|
As a seminary student, I rarely ever have the chance to just watch television and vegetate for a couple of hours like I used to in college. A recent turn of events (actually, a recent turn of my ankle) left me on crutches for several days, of which much of that time was spent watching television. It was a good time to watch TV. The midterm elections were held that week, so there was no shortage of political pundits and Beltway “talking heads” to listen to on C-SPAN as they analyzed the changing political scene. In the evenings I caught some shows I had not seen before. One of them left my wife and me thoroughly disgusted.
The Jamie Kennedy Experiment on the WB was one of the most degrading things I have seen on television, which is quite a statement. Apparently, the show centers around Kennedy, a modern-day “master-of-disguise,” who dresses up in outrageous costumes and plays practical jokes on people while their reactions are recorded on hidden video cameras. Some of the jokes are just outlandish while others are repulsive. Still other jokes deal with themes that are morally vacuous. Think Candid Camera mixed with Fear Factor, Jackass, and a little bit of The Bachelor for good measure.
In the episode I watched, two parents were mortified as their son invited them to Las Vegas for his wedding to a “woman” who had been a man two years earlier (played by Kennedy). The mother cried and eventually walked out of the “ceremony,” the father swore several times, and both of them drank a lot. The studio audience found all of this humiliation quite humorous. The mother (who was already emotionally unstable enough under the circumstances) was mortified when she found out the whole affair had been recorded for TV.
Two other skits were not much better. Kennedy played a blackjack dealer in a Vegas casino who had recently had a jaw operation. A metal device was placed in his mouth that spread out his gums and caused him to drool everywhere. When the men who were playing cards started snickering about Kennedy’s dental work, he pretended to cry and slobbered on them some more. At that point, my wife left the room. Glutton for punishment that I was, I stayed for a third skit. This one (which was a take-off of the movie Indecent Proposal) featured Kennedy playing a millionaire who offered one million dollars to a recently engaged couple to sleep with the bride-to-be. To the horror of the future groom, Kennedy kept going down on the price offered until the young woman, to the horror of her beau, agreed to sleep with Kennedy for free “because it would be fun and he was kind of cute.” We turned the TV off.
Why do people find the humiliation and embarrassment of others so entertaining? In many of the reality-based TV shows, we laugh while other people make fools of themselves (again, I mention The Bachelor) or are humiliated by others (the now-famous Simon and his offensive behavior on American Idol). We laugh at the movies when a boyfriend can’t do anything right in trying to impress his girlfriend’s parents (Meet the Parents); we laugh at a flabby Scotsman and a midget for no other reason than that they are overweight and undersized (the Austin Powers movies); we laugh at every mentally and/or emotionally challenged character that Adam Sandler has played in a movie in the past seven or eight years. Why is that? Is shame and misfortune really that entertaining?
My wife Leah has really challenged me on this issue. You see, when we were dating in college, I thought most of this trash was funny. In fact, I still think it’s funny sometimes. But I shouldn’t. She has never been amused by other people’s misfortune. She has never found the humiliation of people, whether self-deprecating or inflicted by others, to be a laughing matter. She knows that for every character who is laughed about, there is a real person who is struggling with that very issue. It’s not funny to them. She knows that every person who humiliates himself or herself willingly on a reality-based TV show is a real person who is created in God’s image and in need of God’s grace. I think Leah’s approach to embarrassing entertainment is the best approach for a discerning Christian to take.
The Bible obviously doesn’t address television and movies directly, but I think there are certainly some implications we can draw upon if we seek to be God-honoring in our entertainment choices. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things (NASB).” It seems to me that this verse teaches that Christians are expected to focus on those things that bring glory to God. That task is much more difficult when our minds are filled with some of the humiliating things we see in movies and on TV. We lose out compassion and concern for others. We stop caring. People have talked a lot for the past few years about how some entertainment choices desensitize people to sex and violence. What about being desensitized to sensitivity?
My wife and I are going to continue to try to take this verse to heart as we prayerfully decide what types of entertainment we will engage in. If we’ve been freed from our bondage to sin, why should we seek to be entertained by depraved humor?
I’m sure that these types of programs and movies will continue to be popular as long as people watch them. And people are definitely watching them. But at least I can say The Jamie Kennedy Experiment was unsuccessful in this Christian household. I pray that its brand of entertainment would be unsuccessful in many others too. 
Copyright © 2003 Nathan Finn. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
|
