I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the back lot of a movie studio, but if you’ve ever been on a tour at Universal Studios, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s amazing how they have almost every street from any time period just around the corner: uptown, downtown, small town, big city, western, turn of the century, and even a suburban neighborhood like Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives.
I’ve actually visited Wisteria Lane, and it is just as beautiful in person as it is on TV. Driving down spotless streets, past full-grown trees shading the yards of perfectly manicured lawns. Each house has its own beauty, and strolling up the walkway to one of these magnificent homes makes you wish that you lived there.
Opening the front door, I expected to see an equally impressive interior, but when I stepped through the threshold, I simultaneously exited through the back of the house. The gorgeous and immaculate house was not a home at all—it was a façade. Moreover, the back of the house was nothing more than unfinished two-by-fours surrounded by overgrown weeds, lumber and paint cans. What a letdown!
Maybe if I went into the house across the street things would be better. It’s a beautiful Spanish-style hacienda. But count on it: I’d find the same dirt, debris and disappointment. Each house on the block promises to be more beautiful than the last, and each one is just as empty.
In your mind’s eye, imagine that I spy a house at the end of the street, tucked in a cul-de-sac. If I wasn’t looking for it, I’d miss it all together. The paint is chipping and the porch creaks when I step on it. This is not a house about which you’d ever say, “Hey, I’d like to move in there.” Reluctantly, I open the door … and to my surprise, I find a real home! I can feel the heat from the fireplace in the cozy living room, hear the laughter of children playing upstairs, and smell something wonderful baking in the kitchen. Something tells me that this is everything I’ve ever dreamed of when I think of “home.” In fact, this is what my friends have been looking for, too.
Now imagine it’s you in this fabulous house. You can see out the window that your friends are milling around in the fake street, trying every fake door with the expectation that some-how the next fake house will be “the one”—only to walk away in utter disappointment. They have yet to find a home.
So you open that window and shout out to your friends to come on over and see what’s going on, but to your surprise, they laugh at you and blow you off. Why on earth would they do that? And then you remember: The house doesn’t look like what they think they want. They have chosen style over substance, thinking that external appearance is a good substitute for internal essence.
We live in a culture that values the façade of style over substance and appearance over character—a culture where fans obsess over brand names, lap up the latest trivial gossip, and celebrate celebrities whose only claim to fame is that they were once on a reality TV show.
The façade is nowhere more obvious than the world of music—particularly rap and hip-hop—where stars tout their own brands of booze and clothes while sporting $500 sneakers, designer SUVs, million-dollar cribs and enough bling to light the night sky. This lifestyle has become the gold standard of success and significance in a world fashioned by popular music. With the spinning rims and sparkling ice to blind us, it’s no wonder we have become so distracted that we no longer pay attention to the substance of what is said and done in entertainment. We live in a media-saturated world with sex dripping from every TV show, movie, video game, radio single and website.
“If I controlled Hollywood, I could take over the world.”
—Vladimir Lenin
Lenin, who was the first leader of Soviet Russia, made this statement nearly 100 years ago, back in the days when people still had to “go to the movies” to see a film—a silent, black-and-white film. Today, of course, you don’t have to go to an actual movie theater, with the availability of video stores, video-on-demand and downloads to your computer or iPod.
Apparently, Lenin had good instincts. A researcher for Rand Corporation, commenting on the influence of the media, said, “Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects. We think that really lowers kids’ inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret.”1
“A lot of teens think that’s the way they’re supposed to be,” added Ramsey, a teen editor for a sexual health website produced at Rutgers University. “They think that’s the cool thing to do. Because it’s so common, it’s accepted. Teens will try to deny it, they’ll say ‘No, it’s not the music,’ but it IS the music. That has one of the biggest impacts on our lives.”2
People often underestimate the power of music and its influence over our thoughts and actions. I often hear young people say, “Music really doesn’t affect me. I only listen to the beat.” But does the music that you listen to inspire you to become a better, more loving, kind, intelligent, honest, self-controlled, well-spoken, patient, responsible and respectful person? Or does the music inspire ideas and actions that are the opposite of these noble traits, such as rebellion, vulgarity, irresponsibility, anger, violence, disrespect and a lack of self-control? I believe music influences more than behavior. If you think of certain music styles—such as hip-hop, country, alternative and heavy metal—specific images come to mind about the fashion, language and even the company we keep.
