Haven't listened to the episode yet so disregard if this point has been made, but I feel like a lot of these elite media profiles of the Neelemans neglect the significance of their religion. Mormonism was born on the American frontier and there is still a great deal of cultural attachment to pioneer living. Daniel missed out on this growing up as a stereotypical Connecticut rich kid, so he bought himself a full-time theme park where he can LARP the 1860s to his heart's content. In my mind, the dynamics at play aren't meaningfully different from when an assimilated, western-born child of Muslim immigrants becomes radicalized as a young adult.
As for Hannah, she's willing to play the part of beautiful, dutiful, stout-hearted frontier wife. Only she knows whether she does this out of love, or money, or spiritual devotion, or some other reason entirely -- though I do get the sense she's not as bought in as he is.
That they have a bunch of kids is a Mormon thing in general, separate from the whole frontier-ranch-no-epidurals issue. Both of them are one of nine IIRC.
Full disclosure, I do think that there are issues in their marriage and Daniel gives me the creeps.
Excellent points, Lana. Speaking of pioneer LARPing, they do that in July in Utah. They dress up in historically accurate garb, and pull wagons over the salt flats to recreate the hard work, sacrifice and faith the early settlers had to endure to reach Zion.
Hannah doesn't see herself as "Tradwife" because she is just a "Good Mormon". She isn't deviating from any cultural norm she grew up with. She is fulfilling her destiny from birth to be a Mother in Zion (actual term in Mormonism).
It isn't uncommon at all for Mormon young women to have a taste of glamour and give it up the second they get married. My cousin was a Ford model and dropped it like a hot rock when she got married, then had 5 children. My champion ballroom dancer cousin, married then had 10 kids.
Hannah was never going to have a long career, frittering away her fertile years.
This is why BYU has such a robust theater, music and dance department. They know that they have to give artistic women an outlet before they all start the same exact career: Mother.
Next, despite loud, vigorous protestations the Mormons are NOT a prosperity gospel, they are. The more obvious your wealth, the larger your family (the more children the bigger your kingdom in heaven), the more you certainly must deserve it because you are a righteous Mormon.
The farm aesthetic is new and trendy, but the showing off wealth has always been a thing. Mormons by and large are suburban, not cowboys. Where I grew up the good Mormons had mansions on the Wasatch bench with literal 10 car two-story garages, with room for at least 2 boats..oh and the garage floors were heated.
One prominent family had 11 kids and owned not only one mansion with a back yard so large you and five of your junior high girlfriends could camp in it without the family noticing (I know from experience), but they also owned every house in the cul-de-sac for their adult children to live in when they get married. Cause that's how it's going to be in heaven if you reach the top tier, (of which there are 3) you live as Kings and Queens with your children, with tier 1 & 2 serving you.
If you do not have "earthly riches" you make up for it by being pious and having lots of kids.
So Hannah was going to be a mom of 8-10 no matter what, so why wouldn't she pick the billionaire's son? As Phoebe pointed out, her secret dream isn't to be Supreme Court Justice. The girls who want that usually leave the church.
She doesn't want to be "saved" by the feminists, break her temple covenants and go to third rate Heaven with the rest of the poors.
Also, for what it's worth I worked with a Neeleman, and the Jet Blue guy takes Mormonism and hard work very seriously. The farm work and housework is probably how they stay in good standing with him, he's not huge on handouts for lazy children. (Not positive, just an observation!)
To answer another question, there is a Mormon uniform in Utah, but it doesn't stand out as much now that more modest fashion is in vogue. It used to rely heavily on khakis and blue button-ups.
I'm LDS, and every mom I know wears pretty much what everyone else wears at home -- leggings or sweats and a comfy shirt. I have spent the past 5 years in basketball shorts whenever possible (my husband converted me during lockdown). I'm also Gen X, and while people my age often had a lot of siblings, that isn't too common anymore. Young families tend to have have 2-4 children, maybe 5 every so often (I have two). I grant you that I have never lived in Utah and went to a hippie college, not BYU! I suspect that the BF people can afford to have a lot of kids -- a whole lot of Americans wish they could have one or two more and don't feel they can afford it, and these folks can -- plus they must just like having kids a lot. Some people do. I find their aesthetic and brand weird and off-putting, but I gotta admit they make it really really pretty.
