the weekend/movie review/deep questions

so this weekend was a trip to new hampshire to see rylan's twin sister, her new baby, erin's husband brian and to see rylan's parents. sunday was the blessing and rylan was invited to participate.
the drive is crazy. as much as i like the area, i am afraid i'd have a heart attack with the driving. just absolutely crazy. but the scenery is beautiful, and we made good time.
erin and brian are both very cool and we get on very well. it was lovely to see them again and visit :) the baby is sweet and darling.
things were smooth and calm, even though it is still a little odd that my in laws are just happy sitting around on vacation at someone's house. just weirds me out a bit.
they brought out a film called mobsters and mormons (rylan's parents) and said it was so funny and great and that they laughed every time they watched it. so they popped it in and we watched some of it. (we lost power a couple times thankfully..)
and i have to say, i couldn't find many things terribly funny about it. a couple spots were funny, when Rick picks up the paintball gun and shoots the wall with no problem while the adult is trying to explain techniques of holding the gun. ok that was funny.
but what i thought about as i watched it was that all it was was stereotypes of mormons. the lead family is the first counselor in the bishopric. he works at a Lowes type of place, his wife is young and pretty, and pregnant, blonde hair, cute and sweet as a tablespoon of maple syrup. the first counselor/husband's little sister lives with them because their dad is mission president in someplace.
there's the gossip who also happen to be the chorister, who thinks every meeting is a performance, and does a very overdone version of Families can be together forever in sacrament meeting...
the whole thing just seemed to be nothing but stereotypes about mormons and an underhanded way of teaching the gospel. the first thing out of someone's mouth when the 'mobster fmaliy' arrives in utah is "how many wives do you have?" and the agent goes into a history lesson about plural marriage. and then when the young couple (the counselor and his wife) go to 'friendship' the new family into the area and neighborhood you get the word of wisdom lesson "While although some members of our church choose to drink cola drinks, we have chosen not to...."
the scene in sacrament meeting with the counsleor ripping off the pulpit head and hitting the speaker int he head... no one would do that. it was irreverant and completely rude. the catholic church service scene was more reverant.
the characters were very naive, and a bit toothachingly sweet.
and what kept going through my mind was, is this the image we want to be portraying? this whole movie is full of inside jokes. it is very isolationist. these companies have carved a niche for themselves, catering to lds viewers, but at what cost? for us to allow these stereotypes to be reinforced? even to ourselves? between the stereotypes and the veiled church lessons/missionary tactics, who is this film for?
if this is meant to be a missionary tool, or for non members, then why are we reinforcing stereotypes and adding new ones? wouldn't it be better to have a well written script, without portraying characters as nothing more than caricatures, cut outs that can be filled by any person? caricatures are dangerous things. they are nothing more than stereotypes walking across a screen. they are everything that a good writer (play, film, author etc) strives against. these are not kind depictions; no stereotype is.

so my questions, why the stereotypes in the film, caricatures, what should we do about this? and why do we let this happen? why should we patronize a company that produces this type of material?
I have seen LDS films before. Rigoletto is still a beautiful film. It's not pulitzer prize winning material. music is beautiful, good moral. the writing is good. the questions don't come up because we believe in the world of the film. that suspension of disbelief was never present in Mobsters and Mormons.
I saw Mr. Krugers Christmas. i own it as pretty much every other Ensign Subscriber. And although you could almost boil it down to nothing more than a glorified music video, we believe the world of the film. It doesn't portray stereotypes. It's simple, poignant and not overly complicated.
So why is there such a market for material that is poorly written or done, for the lds community? why is there such a return to stereotypes, that aren't accurate and things we should be trying to dispel?
The Other Side of Heaven, which i was a little scared about and very skeptical about, handled allt hose issues well. handled the deal about no sex for misionaries. what their jobs were, all of that, in such a manner that it was palatable to everyone. that film could easily be seen as a missionary tool. I would not be embarassed to hand that movie out, or to recommend it. I would never recommend mobsters and mormons. ever.

The reason this impacts me is that one of my stories that i am thinking about writing is LDS. not based on the gospel but employing LDS characters and LDS setting. i want to avoid all of these things. It's not going to be a sweet toothachingly saccharine piece. so it makes me a little nervous to see what will happen when the piece is done and how will it be received?
i think of a quote by Orson Whitney in 1888, "We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own. God's ammunition is not yet exhausted."
I think we should be holding ourselves to a higher quality and standard. Just because it's LDS doesn't mean it has to be dumbed down, or strictly religious, saccahraine or sweet. There must needs be opposition in all things....

Input?

the blessing on sunday went wonderfully well.
i got to hold melanie, the baby at the house and she fell asleep in my arms. it is such a cool feeling. so peaceful. i taught her mother a lullabye that melanie seemed to like. put her to sleep or calmed her at least.
Cameron, Brian's son, and i got to hang out. we became quick pals.
i started another sweater because i ran out of yarn for my purple cardigan. so i'm making a big oversized comfy sweater with a cable up the front. Noro yarn. stripes, but very cool.

rylan's making maple syrup. very very good stuff.

And so is the first day of Spring break!!!!!