The MTV Mess
At some point on Thursday I happened to watch parts of a few episodes of "America's Next Top Model" hosted and produced by Tyra Banks on MTV. Why I was watching it in the first place is still beyond me, but then something else that I noticed on the show really bugged me. It started off with 10 contestants, and of course the girls had to do various modeling assignments in different fashion capitals around the world and one contestant gets eliminated each round until there's obviously only 1 winner left at the very end. The girls are beautiful, talented and from all over the nation: tall, medium height, long hair, short hair, dark skin, light skin etc. Fair competition, I'd say. However, there was this one girl who stood out to me--in a disturbing way. She was a *proclaimed Christian* from the very beginning and she made sure everyone was publicly aware of it. At first the rest of the girls were alright around her (in fact there were 2 more other Christian girls in the show), but pretty soon she started to really frustrate everyone because of her "believe in God or go to hell" attitude towards the girls. Let's call her "PCG" (proclaimed Christian girl).
One particular instance made me mad. From the get go, PCG seemed to have something against another contestant who called herself an atheist. PCG treated her particularly 'different' and constantly made her very uncomfortable with her strong attitude. On one occasion, PCG decided to show the girl a particular verse in the Bible, apparently a verse in Psalm that basically says a man is foolish for not knowing God (does anyone know exactly which verse is that, let me know). The girl was furious and clearly offended by that. PCG didn't care to explain why she did that either.
I don't know what it was, but PCG irked me. She was a Christian given such an awesome opportunity, on national television....there was so much she could've done to be the light to others, but no...she was quite the contrary instead. She portrayed herself to be the one whom everyone would love to hate. I've been debating with Josue and with myself in my mind over this since Thursday. The media has a great way of twisting things around, especially with reality TV, they want you to see the 'meaty' stuff, even if it makes people look awful. Perhaps PCG got pulled into that media trap and was portrayed in a wrong way. But what if she wasn't and she was really acting like a hypocrite? Yet again, she would be one of the many Christians who act as the typical stereotype, that the world thinks of Christians as a whole, which we all know isn't great. I think I would be ashamed to have someone like PCG be on national television and proclaim herself to be holy and righteous than everyone else. That just doesn't sit right with me at all, and I'd hate to think if others who are not Christians think of me the same way when I'm around them. I know it's hard to be a good Christian in this world, but how did we ever get to the point of being so disliked by others? This is a tough reality check and I know I'm struggling daily to be the kind of Christian that the Lord would ultimately want me to be. I pray that God will continue to guide us through this situation.
One particular instance made me mad. From the get go, PCG seemed to have something against another contestant who called herself an atheist. PCG treated her particularly 'different' and constantly made her very uncomfortable with her strong attitude. On one occasion, PCG decided to show the girl a particular verse in the Bible, apparently a verse in Psalm that basically says a man is foolish for not knowing God (does anyone know exactly which verse is that, let me know). The girl was furious and clearly offended by that. PCG didn't care to explain why she did that either.
I don't know what it was, but PCG irked me. She was a Christian given such an awesome opportunity, on national television....there was so much she could've done to be the light to others, but no...she was quite the contrary instead. She portrayed herself to be the one whom everyone would love to hate. I've been debating with Josue and with myself in my mind over this since Thursday. The media has a great way of twisting things around, especially with reality TV, they want you to see the 'meaty' stuff, even if it makes people look awful. Perhaps PCG got pulled into that media trap and was portrayed in a wrong way. But what if she wasn't and she was really acting like a hypocrite? Yet again, she would be one of the many Christians who act as the typical stereotype, that the world thinks of Christians as a whole, which we all know isn't great. I think I would be ashamed to have someone like PCG be on national television and proclaim herself to be holy and righteous than everyone else. That just doesn't sit right with me at all, and I'd hate to think if others who are not Christians think of me the same way when I'm around them. I know it's hard to be a good Christian in this world, but how did we ever get to the point of being so disliked by others? This is a tough reality check and I know I'm struggling daily to be the kind of Christian that the Lord would ultimately want me to be. I pray that God will continue to guide us through this situation.
