The Show for May 11, 2026: Specialty license plates, Mormon horror and more

Many Republican lawmakers were unhappy when Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have created a Charlie Kirk license plate. We’ll hear why Arizona has so many specialty plates on the roads. Plus, there's an emerging subgenre in film: Mormon Horror.

Transcript

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show and an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, Arizona has more than a hundred specialty license plates. We’ll get some of the backstory on why that is.

LAUREN GILGER: And why Scouting America is suing an Arizona travel company and why the timing of the lawsuit matters.

MARK BRODIE: But first, the state Senate is expected to gavel into session today, and then vote to take the next few weeks off. This follows the House, which last week voted to adjourn until the beginning of June. The expectation is that GOP legislative leaders will use that time to negotiate with the governor on a new state budget after she vetoed a Republican spending plan last week. You know who’s not taking a break for the rest of the month? Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services. He joins me now to talk about what the next few weeks may hold. Good morning, Howie.

HOWIE FISCHER: Good morning. I was planning on going on a cruise but then I read about a hantavirus and that ended that.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, better to stay on land, my friend. So, what are the odds that the Republican legislative leadership and the governor can come up with a compromise in the next few weeks?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, define the next few weeks. I mean, the odds of them coming up with something by June 30th or thereabout is pretty much 100%. They’ve done that for over a century. It always comes around. Somebody has to give, somebody has to recognize that there is no future for the state on July 1st for most state agencies if they don’t. Now, next couple of weeks, let’s define our terms there. We know that after the veto queen, as she’s been called, has threatened to say nothing’s going to happen until we get a plan, they’re meeting again. Now, that doesn’t mean the governor is sitting down with the Senate president or the House speaker, it means their staffs are meeting together to try to figure out, okay, what can we knock things that aren’t going to happen on either side off the table and where can we find areas of agreement. So, they’re moving in that direction. I think that both sides are recognizing they’re not going to get everything they want. I think the governor recognizes that the chances for a prop 1-2-3 extension or relying on $760 million of federal money that may not come are not going to happen. I think lawmakers are recognizing that on one hand that it may be too late to deal with full conformity from the feds for this year, but that they can negotiate what happens in future years, who gets what tax breaks and how that happens.

MARK BRODIE: I guess Howie we’re at the point where the fact that they’re at least meeting or their staffs are meeting has to be considered progress?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, of course it is, because they both recognize that, you know, what happens if there is a shutdown? I mean, look, we’ve seen this on the federal level. And what’s happened there is everyone says, well, the other side’s to blame, and for the Republicans, unfortunately, they’ve been usually the ones to take the blame, and I think Republicans here recognize that if suddenly people can’t get into state parks, if people can’t get their driver’s licenses renewed and things like that, they’re going to take the blame because the governor has the larger bully pulpit as far as, well, why couldn’t we get there?

MARK BRODIE: All right, so we’ll see how they, how they do with that. Of course, we should also mention that the legislature with 72 hours’ notice could be called back into session before June 1st if, you know, the legislature and the governor, if the legislative leaders and the governor come up with an agreement. But sounds like you’re saying that’s maybe not the most likeliest scenario?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, I think they could. That gets into the other thing we want to talk about this morning, which is you’ve got some director nominations that are running into a time problem. I mean, for example, the director nominations committee today is going to hear whether to decide that John Connelly should be the permanent because he’s currently the interim director of the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. If he gets through the committee, that’s fine, but under Arizona law, he’s already been serving as acting director and he cannot serve more than a year as acting director. If my calculator is right, that ends on May 23rd. So, question is, would they come in at least the Senate because you don’t need House confirmation, would the Senate come in at least to confirm him assuming they want to go along with that and then maybe go home? So, it’s real easy for them to come in on 72 hours’ notice. You know, how much interest there is, I don’t know because again, the other thing we’re working up against is we have early ballots going out next month. A lot of these folks would like to get either re-elected or run for a higher office. How much time are they willing to spend at the Capitol?

MARK BRODIE: Howie, is this the only agency head or interim agency head who’s running up against these calendar issues?

