Several States|the other 49 states]] would be "It's complicated." The state's history is heavily intertwined with that of the [[Mormonism|Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]] (popularly known as Mormons). It was founded as a literal [[Cult Colony]] (in the most academic sense of the word) in 1847 by Mormons fleeing religious persecution in New York, then Ohio, then Missouri (after [[Kill'Em All|the governor issued an extermination order]]), then finally Illinois where Church founder Joseph Smith, Jr. was assassinated. His eventual successor, Brigham Young, acting on a notion Smith had entertained of [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|emigrating from the United States altogether]], led the largest faction of Mormons out into the wilderness in a modern-day Exodus. Utah was Mexican territory [[Mexican-American War|at the time]], and was known mostly for being an inhospitable desert where even the water could kill you by being four times saltier than the ocean -- aocean—a place most wagon trains avoided or passed through as quickly as possible on their way to richer, more fertile lands in [[California]] and [[The Other Rainforest|Oregon]]. A place nobody wanted, and hundreds of miles from any place anyone would want.

As far as works are concerned, Utah has a highly active [[Mormon Cinema]] with culturally esoteric references and humor. Often parodied is the quirkiness and stiffness of its traditional culture, heavily tied to its [[Victorian Britain|Victorian English]] history.<ref>Utah has more English ancestry than other state in the United States. Some of the ancestors were 19th century [[New England|New Englanders]]ers like the families of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, but most were actually off-the-boat immigrants who had already become Mormons in England. An additional influx of already-Mormon immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany largely assimilated into the culture.</ref>