It kind of irritates me to see so much speculation that Hannah was coerced or dragged into marrying the guy, because hey, she's Mormon and obviously we're all forced to get married at 20. Nobody dragged her to the altar or told her that she'd go to hell if she didn't marry this specific dude at this specific moment. She probably just decided to. (My own husband did pursue me -- I had developed a near-phobia about the M-word and he cleverly did not mention that he wanted to get married until I felt more comfortable about the whole thing. I would have run if he'd mentioned it too soon. Since we had no money whatsoever, he just walked me home a lot instead of arranging plane tickets, which is....on the weird side, but it sounds like they were already dating and it would be very popular if portrayed on Friends. I bet the guy thought it would be a classic rom-com move.)
Lastly, Phoebe! I have never been able to touch my toes and I'm on the pudgy side these days but I recently started doing some super easy yoga and I can totally touch my toes now!! o.O And, with your fixation on Brit TV you should know Aga stoves; they are super-old-school-British country stuff. They've always on low, so they keep a kitchen warm and dry. Totally unsuited to most of the US, including Utah, but I bet fancy Canadians like them.
More random thoughts: I do think it's objectively pretty crazy to meet a guy, get engaged and married within two months, and immediately get pregnant. If I were Hannah's mom I would have been really worried about that and said "yeah why don't you take that year and finish school. There's no big rush." Mormons get married younger and quicker than other folks but that is an *unhinged* timeline that would have everyone concerned, not a desirable plan held up as a goal. Nobody expects you to have a baby in the first year of marriage. Mormons do birth control. But also she was an adult at the time and she could go get a marriage license and have a baby without parental permission.
Having listened to the episode I just want to make a quick note on some tossed-off snark late in the episode:
In my experience, male ballet dancers are not more likely to be gay than your average dude. Much like gymnasts, most of them started training in early childhood and potential for high-level performance gets sussed out pretty quickly. It's basically just another sport, and dancers can be pretty macho and philandering (look up the tea surrounding Benjamin Millepied, the former Mr. Natalie Portman), and there have been quite a few scandals in the ballet world concerning prominent male dancers being sexually shitty towards their female colleagues.
A bit late to the table here. Neither of you mentioned the 1977 ballet melodrama "The Turning Point," with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft (late wife of Mel Brooks). In brief, a rising dancer named DeeDee (MacLaine) gets pregnant by fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) and they move to Oklahoma (not Utah) to run a dance studio and raise kids. Dancer Emma (Anne Bancroft) is DeeDee's frenemy who goes on to be a childless prima.
So, two decades later the ballet company comes on tour to Oklahoma and the ladies revive their frenemyship, and godmother Emma offers to give talented daughter Emilia a shot at the ballet company in the big city. DeeDee accompanies as chaperone and the young Emilia (played by the now-retired ABT prima Leslie Browne) immediately impresses the dance lords and also a randy young dancer named Yury (Mikhail Baryshnikov), with whom Emilia has a brief affair. All sorts of drama also unfold between DeeDee and Emma as DeeDee rues the career she abandoned, and Emma professionally adopts the kid she never had in Emilia. In the end Emilia settles amicably with Yury (who has so moved on) and both older ladies punch it out on top of Carnegie Hall, make up, and come to terms with their life choices.
This is really a wild coincidence, but when I was in college, I smuggled some documents to prominent refusenik Vladimir Slepak in Moscow on behalf of the late Lou Rosenblum with United Councils for Soviet Jewry. In 1996, Chaim Potok wrote a book about the Slepak family called "The Gates of November." I just noticed in glancing at Leslie Browne's biography that she is married to Vladimir's son, Leonid Slepak.
BTW, one friend is a young, married Jewish woman who matriculated at an Ivy college about eleven years ago, then took a gap decade as a ballerina with a major company (not in NYC). She returned to college a year ago determined to follow through on her undergraduate degree. She is a prominent conservative journalist on campus (yes, they exist), and she celebrates the importance of marriage and family. She seems to be having it all in a way, and she credits her devoted husband with making it possible.
Very much enjoyed this week's episode of the "Kat and Phoebe Politely But Firmly Announce That They Fail to Feel Empathy For A Woman Whining Online About Something Extremely Specific" show.
Appreciate the heads up at the start about the topic. I am blissfully unaware of whatever that is, and while I do like me some portmanteau and "vibes" discourse, I think I am full up on the spasms of women vs. women over how to woman properly about as much as I am on the manosphere / redpill / insert navel gazing here discourse. Tho as always I assume the pod was a cavalcade o' whimsy and will catch you on the next one. :D
Haven't listened to the episode yet so disregard if this point has been made, but I feel like a lot of these elite media profiles of the Neelemans neglect the significance of their religion. Mormonism was born on the American frontier and there is still a great deal of cultural attachment to pioneer living. Daniel missed out on this growing up as a stereotypical Connecticut rich kid, so he bought himself a full-time theme park where he can LARP the 1860s to his heart's content. In my mind, the dynamics at play aren't meaningfully different from when an assimilated, western-born child of Muslim immigrants becomes radicalized as a young adult.