HOWIE FISCHER: Well, one who’s going to get close is Ruby Dylan-Williams, who is head of the Department of Housing. She actually took over for Joan Serviss who ran into some interesting problems including $2 million that disappeared because fraudsters sent a bill to the department and the department paid it. Now, she’s run into some issues because of the fact she was the deputy director at the time and the questions that came up during her hearing because she did get through the nominations committee is what were you doing? Why weren’t you paying attention? I think that she can get through. Now, her year isn’t up, again, looking at my calendar, until June 11th. So, theoretically, plenty of time for that. But, you know, you never want to let stuff come right up against the, you know, the deadlines there because it always, always, always leads to problems.

MARK BRODIE: Well, what happens under state law if a director is sort of in the process of being confirmed and their year runs out?

HOWIE FISCHER: They can’t be a director anymore. You may remember that we went through this a little bit when the governor couldn’t get some of her directors appointed and confirmed, and she said, well, I’ll just make them executive deputy directors. Well, that went to court and we know how well that came out. The court said, no, you can’t do that, that’s you’re just getting around the law. What happens is they just go away. You know, they could hold another position in the department, but they can’t be the person running the department. Now, you know, how, how do you find another head of the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs? I don’t know. I’m not even sure I fully understand everything that they do.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, that is Howie Fischer with Capitol Media Services staying at the Capitol even when the lawmakers are not necessarily there to hang out with him. Howie, thanks as always, appreciate it.

HOWIE FISCHER: You’re welcome.

LAUREN GILGER: Ancient Tohono O’odham artifacts were found not far from the Arizona-Mexico border and now the tribe is calling for their return. The site called La Cienega, or the wetland, is close to Nogales and contained 40 graves and 28 cremation vessels with ashes and shell ornaments inside. A tribal representative told our next guest, quote, “they’re excavating our ancestors.” Mia Kortright reported the story for the Tucson Sentinel and told me it’s just the latest example of this kind of thing. The O’odham are the only tribe whose reservation spans both sides of the border and now news is out that border wall construction crews have damaged another ancient archaeological site in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge near the tribe’s reservation. I spoke with Kortright more about La Cienega and what was uncovered by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History as a railway line was being built.

MIA KORTRIGHT: The La Cienega site was found on the south side of the U.S-Mexico border. It was discovered during construction. The Mexican government hired some, some archaeologists. They found what appeared to be about 60-ish homes, human remains, human cremains and burial pottery. And it basically denoted that there was a link between these two what are considered archaeological cultures known as the Trincheras and the Hohokam, which archaeologists will say border each other.

But when you talk to the folks at the Cultural Affairs Office of the Tohono O’odham Nation and you look at that, if you look at their map of their ancestral lands, they’re all part of that ancestral land. You know, it just kind of denotes that they were there. This is something that, you know, modern day it’s got an international barrier between it, but this is not how, this is not how everyday life went 4,000 years ago.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, I mean, this happens sometimes, right? It’s not uncommon for artifacts like these to kind of be accidentally dug up in, in development in this region, right? There were a lot of people around from these nations thousands of years ago. This one they were excavating to build a railway line?

MIA KORTRIGHT: Yes. And an archaeologist with I believe it is the Old Pueblo Archaeology Center told me that Indigenous remains are found at least in the American Southwest almost daily.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. So, common is something we can say, common it is.

MIA KORTRIGHT: Common it is. This happens a lot.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. And so, you spoke with someone from the Tohono O’odham Nation’s Cultural Affairs Office, you say the lone specialist there on this stuff. What did he tell you about what they would like to see happen when this common occurrence happens, when there is, you know, an artifact uncovered?

MIA KORTRIGHT: Samuel Fayuant said that human remains are typically given a reburial all together about once a year. These funerary and ceremonial objects are often reburied on the Tohono O’odham Nation. It’s rare the repatriation process when it happens in Mexico because there are O’odham in Mexico. It’s happened before but typically the stuff is reburied either at a ceremonial site in Mexico or wherever it was found.

LAUREN GILGER: Does that make a difference, Mia, in terms of right now the, the efforts from the Tohono O’odham people to sort of maintain their sovereignty, maintain their history, maintain their culture?

MIA KORTRIGHT: Yeah, I think it does. You know, Mr. Fayuant talked to me about, you know, trying to get these remains and these ceremonial objects from museums throughout the United States. You know, it is generally considered disrespectful not just in the O’odham culture, in a lot of cultures to leave people’s remains out, you know, on display without their consent, right? You know, if we did that to, to one of our own Founding Fathers I’d imagine or, or somebody, our own ancestors, you know, somebody would probably have a problem with that.

