By Manuel Lopez
Believer, a moving documentary follows, Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds as he tries to reconcile his deep Mormon faith with the church’s policies against the LGTBQ community. From the very beginning of the film, you can sense the struggle that singer Dan Reynolds was feeling through the making of the documentary. The film begins by showing Dan Reynolds relationship to the Mormon faith; he explains how important his two-year mission away from home was and how it shaped him to be who he wanted to be. All along the Mormon Church was a safe, happy place for Reynolds until one day he had sex with his girlfriend and got kicked out of BYU for it. This led to depression for the next year of his life, with his entire community finding out about him getting kicked out of school. He felt that the community, friends, and family that he loved now saw him as a sinner, he felt as if “God saw me as a dirty kid who was sinful.” This confused Reynolds because at the moment he felt as if he and his girlfriend did a beautiful, wonderful thing yet the church was shaming him for it.
Dan Reynolds for a long time believed the church’s position on same-sex marriage. He says multiple times throughout the film that out of the thousands of doors he’s knocked on during his mission he had to tell many people that God did not allow same-sex marriage, but that he always felt wrong and a sense of guilt by saying that. The breaking point in Reynolds life was when his now wife’s best friends did not attend their wedding because they were a lesbian couple and knew that they would not be accepted by the church.
Reynolds talks about how the Mormon church’s lack of tolerance for the gay community has led to an increased rate of suicide among Mormon teens. That belief caused Reynolds to question his faith and to look for ways to build a bridge of acceptance. Reynolds was now on a new mission, one with a message of love to all people.
The film does a great job showing the process it took for Reynolds to resolve the struggle he felt with his faith, the route he chose to take, and the outcome of the mission. Reynolds decided to pair up with Neon Tree’s lead singer Tyler Glenn, an openly gay former Mormon, to navigate their way through the issues, ultimately creating LoveLoud, a music and spoken-word festival designed to start a dialogue between the Mormon church and the LGBTQ community.
The festival was a massive success.
During the Q&A after the screening, director, Don Argott shared the difficulties and the good that came out of the project. Speaking out for something he believed in left Dan Reynolds very vulnerable to backlash from his fans and most importantly his family and Mormon community. Don Argott shared how Dan’s family did not want any part to do with this documentary and how interviewing them was out of the question. Argott shared that this documentary did help a lot of LQBTQ youth realize that there’s hope and acceptance is not far.
The documentary is very well done, and it opened my eyes to a struggle that I feel like many people in this country and the world are having. As we become more accepting of others, our faith and believes are causing conflict in our acceptance. Many people struggle with this daily, but the more influential people that come out and speak up the better things will get in the future.
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