Cipher in the Snow (GAM043A)

Noah Lugeons

Eli Bosnick

***Cipher in the Snow*** is a cautionary tale about kids not being losers, because it will *kill* you. It's one of two educational videos produced by Brigham Young University in a desperate and misguided attempt to project normalcy from the LDS.

### **Opening Phrase**

Where each week we sample another selection from Christian cinema, because we deserve it. I'm not allowed to say why, but trust me, we deserve it.

### **How Bad Was It?**

It is *so* close to a good message. Like, you can tell—this is like the telephone game of good messages in educational films—it's like "be nice to the unpopular kid", but they got funneled straight through the cheesecloth of crazy and this is what came out the other side. It's like being told to wash your hands by a Grand Wizard of the KKK.

### **Best Worst**

* Eli: …characters talking about a dead child. As we will learn in this movie—and I have so many notes on this—they talk about this child who has passed and who is no longer among the living *so* vitriolically.. People are nicer about *Hitler*.

### **Notes**

* Check out Bryce on *Naked Mormonism*, *Glass Box*, and *My Book of Mormon*.
* The first part (ending at 52:22) of a Mormon Movie Month episode reviewing two short films rather than the usual feature-length.
* Based on a short story by an Idaho teacher named Jean Mizer, published in the Journal of the National Education Association (50:8-10, 1964), and which is sometimes described as a "true story." Bizarrely, the NEA adopted the movie as part of the official curriculum for first graders, traumatizing poor young Noah.

### **Jokes**

* [Noah: And then we cut to the school, where the principal is trying to figure out what happened, and apparently no one in the school even... remembers that this kid exists. They're like "What the hell? Who the hell? What's this? Cliff? Do we have a Cliff? Did you teach him? I didn't teach him—he's not in *my* class."] [Eli: "I don't know him" And this is where they ca–this is a child who has just *died*. This child *is no more*, and they could not more be casually dismissing this child and how little fucks they give about him. Just like "I don't know man, it says you taught him. Did I? I don't—they all fucking look the same. He didn't mention anything about dying. Did he say he was gonna die? You know, honestly, they're all just little flesh puppets to me. I gotta be honest, I don't…"] [Bryce: Well, and the principal too, he was talking to the main guy, Frank, and he was like "Hey, can you like, uh you know, take care of… go talk to the parents?" [The principal] says "You were his favorite teacher" and [Frank] says "I helped who? Who are we talking about? Oh, the dead kid that just happened? Sorry, I couldn't hear you over my deafening complacency about a *dead child*.] [Noah: Well, I love too, that that's… okay, so what kind of fucked up job do you have where they can just be like "I know you're the math teacher and everything, but you need to go tell this kids' parents that he's dead."] [Eli: Go tell the kids parents this kid is dead!] [Noah: What!?] [Bryce: And then the principal is like "The board's riding my ass! I'm the principal goddamnit, I can't be bothered with administrative drivel like telling parents their kid died." Are you shitting me?] [Eli: He literally says "I've got a board meeting." That is *the* excuse to cancel a board meeting. "Oh hey, why didn't you make it to a board meeting? One of the kids dropped dead in the snow. Great."] [Noah: And from an unknown and possibly contagious malady! They don't even know what he *died* of yet and the guy's like "Yeah, but you know, we've got some stuff to *approve*–you know, budget stuff, and you know—you can handle it, Frank. And by the way, once you're done telling the kids' parents that he's dead, why don't you write up a quick obituary for this kid you don't remember?" What? Fucking what?] [Eli: "You know, a little obituary. Also, do you know how to dig? Uh, never mind, never mind. That's too much, that's too much, I get it, sure."] [Bryce: And then on his way out he pats him on the shoulder, "Thanks for not being a little bitch about this, Frank."] (17:36)
* [Noah: And so then we get the ending VO, and this is the greatest fucking line. The Frank character, he goes: "It was in that moment I resolved never to forget Cliff Evans." I'm like, "You told that kids parents that he died, you watched him die, you wrote his obituary—were you in danger of forgetting that?!] [Eli: "I want to say… Clayton? Uh, it's a C. Chris? Chris. I'll never forget Chris."] [Noah: Fuck, I'm going to have him on my podcast and I'll accidentally call him "Blake." I know I am—I *know* that I am.] [Bryce: Right? And I had one note in here: at one point they said "It's like veiled eyes in an alien world." And I'm like "First reference to it being a Mormon movie! Finally!"] [Noah: Oh, is that what that was? I wrote, "Lizard people? Are we talking about lizard people?" What the hell is that?] [Bryce: I don't know exactly what it was, but it's like "an alien world." Hey, that's where we all come from, from Kolob, so uh… oh finally, the ending scene we got that it's a Mormon movie. God, that took forever.] (47:06)

### **Interstitials**

* Ideas for Mormon Short Educational Films (8:22)
* Don't Forget to Kill Those Kids (50:53)

### **Tropes**

* Alcohol=Bad Guy
* A World Without Black or Brown People
* Christians Don't Know How the World Works
* Looks Like…
* Make Me a Sammich!
* Name That Movie!
* Reprehensible Moral Message
* SEXISM!

### **Links**

* Episode on Audioboom
* Episode on YouTube
* Film on YouTube
* IMDb