So, yeah, yeah, it, it’s a reminder I think and I can’t speak for the O’odham perspective totally because I’m not O’odham. But yeah, I mean, this is, this is an indicator that they have been here since, you know, like they say, time immemorial. And I think it at its core it’s simply just a, just a fight for, you know, respect and invisibility.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And of course, it comes at a very particular moment for this, right? Where we’re seeing this fight between the Trump administration and the tribe over the Trump administration’s construction of a border wall. The Tohono O’odham Nation’s very interesting in the sense that it is the only tribal nation, sovereign nation that exists on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, right? And that border wall would, would cut through their land. And now we know that there are cultural sites that have been impacted.

MIA KORTRIGHT: So, during our conversation Mr. Fayuant brought up there’s an intaglio on Cabeza Prieta, the wildlife refuge and it’s, it’s an intaglio built to resemble a fish. And the he showed me on Google Maps that the border wall was set to cross right over the tail of that whale. It was essentially going to cut off that tail.

And it looks like that just happened ... you know, during the first Trump administration it went over a sacred burial ground but they were able to come to some, at least some compromise where the bollards were not as deeply set in the ground, that way it would disturb less than it normally would. I couldn’t tell you the extent of the damage at the intaglio Las Playas, but from what my colleague’s coverage has denoted it’s, it’s a pretty hurtful experience for the O’odham.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, we’ll leave it there. Mia Kortright, reporter with the Tucson Sentinel joining us to talk about this story. Mia, thank you for your reporting here, thanks for coming on The Show.

MIA KORTRIGHT: Thank you. Thank you Lauren.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, the new head of the Arizona Science Center is not new to the organization and she has big plans for where the nonprofit is headed next.

MARK BRODIE: But first, earlier this spring, Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have established a Charlie Kirk license plate. The bill had won Republican support in the state legislature. In her veto letter, the governor wrote that while Kirk’s assassination is a tragic and a horrifying act of violence, the bill inserted politics into a government function that should remain nonpartisan. GOP supporters meanwhile call the governor’s move partisan. The bill sponsor, Senator Jake Hoffman called the decision hypocritical and deeply disappointing. The state currently has more than a hundred specialty license plates, ranging from those for Arizona’s universities to its pro sports teams to causes like childhood cancer research, first responder, first responders and Alzheimer’s research. To establish one, lawmakers and the governor need to okay it, then the cause or group behind it has to come up with a $32,000 implementation fee. The specialty plates cost $25, in addition to the standard vehicle registration. Of that 25 bucks, 17 goes to the group behind the plate. With me to talk about Arizona’s history and future with specialty license plates is longtime lobbyist Kevin DeMenna with DeMenna Public Affairs. Kevin, I’m curious to get your perspective on the evolution of this concept of having specialty plates, from having just a few to now having a lot of them available.

KEVIN DEMENNA: Almost a million now. And it the evolution, all of this speaks to the approachability of our Legislature, class projects, plates from alternative fuels to Alice Cooper, universities, Army, Navy.

In 2025, we had 955,000 plates, but in 2022, that same number was 770,000. So, clearly there’s an appetite for these plates out there. The process is daunting, depending I guess on whether you’re ASU or your neighborhood club, but it takes $30,000, you’ve got to have that bank, but first, you must go to the Legislature and persuade 16 and 31 that this plate deserves to be part of the menu.

MARK BRODIE: So, you have some experience doing this. You worked on getting a license plate for Phoenix Rising, the soccer team here, passed.

I’m curious if that was any different than any of the other millions of bills that you’ve worked on over your career in terms of trying to get enough lawmakers to see the need for this particular license plate and convincing them to vote for it.

KEVIN DEMENNA: I think by and large, when this something like this and this the Phoenix Rising plate was a terrific example, soccer fans, particularly Phoenix Rising fans, thought this was a great idea. But at that stage, hardly anybody knows about it, and if I recall the transportation chairman at the time, soccer wasn’t his thing. But once it got a profile and became known, then it catches fire.

Some of these, however, are just they limp through the process and become law. By and large, it goes from class project to, I’m not sure who did it but for the Cardinals and for ASU.

MARK BRODIE: What do you make of the fact that this issue has become politicized? I mean, I wonder if you’re surprised with, you know, the question about should there be a Charlie Kirk license plate, for example? Like, is it was it kind of inevitable that this process, when you’re talking about causes and, you know, specific people in this case, that it it goes from being, you know, scouting or the Phoenix Rising or the Suns or ASU or UA or NAU to something that’s maybe seen as a little more political?

