For my artifact, I decided to watch an episode of the show Glee. The show is an all-American musical drama aired on Fox television network. It takes place at a high school and focuses on one particular musical club that deals with competition, relationships, sexuality and social issues.
In the episode I watched, the musical club, also known as the Glee club, had to perform at a sectional competition in order to continue to move on Regionals. Throughout the episode many of the characters dealt with relationship issues not only amongst each other in the group but with their parents and families as well. Many of the parents of the teens in the group believed that the club was ingraining into their children an unrealistic vision for their future. Like most American parents in our society, they wanted their children to pick a more successful path for their future which would bring in more income. Rather than looking at the gifts and talents God had blessed their children with, their focus was on money and how only that would benefit them in life.
Money can be very deceivingly evil in our society today because like the children on the show, often people are forced or encouraged to disregard the talents and skills which God created them with and blessed them with in order that they can gain wealth in money. Our culture pushes us to believe that in order to be successful we need to have a high paying job and more money than we know what to do with. The evil makes us believe that we won’t be good enough unless we have are the “top dog” of our class. God redeemed us though and created us each with different skills and abilities. With His truth living in us, we can know that we don’t have to have the best job or the most money, but that rather we can follow our dreams for the joy that He showers us with in that is priceless.
When the club members on the show decided to follow their dream of performing rather than the high paying routes their parents were pushing them towards, they discovered that the joy they received in that was worth more than falling into the lies of society.
What dreams are we giving up in order to be something somebody else wants us to be? What talents and blessings from God are we throwing away at the cost of listening to the lie of society that only money can buy us true happiness?
What dreams are we giving up in order to be something somebody else wants us to be? What talents and blessings from God are we throwing away at the cost of listening to the lie of society that only money can buy us true happiness?
Good comments, Ali. It's also interesting with a show like Glee to take another step back and ask how the producers of the show are presenting a "product" as art. The show makes a ton of money based on the sales of its soundtracks and in order to keep people interested in the soundtracks, they have to tell stories in the show that their viewers will "buy" into. The story of this episode tells us to follow our hearts and do what really matters to us...but the producers also hope we'll have money to shell out for their singles. :)
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