By Monica Hesse
There’s a sly little plotline in the second episode of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”, Disney+’s new trash buffet featuring eight LDS TikTok stars, at least three of whom you will not be able to tell apart from one another, and all of whom appear to worship at the church of the satin heatless curler.
Here’s the plotline: Mormon wife Whitney is approached with a lucrative brand deal – $20 000 (R350 000) for the briefest display of a product in a video for her two million followers.
There’s just one issue: the product in question is a vibrator.
“I just worry my family would be ashamed by me advertising something like this,” the Emily Blunt look-alike frets to the camera. Her disapproving mom and sister question whether a sex toy “matches with your brand”; Whitney wonders – cautiously, uncertainly – if maybe it would be “empowering”.
So much angst, so much prayerful reflection! But so much pageantry, too. While Whitney is saying she doesn’t know whether she can advertise a vibrator, she is, in fact advertising the vibrator.
There it is, sleek and pink, prominently displayed on the screen, in her hands or propped on the table.
While appearing to be concerned about whether to accept the deal, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were already getting paid – truly, a triumph of having it both ways.
In a series full of petty drama and moms gone wild (on soda – the Mormon coffee ban is apparently about temperature, not caffeine, so 8am bespoke Dr Pepper concoctions are a thing), this was the secret that most needed to be revealed: No matter what retro virtues a gingham-wearing tradwife seems to be extolling on social media, there’s no such thing as a stay-at-home social media star.
The women are always working. Their brand is in pretending that they’re not.
The “Mormon Wives” of the show are all a part of a loose consortium of content creators known as “MomTok”, which they refer to in such an official way that it sounds like they’re talking about the CIA rather than just, you know, a group of suburban Utahns who occasionally get together to make home-made Graham crackers and film choreographed dances.
All was well in this world until 2022 when queen bee Taylor announced she was getting divorced due to, she explained, a “soft swinging” scandal.
Nobody else seems to understand what “soft swinging” is but, as best as I can tell, Taylor and her husband had an arrangement permitting a little extracurricular kissing but she had gone out and done a lot.
Anyhow, “Secret Lives” picks up in the aftermath of this. Taylor is pregnant again, by a new boyfriend whom she can’t decide whether to commit to, and while this fearless leader is waylaid by morning sickness and sonogram appointments, the other women must figure out how to right the ship and save their collective image.
One mom demands: “What is MomTok going to stand for?”
Also, I don’t know where else to mention it but one of the wives is Ben Affleck’s second cousin.
Factions form, between women who consider themselves “9 out of 10” on a Mormon-devoutness scale, and those who consider themselves “12 out of 10”.
They go on girl retreats that devolve into sob sessions and plan the kinds of parties in which someone is always dragging someone else into a corner to “clear the air”.
A scandal erupts when Whitney skips Taylor’s baby shower and then dares to be frank in her reasoning: “We’re not really friends.” Yes, they make TikToks together. But that’s not affection, that’s business.
The women are selling a lifestyle on social media – a lifestyle based on the idea that home-making is what God intended, what women were made for and what children need.
Also, though, it’s really fun! It’s a sisterhood! In one representative posting, the moms ham it up in a dance while the kids play in the background. “When you say you want to be a stay-at-home mom,” the caption reads.
But “Mormon Wives” shows us the making of those videos, and the whole process looks … deeply unpleasant.
At one girl’s weekend – Mayci’s birthday? Layla’s birthday? Jessi’s vaginoplasty celebration? I can’t remember – the team kicks it into gear for a group video in matching pyjamas, despite the fact that they were all up late fighting with one another.
“You do a move, and then you walk. Then you do a move,” Whitney explains, showing everyone the choreography, while Mayci cheerfully tells the camera: “Last night was a bloodbath!”
Onward, MomTok, onward! You must persevere!
And why must they persevere? Another girls’ night makes it plain: “Raise your hands,” one mom asks the others. “Who is the breadwinner of your family?”
At first, none of them raise their hands but then, one by one and sheepishly, all of them do.
One mom remarks that it’s awkward because her husband is a soon-to-be surgeon, and she’ll make more money than he will. Another insists on dismissing her TikTok franchise as a little side hobby.
But there it is: every last one of them, churning out videos celebrating the choice to be a stay-at-home mom, is, in fact, the breadwinner of her family.
Such is the irony of turning tradwifery into a lucrative career. The domesticity they present on screen is an illusion.
But the breadwinner energy they bring home from their job – that’s kind of an illusion, too. At one point, MomTok goes to a baby blessing ceremony, for Jen’s new child, and while at that ceremony, the moms remain seated on the sofas while their husbands and fathers get up to form a protective circle around the infant.
Only men are allowed to offer baby blessings, an attendee explains, because only men can hold the priesthood.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is not a good show. If I hadn’t been watching for work, I would have given up after two episodes. But it is a good reminder that the stories that social media tells daily are often incomplete.
It is a good reminder about the way that women’s work is invisible, even when it’s visible to the tune of two million subscribers. It’s a case study of trying to have it all: the sisterhood and the synergy. The self-subjugation and the self-possession. The endorsements and the blessings.
“Don’t you think it could be empowering?” Whitney asked her mother, talking up the vibrator deal while her mom baked cookies in an open-plan kitchen.
Girl, I don’t know. But if this is how you need to make $20 000, go ahead and get it.