KEVIN DEMENNA: The answer is everything that happens at the Capitol is political. It’s a question of degree.

The Charlie Kirk plate in my opinion shouldn’t be treated any differently than the Alice Cooper plate, they each have a constituency. In this day and age, they’re fighting with each other. So, I don’t want to say it’s a beautiful aspect, but it’s an aspect of the legislative process that really requires you to occasionally step up and acknowledge that there are regular people out there that care about motorcycle clubs, Alzheimer’s, and this is their process, this is their gateway into raising a little bit of money and just being a part of Arizona’s government.

MARK BRODIE: I think the raising money aspect was one that troubled some of the critics of the Charlie Kirk plate though in the sense that that money in theory could have been used to influence elections whereas, you know, Alice Cooper’s charity is not looking to influence elections as far as I’m as far as I know or, you know, some of the other organizations that have these specialty plates. I mean, was that a fair criticism do you think?

KEVIN DEMENNA: You know, all of this is in the eye of the beholder. The very prevalent child abuse prevention plate, with the children’s hands on a blue background, that money goes to the governor’s office for child abuse causes. Character education, there is a plate specifically for that that is managed by the Department of Education. Navajoland, Diné College Warriors, there’s a Diné College plate.

So, there are some that without a lot more research than I was willing to put in, I’m not really sure what the cause is about but we have a Transplant Community Alliance, which benefits from the Donate Life plate. All of these matter to somebody, and that’s really the sort of center point of all this. If enough people care about it, the Legislature will take action.

MARK BRODIE: This is not the first time that there’s sort of been a political debate over these license plates. I think both you and I are old enough to remember a little more than a decade ago when when there was a bill to put a Tea Party license plate, to create that, and some of the folks involved in the Tea Party at the time said wait a minute, this is not really going with what our values are, like we are believers in less government, not more government. So, I guess maybe it’s not surprising that from time to time these things become political.

KEVIN DEMENNA: Political and legislators have minds of their own. Contrary to what you may hear, they think of things all the time. And in that case they didn’t check really with the owner of the brand, so I remember that well. Smaller government and more government for our license plate.

Seventeen bucks per plate can be a motivator, I’m sure it has been. But the filter as I see it is being able to raise the $32,000 legislative authorization, yeah, to get it get it primed and ADOT says that covers their cost.

MARK BRODIE: Is that seen as sort of like the like the gatekeeper fee almost in terms of making sure that the cause that is that is pushing this is really dedicated to it, they’re legit, they’re they’re willing to have some skin in the game?

KEVIN DEMENNA: I think it’s exactly that. When you create new businesses, often there’s bonds, there’s fingerprinting, there’s a threshold you have to get over, and it’s legitimacy. In this case, $32,000 and the Verde Valley Wine Trail license plate becomes a reality.

MARK BRODIE: Can you envision a time when somebody, be it ADOT or someone in leadership of the Legislature will stand up and say guys, we have enough plates at this point. We don’t need any more, we can’t handle any more, law enforcement is tired of knowing all of these different plates, like let’s just knock this off.

KEVIN DEMENNA: Never. Never. America’s love affair with cars and motorcycles. I mean, that’s part of this. What you drive and what you put on what you drive is messaging. It it may be vanity but, you know, I have a wonderful time and and I guess get honked at now and then. I just love reading the bumper stickers. I mean, that tells me who’s in front of me.

So, the Capitol Mall has a collection of monuments that go through the same process. It speaks to I’d like to think a degree of accessibility. Now, unless you missed "American Graffiti," the movie, Americans love their vehicles and when you can get a matching plate to match whatever ethos is coming through in what you’re driving, you’re set.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Kevin DeMenna with DeMenna Public Affairs. Kevin, good as always to talk to you, thank you.

KEVIN DEMENNA: Always good to be on KJZZ.

LAUREN GILGER: A small Arizona travel company called Queer Scout is embroiled in an ongoing dispute with Scouting America, which you might know better as the Boy Scouts. The organization changed its name a few years ago after years of scandal involving the sexual abuse of thousands of boys. Scouting America filed a lawsuit against Queer Scout following a two-year trademark dispute over the company’s name. They argue calling themselves Queer Scout might confuse consumers who might assume the travel agency is affiliated with Scouting America. But they only filed that lawsuit after President Trump’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth criticized the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts for allegedly allowing diversity, equity and inclusion measures in. So, is this all about politics? Here to parse it out is Joseph Jaafari, founder and editor of Lookout. Good morning, Joseph.

