For my second cultural artifact I decided to watch an episode of the show Happy Endings. This show is all about a group of friends going through the "normal" situations of life. In the episode I watched tonight (season 2 episode 12) Jane talked Penny into trying to change her boyfriend to make him into someone that she wanted him to be. Her reasoning was that it would be good for him, but taking advantage of someone like that is so selfish. In the episode, Penny's boyfriend falls for her tricks and ends up changing completely: his clothes, phrases, apartment, and everything. But Penny receives payback for what she did and in the end her boyfriend runs into his ex-girlfriend and they get engaged.
Tricking a person is not living for the Kingdom of God, in fact, trickery is a huge part of the empire. As we learned in class, from the food industries to the credit card industries, the main part of these corporations is hiding the truth from consumers. These corporations are taking advantage of the public by lying to their faces and keeping certain information away from them. They are taking the right of consumers knowing the truth, just like Penny took away her boyfriend's freedom to be who he is. In the same way, in the empire, individuality is not accepted and sometimes we don't feel like we can be ourselves. Sometimes we can get caught up in what the empire says is right and normal and we hide the truth about ourselves. We hide our uniqueness and lie to others and ourselves about who we really are. We need to make sure that we don't let the empire take away our individuality. Living for the Kingdom of God means being ourselves because God created us and made us unique and perfect in his eyes.
How can we show our individuality in an empire where people are pressured to be identical to fit in? How could this individuality affect the empire and what it stands for?
It seems like the character of Penny has bought into the empire's idea of human beings as commodities to be "purchased" and "customized" according to (her) consumer desire.
ReplyDeleteBut there's more to analyzing art than simply looking at the story itself. Why is this story being told? Why do you think the writers of this show thought this story was worth telling?