You remember all that hype surrounding the movie “Magic Mike” a while back?? Well, I watched it. And I have to say it was a complete waste of my time. At the time of the movie’s release several Christian leaders posted their thoughts on the movie and I was (and still am) in complete agreement with their views.
But the other night, I was bored & exhausted after a LONG week at work. I began browsing through Amazon’s rentals & saw “Magic Mike.” I wasn’t immediately drawn to it, but in all honestly I was truly curious about all the fuss that was made. My decision to watch the movie was out of pure curiosity and nothing more. I wasn’t excited to ogle at the muscular male bodies and I sure as heck wasn’t looking for a way to get turned on.
So watch the movie I did… and it was HORRIBLE.
The acting was horrible. The plot was horrible. The cinematography was horrible. Everything about it was, you guessed it… horrible. So horrible, that I didn’t even care about the $3.99 I’d spent on the movie & didn’t even bother finishing. I highly doubt the last 35 minutes redeemed the entire movie.
It’s a few days later and I just can’t shake the absurdity of this movie. I mean, Steven Soderbergh was the director for goodness sakes! And he’s directed some doozies… Erin Brokovich, Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Contagion, just to name a few. You’d think with a resume like that he’d at least make an attempt to evoke some feelings other then lust & licentiousness. Guess not.
This movie clearly had one goal: to tempt. To tempt women into fantasizing about men who are not their husbands. To tempt women into spending money on strippers. To tempt women into believing that men’s bodies were created for sex and nothing more.
If I hadn’t been in recovery from sex & pornography addiction for almost 2 years, this movie would have thrown a serious wrench in my attempts at sobriety.
And that really pisses me off.
You see, Satan isn’t happy enough with the loads of men & women quietly addicted to pornography. No, he wants more. He wants to bring his distortion of sex & love into the mainstream market & show it to teenagers, single women, and wives in movie theaters. He’s been working at this for a while now & for the most part it’s been directed at men. But he sees that by attacking the men, he’s made some strides…
Most men now expect a certain type of woman in the bedroom. They expect to get physically intimate within the first few dates. They expect women to be loose with their morals. (Note, I said MOST men. Believe me, I know not all men have these expectations. This is a generalization based on my personal experience & observations.)
And in order to keep up with this expectation, in order to avoid loneliness, and in order to achieve society’s standards of worth, MOST women have given in.
Satan sees this. He sees that women are aching to be loved by men. He knows that God-driven love is pure, holy, and beautiful. And he’s working his booty off to make sure that we (men & women alike) DO NOT experience it…
Why?!
Because then we’d know the truth. We’d know that blatantly impure movies such as “Magic Mike” are just a trick to drag us down. We’d know that as appealing as casual sex & chiseled bodies may be to our libidos, there is so much more to intimacy & relationships. We’d know that God has something infinitely more beautiful for us.
Over the years, I’ve become incredibly disenchanted with the love & sex fantasy that Hollywood has so effectively shoved down our throats. That disenchantment came to head & quickly turned into anger as I watched “Magic Mike.” There is no entertainment value in movies, books, or TV shows who’s only goal is to sell sex and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. No, seasoned directors & talented actors are signing up for the “sex sells” campaign and it seems they don’t even care to try to make it entertaining.
So how do we as Christians fight back against the onslaught of impurity in our world?
Just today I read an article on pornography & masturbation in the church. This was the author’s final paragraph:
Let’s talk loudly about porn from the front row of the church. Cringe worthy – yes. Christians may still have the same issues as their secular friends, but let’s be actively doing something about it rather than being sucked into engaging with what presents itself as a current world of Sodom and Gomorrah.
AMEN?!
This is how we fight back… we talk loudly. Loudly about our brokeness, our addictions, and the redemption that God so faithfully provides. Let’s let our voices be heard not only vocally, but with how we spend our time & money and where we let our hearts lead. Without loud voices, others will never know that there is a way out. Satan’s message is one that distorts God’s truth about who we are and what we were created for. God’s message is one of salvation, restoration, healing… He has chosen me and you to be the voice that shouts that message.
Are you ready to join the crusade? I hope so!