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Good morning. Thank you for having me again.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for coming on. So, first of all just tell us about this company, Queer Scout. Like, what do they do?

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Yeah, so Queer Scout is an Arizona-based company and the owner, Sam Castaneda, lives also in Colombia, but he’s from Arizona and essentially what it is, it’s a travel company for queer people who want to do adult excursions to, you know, various different places across the world. And so that’s pretty much what the company does. And so it acts as a travel agency, hence the scouting term, and then puts people into travel arrangements to go with friends or individuals or couples to wherever they’d like and do some queer excursions.

LAUREN GILGER: Okay, so what’s their response to this lawsuit from Scouting America?

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Yeah, so what they’ve said is that this is not quite a fair fight. One, that they are going up against a behemoth like Scouting America. But two, the facts that if you go to the trade, so there’s a couple different things that they’re arguing. One is that the term queer is, you know, enough to differentiate them from the Scouting America Boy Scouts in the same way that the Girl Scouts argued years ago that girl was a differentiator from girl from Boy Scouts, and so this argument is kind of null. They also say that there’s no way that anybody could go to Queer Scout’s website and confuse what they do for Boy Scouts of America. And so they just kind of want the case kind of tossed out. But they also on top on top of the actual wonkiness of the, of the legal arguments, there is this, you know, political sheen on top of everything which is the timing of it all of, you know, when they got into this civil litigation because they’ve been in this trademark litigation, trademark dispute for a couple years. But now out of nowhere they’ve got this civil litigation right on the heels of the federal government telling the Boy Scouts you need to get rid of your diversity and equity measures.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And Scouting, Scouting America did agree to it sounds like some pretty significant changes in order to maintain its relationships with the government after these comments from Pete Hegseth that I mentioned. What did what did the changes entail? What did they do?

JOSEPH JAAFARI: So the changes basically were that girls can’t join the Scouting America organization anymore. Years ago they decided that that girls could join. They also put in, you know, more LGBTQ-affirming language into their model. All of that had to go essentially in order to continue receiving any kind of help from the federal government including putting on their jamboree on federal on federal land.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, so they had made some pretty big changes. So what is Scouting America argue here? Did they comment on this story to you? I mean, they were already as you mentioned in trademark disputes with Queer Scout and then they went on top of that and filed the lawsuit. Now that trademark dispute is also on pause, right?

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Yeah, so they didn’t comment to us. But I what we can what we do know is kind of there are two arguments they make. One is they argue that they are a famous brand, right? And the the argument is, you know, Boy Scouts and Scouting America has been part of the American fabric for so long, it’s an internationally recognized organization, the term Boy Scouts, you know, you you hear it and you kind of know exactly what it is. And then their other argument is the fact that the by Queer Scout existing that it confuses consumers because that’s the entire point of trademark law, right? At the end of the day it’s a consumer protection program. The the counter to those two things which are I think are fairly interesting is one when it comes to the famous, you know, trade famous brand argument is, you know, you just because you are famous doesn’t necessarily make it so in the eyes of the law, right? And so you kind of have to back that up. So I think a really good example for listeners might be Disney. Disney is really, really strong about their trademark and their brand. They constantly litigate and go after any company that has a sniff of like Disney branding or Disney characters or something like that. They really try to keep strong to it. Same thing with Nike, same thing with Adidas, right? The Boy Scouts has not treated their brand in the same way. You go on the trademark website and just do a simple search and you can see there are hundreds of trademarks out there for Pool Scout, for, you know, for Cookie Scout. They’re all different types of things that, you know, don’t seem to be the problem for the Boy Scouts of America. It was only this that they seem to kind of go after and so when it comes to that argument it seems to be a bit squishy. The other argument they make about, you know, confusing, confusing people when they go if they were wanting to go part of the Boy Scouts, like I could have mentioned earlier, it’d be kind of hard any kind of regular person if you just look at those two names side by side, probably could be confused. But, you know, when you take this to the civil, when you take this to civil court, one of the things they have to consider is, okay, fine, the names sound familiar but when you go to these websites what are what are these things offering? And I don’t think anybody who goes to Queer Scout’s website will look at this and go oh, adult excursions for queer people in Bogota, you know, in is a Boy Scout program.