As for Hannah, she's willing to play the part of beautiful, dutiful, stout-hearted frontier wife. Only she knows whether she does this out of love, or money, or spiritual devotion, or some other reason entirely -- though I do get the sense she's not as bought in as he is.
That they have a bunch of kids is a Mormon thing in general, separate from the whole frontier-ranch-no-epidurals issue. Both of them are one of nine IIRC.
Full disclosure, I do think that there are issues in their marriage and Daniel gives me the creeps.
Excellent points, Lana. Speaking of pioneer LARPing, they do that in July in Utah. They dress up in historically accurate garb, and pull wagons over the salt flats to recreate the hard work, sacrifice and faith the early settlers had to endure to reach Zion.
Hannah doesn't see herself as "Tradwife" because she is just a "Good Mormon". She isn't deviating from any cultural norm she grew up with. She is fulfilling her destiny from birth to be a Mother in Zion (actual term in Mormonism).
It isn't uncommon at all for Mormon young women to have a taste of glamour and give it up the second they get married. My cousin was a Ford model and dropped it like a hot rock when she got married, then had 5 children. My champion ballroom dancer cousin, married then had 10 kids.
Hannah was never going to have a long career, frittering away her fertile years.
This is why BYU has such a robust theater, music and dance department. They know that they have to give artistic women an outlet before they all start the same exact career: Mother.
Next, despite loud, vigorous protestations the Mormons are NOT a prosperity gospel, they are. The more obvious your wealth, the larger your family (the more children the bigger your kingdom in heaven), the more you certainly must deserve it because you are a righteous Mormon.
The farm aesthetic is new and trendy, but the showing off wealth has always been a thing. Mormons by and large are suburban, not cowboys. Where I grew up the good Mormons had mansions on the Wasatch bench with literal 10 car two-story garages, with room for at least 2 boats..oh and the garage floors were heated.
One prominent family had 11 kids and owned not only one mansion with a back yard so large you and five of your junior high girlfriends could camp in it without the family noticing (I know from experience), but they also owned every house in the cul-de-sac for their adult children to live in when they get married. Cause that's how it's going to be in heaven if you reach the top tier, (of which there are 3) you live as Kings and Queens with your children, with tier 1 & 2 serving you.
If you do not have "earthly riches" you make up for it by being pious and having lots of kids.
So Hannah was going to be a mom of 8-10 no matter what, so why wouldn't she pick the billionaire's son? As Phoebe pointed out, her secret dream isn't to be Supreme Court Justice. The girls who want that usually leave the church.
She doesn't want to be "saved" by the feminists, break her temple covenants and go to third rate Heaven with the rest of the poors.
Also, for what it's worth I worked with a Neeleman, and the Jet Blue guy takes Mormonism and hard work very seriously. The farm work and housework is probably how they stay in good standing with him, he's not huge on handouts for lazy children. (Not positive, just an observation!)
To answer another question, there is a Mormon uniform in Utah, but it doesn't stand out as much now that more modest fashion is in vogue. It used to rely heavily on khakis and blue button-ups.
I'm LDS, and every mom I know wears pretty much what everyone else wears at home -- leggings or sweats and a comfy shirt. I have spent the past 5 years in basketball shorts whenever possible (my husband converted me during lockdown). I'm also Gen X, and while people my age often had a lot of siblings, that isn't too common anymore. Young families tend to have have 2-4 children, maybe 5 every so often (I have two). I grant you that I have never lived in Utah and went to a hippie college, not BYU! I suspect that the BF people can afford to have a lot of kids -- a whole lot of Americans wish they could have one or two more and don't feel they can afford it, and these folks can -- plus they must just like having kids a lot. Some people do. I find their aesthetic and brand weird and off-putting, but I gotta admit they make it really really pretty.
It kind of irritates me to see so much speculation that Hannah was coerced or dragged into marrying the guy, because hey, she's Mormon and obviously we're all forced to get married at 20. Nobody dragged her to the altar or told her that she'd go to hell if she didn't marry this specific dude at this specific moment. She probably just decided to. (My own husband did pursue me -- I had developed a near-phobia about the M-word and he cleverly did not mention that he wanted to get married until I felt more comfortable about the whole thing. I would have run if he'd mentioned it too soon. Since we had no money whatsoever, he just walked me home a lot instead of arranging plane tickets, which is....on the weird side, but it sounds like they were already dating and it would be very popular if portrayed on Friends. I bet the guy thought it would be a classic rom-com move.)
