Interview with Tyler Meason, Director of Sons of Perdition

Interview by Caroline Jackson

With the publicity surrounding Warren Jeffs' arrest as well recent TV shows that involve similar issues, Mormon polygamy has become a topic many people are interested in. You chose to tell the story from a unique angle, focusing on the exiled children of the FLDS community. How did you first get involved?

Living in Salt Lake City, these communities and the exiled children like the ones in the film have been in the news for a while. You would see their faces in the paper, but there wasn't much information about their lives and what they were going through. Both myself and the other filmmaker Jennilyn Merten grew up Mormon but left the church and therefore we knew there was something deeper to the story; we had an idea of what a struggle it is to leave a religion, disappoint friends, family and community all with the threat of going to hell.

Did the kids in the film accept your presence right away?

Other people had tried to make this documentary before, but [the kids] don't trust anyone on the onset. Even though they are now living on "the outside," they still couldn't shake the feeling that everyone was evil; that was what they grew up believing. But because we came from a place they could relate to, could sing along to the hymns and understand the culture, they opened up to us.

What surprised you the most interacting with these exiled kids? After being sheltered for so long, they seem to lack a lot of basic knowledge that most of us take for granted.

I wish we could relay just how much they didnt know about the world. In one scene we weren't able to use, one of Warren Jeffs' wives, 23 years old, did not know that the United States wasn't the entire world. It wasn't until someone literally put a globe in front of her that she could begin to grasp the concept. One day I drove several of the boys to Salt Lake City, and they were listening to this terrible rap, so I pulled out my iPod and decided to give them a short history of rock and roll from blues to the Beatles. I played them songs like "Stairway to Heaven," telling them they didn't have to like it, but it's just a song you have to know. There is such a lack of exposure and education that they are like blank slates.

Without parental guidance or hope of "salvation," it makes sense that some might take to alcohol and drugs. Do you see this as more of a teenage rebellion that dissipates as they adjust to their new lives, or does this become a more permanent problem for some kids?

The drug problem was a lot worse than we portrayed, at least for some of them. They were anesthetizing; drugs were one way to break free of hurt. Plus, they don't have parents to tell them no. When they first get out, they overindulge in everything. The boys in the beginning would sit all day long hypnotized in front of the TV; it was a crash course on the world. From what we've seen it often takes about a year until you sort of figure it out, where you're going, what you're doing. You need time, need to figure out that you're not going to go to hell for living a normal life, for wanting to go to school, for wanting to date. We all go through troubles, we all hurt, but most us have parents or mentors to help is through. It's just so much to deal with, they are 200 steps behind; just existing just becomes so overwhelming.

Now that Warren Jeffs is incarcerated for his sexual abuse of minors, what's stopping the law from going into this polygamous community and bringing justice to the many other under-aged girls forced into marriages with much older men?

There's a lot of difficulty in that. First of all, it was kept in secret for a long time, and then most people on the outside were content to look the other way. Secondly, how do you arrest 6000 men? What do you do with them, what do you do with the thousands of kids from these marriages if you break up the families? During the film, we actually worked well with Texas attorney generals and rangers. We all worked together, and that's nice to know that we made change, that we helped put an awful man away for a long time. We're still trying to get the state of Utah and Arizona to make changes, especially in terms of education. The state needs to step in because they pay for it later, they are paying for it now. It can be hard to draw the line with the law when it comes to marriage rights, and I support gay marriage so it's hard to say what should be legal and what shouldn't, but [this kind of polygamy] is meant to keep women down. In these communities, women are meant to be quiet and subservient, and often don't know there's another option. Let's give them the option, let's at least educate them about the world and their choices.

What has been the reaction to this film from those who have ties to Mormonism?

The reactions are varied. Some will either never see it because they feel like Mormonism is being picked on, but then some people have seen it and feel grateful for clearing up discrepancies between these fundamentalist sects and the thousands more mainstream Mormon communities. We are actually releasing an alternate version soon with a separate audio track that takes the swear words out so people who need to see it might feel more comfortable. Again, it's about making people aware so I hope to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Do you have any other projects in the works right now?

So much work still needs to be done on Sons of Perdition. Making a documentary is like running a marathon, except that even after you cross the finish line you still have to keep running. However, I am working on production for a new film about James "The Amazing" Randi, a prominent escape magician who then became an active debunker and started a community called the Skeptics Society.

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