LAUREN GILGER: Let me ask you before I let you go Joseph. I mean, can Queer Scout operate its business right now? I know they’ve had to do a GoFundMe to kind of stay afloat to fund legal costs here and they they kind of view this case as a as a bellwether, right, for queer-owned companies?

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Yeah, when I spoke to when I spoke to the owner and I spoke to to his lawyer, you know, they kind of said like everything is on pause. Everything is on pause because they have to fund this lawsuit against this massive organization, American organization. But on top of it, you know, they’re not willing to back down because they do see it as, you know, if it if it starts here where else can it go? And, you know, it got the support of the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Chamber of Commerce because they also saw it as if this if this kind of goes this way where can we also see litigation against other queer consumer queer companies that want to do business in in various different ways? So they’re they’re sticking to it. But yeah, it’s a tough, it’s a tough one for a small company.

LAUREN GILGER: Very interesting case. Joseph Jaafari, founder and editor of Lookout joining us. Joseph, thanks as always.

JOSEPH JAAFARI: Thanks a lot.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. There is a news subgenre that’s gained popularity in the film world: Mormon horror. From Hugh Grant’s creepy turn in the thriller Heretic to FX’s Under the Banner of Heaven, to the 2025 film Diabolic, there seem to be more people interested in the darker sides of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its fundamentalist offshoot, the FLDS Church. And a new short film starring Doug Jones as an eerie angel in Utah hits all the right notes.

(Soundbite of “The Angel” movie trailer)

LAUREN GILGER: That’s just a taste of the new short film “The Angel,” which was directed by the husband and wife team Barrett and Jessica Burgen. And they’re not interested outsiders or skeptical former Latter-day Saints. No, they are active members of the church who say only those with a claim on the identity should be the ones telling stories like this. Tamarra Kemsley wrote about it all for the Salt Lake Tribune and I spoke with her more about it.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: When I talk to people who are doing LDS and/or Mormon art, it’s often a story of like, you know, I’m not really a part of it anymore, but it’s so much a part of me and this is my way of sort of understanding it and excavating these themes and how they shape me.

It was not like that at all with Barrett and Jessica Burgin, who as you said are the directors of this film. They are like, no, we’re totally in it. And in fact it’s our experience of growing up as sort of being otherized in the Bible Belt, they grew up together in, in Knoxville. That really led us to lean into and love and accept even some of the less mainstream aspects of Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to embrace that.

And this is kind of a in some ways like a tortured love letter to their faith.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And I want to talk about the story in the film in a moment, but it sounds like from your interview with them they also very much feel like you should have this kind of identity come from this background be able to claim it in order to tell those stories.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: Yeah, so the in their director statement, they say that Mormon horror is an emerging subgenre and we feel strongly that those with a claim on that identity should be engaged in telling their own stories and histories.

And I think that’s just kind of a theme generally when you’re talking about minority groups and Latter-day Saints are certainly a minority, minority group within the realm of Christendom. That idea of like having it come from people who have experienced it firsthand. And then you have this added level like you said of they’re not just having grown up in it but they’re still a part of it and still own that identity currently.

LAUREN GILGER: So, OK, tell us about the plot line of “The Angel.” It hits on some kind of common themes in the history of the Mormon church, right? Like there is a polygamous trio, right? And this is around the 1880s.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: So, it’s a husband, his two wives, they live very simple lives in the Utah Territory, it’s 1881. You see them like cutting vegetables and bringing home a kill from the Red Rock Mountains. And the idea is like all is well, they’re all happy together, it’s going great, polygamy is awesome, right?

And then you start to get a sense that there’s maybe a favorite among the wives and then oh, one of the wives is pregnant again, insinuating a past miscarriage because there are no children at this point in the story.

And I don’t want to give away too many spoilers but an otherworldly visitor comes to one of the women and delivers to her a revelation that polygamy is actually a quote "false covenant" and not from God. And so she invites her sister wife to come and meet this character, who is played by the incredible actor Doug Jones — who’s in "Pan’s Labyrinth," "Shape of Water," "Hocus Pocus" for lovers of that — invites her to come and meet this angel, he appears to be an angel, to receive the same revelation.