Lastly, Phoebe! I have never been able to touch my toes and I'm on the pudgy side these days but I recently started doing some super easy yoga and I can totally touch my toes now!! o.O And, with your fixation on Brit TV you should know Aga stoves; they are super-old-school-British country stuff. They've always on low, so they keep a kitchen warm and dry. Totally unsuited to most of the US, including Utah, but I bet fancy Canadians like them.
More random thoughts: I do think it's objectively pretty crazy to meet a guy, get engaged and married within two months, and immediately get pregnant. If I were Hannah's mom I would have been really worried about that and said "yeah why don't you take that year and finish school. There's no big rush." Mormons get married younger and quicker than other folks but that is an *unhinged* timeline that would have everyone concerned, not a desirable plan held up as a goal. Nobody expects you to have a baby in the first year of marriage. Mormons do birth control. But also she was an adult at the time and she could go get a marriage license and have a baby without parental permission.
Letting you know that this episode is what made me paid subscribe to you guys
Having listened to the episode I just want to make a quick note on some tossed-off snark late in the episode:
In my experience, male ballet dancers are not more likely to be gay than your average dude. Much like gymnasts, most of them started training in early childhood and potential for high-level performance gets sussed out pretty quickly. It's basically just another sport, and dancers can be pretty macho and philandering (look up the tea surrounding Benjamin Millepied, the former Mr. Natalie Portman), and there have been quite a few scandals in the ballet world concerning prominent male dancers being sexually shitty towards their female colleagues.
Point taken!
A bit late to the table here. Neither of you mentioned the 1977 ballet melodrama "The Turning Point," with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft (late wife of Mel Brooks). In brief, a rising dancer named DeeDee (MacLaine) gets pregnant by fellow dancer Wayne (Tom Skerritt) and they move to Oklahoma (not Utah) to run a dance studio and raise kids. Dancer Emma (Anne Bancroft) is DeeDee's frenemy who goes on to be a childless prima.
So, two decades later the ballet company comes on tour to Oklahoma and the ladies revive their frenemyship, and godmother Emma offers to give talented daughter Emilia a shot at the ballet company in the big city. DeeDee accompanies as chaperone and the young Emilia (played by the now-retired ABT prima Leslie Browne) immediately impresses the dance lords and also a randy young dancer named Yury (Mikhail Baryshnikov), with whom Emilia has a brief affair. All sorts of drama also unfold between DeeDee and Emma as DeeDee rues the career she abandoned, and Emma professionally adopts the kid she never had in Emilia. In the end Emilia settles amicably with Yury (who has so moved on) and both older ladies punch it out on top of Carnegie Hall, make up, and come to terms with their life choices.
This is really a wild coincidence, but when I was in college, I smuggled some documents to prominent refusenik Vladimir Slepak in Moscow on behalf of the late Lou Rosenblum with United Councils for Soviet Jewry. In 1996, Chaim Potok wrote a book about the Slepak family called "The Gates of November." I just noticed in glancing at Leslie Browne's biography that she is married to Vladimir's son, Leonid Slepak.
BTW, one friend is a young, married Jewish woman who matriculated at an Ivy college about eleven years ago, then took a gap decade as a ballerina with a major company (not in NYC). She returned to college a year ago determined to follow through on her undergraduate degree. She is a prominent conservative journalist on campus (yes, they exist), and she celebrates the importance of marriage and family. She seems to be having it all in a way, and she credits her devoted husband with making it possible.
We definitely reached chaos at the end of the episode with the comparison with mushrooms. 😄
Snake River Farms FTW
Very much enjoyed this week's episode of the "Kat and Phoebe Politely But Firmly Announce That They Fail to Feel Empathy For A Woman Whining Online About Something Extremely Specific" show.
You know who else drinks milk, like a glass of milk? Anton Chigurh, that’s who. Just saying.
The first 30 seconds were very chaotic — this should be acknowledged.
Appreciate the heads up at the start about the topic. I am blissfully unaware of whatever that is, and while I do like me some portmanteau and "vibes" discourse, I think I am full up on the spasms of women vs. women over how to woman properly about as much as I am on the manosphere / redpill / insert navel gazing here discourse. Tho as always I assume the pod was a cavalcade o' whimsy and will catch you on the next one. :D