And they are told that they must shed the blood of their shared husband in order to be free from this relationship. And so it’s them grappling with whether or not to believe what they’ve been given.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So, as you said these directors talked about in their statement behind this film that this is a an emerging subgenre, this Mormon horror subgenre. What are some other films that come to mind for you in that genre?

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: The biggie of course is "Heretic" and that came out in 2024 and that has Hugh Grant playing an atheist who is trying to extinguish the faith of two missionaries, or as McKay Coppins himself a Latter-day Saint who works for The Atlantic says, it’s a movie about an atheist who won’t shut up.

And so these two sisters who are both played by ex-Mormons, former Latter-day Saints, have to grapple with this individual who on initially seems to be interested in their faith but then they come to realize is trying to argue them out of it and they must kind of grapple with that with the arguments with him and then with this sense of loss of power. And that’s the main crux of the movie is like how does religion and power work within religion especially when it comes to women and women’s bodies.

There’s also another — it’s called "Diabolic" came out in 2025 and this is someone from the FLDS community, so the fundamentalist Mormon community, which is an offshoot but not tied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in that she starts having these blackouts that are violent and in order to find a cure for them she returns to her fundamentalist community.

And so I think that is a clear through line like you said and probably not a very surprising one as we look at the history of not just Mormonism but religion generally, which often uses women and women’s bodies as a boundary marker between the in and the out group, whether it has to do with the way they’re dressed, where they’re able to sit or stand or be in a certain space or of course when it comes to ordination.

And of course the LDS church has fought off — unlike many other more mainstream Christian denominations — has fought off any kind of female ordination thus far.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, but those themes make sense in popping up because horror as a genre in general tries to be either challenging or a little countercultural or subversive in that way. It sounds like these kinds of films that might fit the Mormon horror genre are are challenging that a little bit.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: I think that horror is especially equipped to deal with our anxieties. And the things that feel outside the norm. And so yes, there’s absolutely a lot of anxiety about women and women’s roles in the LDS church and again, faith generally.

There’s also a lot of anxiety about polygamy even today within the LDS Church for instance. It’s unclear for example what happens to men who are sealed to more than one wife in this life. Does that mean you’re a polygamous wife in the next life? Even though a man cannot be sealed. So say your wife dies, you being a man and you get remarried and you get remarried also in the temple. So now you have a wife that has passed, a living wife, you are sealed to both. How does that look in the next life? We don’t have a lot of a lot of details, a lot of specifics about that. And that looms over a lot of women.

It’s one of those and it just kind of, that door that polygamy door just never got snapped shut all the way because of that.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well we’ll have to leave it there. That is Tamarra Kemsley, a religion reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune joining us. Tamara, thank you so much for coming on The Show, this is fascinating stuff.

TAMARRA KEMSLEY: Yeah, glad to be here.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. The Arizona Science Center has a new leader, but she’s not new to the organization. Tammy Stewart has served as the interim CEO since last fall but was recently named the Hazel A. Hare president and CEO. Stewart stopped by the studio earlier to talk about the Science Center and some of her plans for it. We started the conversation with what appeals to her about running the Arizona Science Center.

TAMMY STEWART: Oh, that could take a whole show. No, truly for me I’ve been in the arts and culture sector for over 25 years, but when I came to the Science Center nine years ago I felt like I had found my home. I had started off my career in IT, in technology, then moved into nonprofits, kind of moved my way through there and now being at the Science Center, I get to be part of a team that makes these incredible learning moments happen for our community. And I actually couldn’t think of a more ideal place to be.

MARK BRODIE: How do you see the role of the Science Center in this community at this particular time?

TAMMY STEWART: That is an ever-evolving kind of an ever-evolving idea. But I would say part of it is to be a center in our community that is bringing the latest science, technology, engineering and math conversations, subjects in an accessible way for both students but also for adults. Our technology in this world is changing too fast. Artificial intelligence, semiconductor. Like all those subjects are not things that adults today learned about in school, and a science center can be that place you can go to to learn about those subjects along with our standard basics, the physics, the chemistry, all those subject matters too.

MARK BRODIE: Well so do you see it as sort of a way kind of what you’re just saying: like yes you have the volcanoes and, you know, sort of learn about the earth and learn about the desert and things like that, but also as a place where people can maybe explore what is AI and how is it impacting our lives and, you know, autonomous vehicles and all that stuff?

TAMMY STEWART: Yes, we actually a couple years ago did a partnership with a very popular autonomous vehicle company here in town where we talked about the LIDAR system. So we brought that technology and were able to show our community what actually those cars are seeing and how they operate. And then most recently, we actually have a exhibition up about semiconductors called Semi Quest. We partnered with SEMI Foundation to bring that subject to our science center. It’s on view for another month, but we do have plans in the future to have a permanent gallery dedicated to the subject. And I can tell you I we were sharing earlier about yesterday we had 1,500 school kids on our property. And I was out on the floor and we had a young girl probably eight, nine years old and she came running up ahead she stopped in front of the the semiconductor gallery space and she looked in and she could see the model clean room and her eyes were so big and she just said "What is that?" and went running in. And to know that you’ve just created that excitement for something like semiconductors and she wanted to learn more. She put on a bunny suit, she jumped into the clean room and she started to explore.

MARK BRODIE: Oh that’s really cool. What would you like to be able to do at the Science Center that you’ve not been able to do or or it hasn’t been able to do? And I know you’ve been there for a little while even though you’re fairly new to to this position. Like do you have like grand plans for stuff you’d like to do there?

TAMMY STEWART: Oh yeah. We have grand plans. The entire team. And some of it I’m going to keep secret so you can bring me back, but we are we are looking at a a full renewal of our building and bringing in those subjects that I talked about artificial intelligence, semiconductors, but also renewing the other galleries and bringing some new exhibits, new opportunities to have some interactive experiences.

MARK BRODIE: At a time when a lot of institutions like the Science Center, other museums are kind of struggling to figure out where their funding is going to come from, is that a concern that you have as has that been a challenge over the last number of months or years?

TAMMY STEWART: You know as a nonprofit, it definitely is always top of mind of looking at how can we diversify our revenue, both from earned from ticket sales, but also contributed revenue from private sources. So it is a constant conversation, it’s a constant planning that we as an organization are looking at to make sure that we’re financially sustainable for today but also in the future.

MARK BRODIE: Do you find that’s becoming more challenging as more and more institutions are sort of going after the same shrinking pots of money?

TAMMY STEWART: I think in a certain point it’s always been challenging. As nonprofit organizations we’re always trying to meet our community where they’re at and where their needs are and as the community’s needs grow then the nonprofits needs are going to have to grow and we want our resources to help to provide for the community. So it it’s always been a challenge and it will I will say continue to be a challenge. But we have an incredibly generous community that helps support us from a philanthropic side, but also as we provide more engaging experiences then we’re attracting new audiences, tourists to come in and it will help with our earned revenue.

MARK BRODIE: Well speaking of of those kinds of experiences, the Science Center just opened a new one which I assume you’re excited about based on the giant smile on your face as soon as I brought it up: replacing what had been the planetarium with kind of what looks like a smaller version of the Sphere in Las Vegas?

TAMMY STEWART: Yes, it is a smaller version of the Sphere. Different technology, and we actually say it is a better experience than the Sphere. Now I really hope the Sphere doesn’t hear this part of the conversation. No, but yes, we did. We went through a two-year construction project where we actually remodeled our planetarium. We now have the Dorrance Dome. And words cannot do it justice. I’ve tried for two years to talk about how amazing the experience is going to be and when people walk in now they look at me and go "Oh, now I know what you’re talking about."

MARK BRODIE: It seems like the Phoenix area and Arizona broadly are kind of different scientifically than so many other places. I wonder like when you’re thinking about the kinds of exhibits or the kinds of programming you want to do at the Arizona Science Center, how much are you thinking about, you know, talking about the desert or the Grand Canyon or solar energy or, you know, you mentioned semiconductors which is obviously a big a big industry here? Like how much are you thinking about specifically this place and how much are you thinking about, you know, just science more broadly?

TAMMY STEWART: I love that question because you are actually thinking exactly what we are thinking about right now. And one of our new experiences that will be opening up later this year is a gallery that is dedicated to Arizona’s water story. So top of mind for our team is exactly looking at our community and those areas that make this community unique, but then how we can also talk about the science or the technology side depending on the particular subject we’re talking about, how we can bring that into the Science Center to educate not only our local community but also the tourists who come to visit.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Tammy Stewart, the Hazel A. Hare CEO and president of the Arizona Science Center. Tammy, thanks so much.

TAMMY STEWART: Thank you so much.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.