What type of movies, television, video games and music do you take in? How much of it has an effect on you? I couldn’t care less what style you like—I’m questioning the substance of its content.
• The average teenager spends three to four hours per day watching television, and 83 percent of the programming contains some sexual content.
• Adolescents who are exposed to television with sexual content are more likely to overestimate the frequency of some sexual behaviors, have more permissive attitudes toward premarital sex, and according to one research study, initiate sexual behavior. In addition, hearing sexual talk on TV has the same effect as viewing sexual content.
• The average American youth spends one-third of each day with various forms of mass media, mostly without parental oversight.
• Forty-two percent of songs on 10 top-selling CDs in 1999 contained sexual content, 41 percent of which was “very explicit” or “pretty explicit.” The impact is unknown.
• Kids and teens make up 19 percent of all U.S. Internet users. That’s some 18.8 million teens and another 14.1 million children. About 73 percent of teens aged 12 to 17 and 39 percent of children aged 3 to 11 are online regularly.3
Many have debated the power and influence of media over the behavior of the masses, but we get more information from television than virtually any other media source. According to the Wall Street Journal, most people watch an average of 20 hours of television per week, compared to time spent reading newspapers, magazines or books, which average about 2 to 3 hours per week.4 There have been more studies that connect television and violence than there have been studies that connect smoking and lung cancer. And since it’s sex (not violence) that is intentionally used to sell everything from toothpaste to SUVs, how much more the connection between televised sexual themes and the sexual activities of the viewers? After all, the mantra is “sex sells”—not “violence sells.”
We must not forget that the primary goal of television is to attract viewers so that advertising can be sold. Broadcasting and production companies try to create programs that will attract people with money to spend so that advertisers will buy commercial spots during those programs. Commercials that air during the Super Bowl are the most expensive because the most people are watching. It’s all about money. Why else would advertisers spend $2.5 million on a 30-second ad?
“I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.” —Psalm 101:3
When it comes to music, a lot of people say that they only listen to the beat and that the lyrics don’t really matter—but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Music bypasses your consciousness and goes straight to your subconscious. It really does impact you.
“Music had the power to produce endorphin highs … [to] trigger a flood of emotions and images that have the ability to instantaneously produce very powerful changes in emotional states … [T]ake it from a brain guy in twenty-five years of working with the brain: I still cannot effect a person’s state of mind the way that one simple song can.—Dr. Richard Pelligrino, MD5”
From brain science to music therapy to tons of anecdotal evidence, one has to be either naive or in willful denial to ignore what we all know in our guts. As renowned musicologist David Tame observed, “Music is the language of languages. It can be said of all the arts, there is none that more powerfully moves and changes the consciousness.”6
“The end of all music should be the glory of God and the refreshment of the human spirit.—Johann Sebastian Bach”
Think about how much music is heard in countless clubs, concerts, cars and parties. Adolescents typically listen to 1.5 to 2.5 hours of music per day, which does not include the amount of time they are exposed to music through music videos. The more time adolescents spend listening to music with sexually degrading lyrics, the more likely they are to initiate intercourse and other sexual activities. This holds true for boys and girls as well as for whites and non-whites. Sexually degrading lyrics—many quite graphic and containing numerous obscenities—are related to changes in adolescents’ sexual behavior.7
“Two natures strive within my breast, The one is foul the other blest. The new I love, the old I hate. The one I feed will dominate.—Betty Mays”
Much of the “love” on television is really about sex. Some genres of television are nearly completely sex-centered: soap operas, TV movies and talk shows focus much of their attention on sex-related subjects. Even though the sexual content of some shows is talk rather than portrayal of sexual behavior, the messages do not usually distinguish between marital and extramarital sex, and the morality of sexual behavior is rarely—if ever—discussed.
Love has been reduced to cheap and fleeting emotions fueled by hype and hormones. Women are treated as little more than sexual objects to be handled, sold, consumed and pimped. And the women go right along! They justify it by saying they are “keeping it real,” when they are really just keeping it raunchy.
Godly love, in contrast to what you see on TV, is a love that never seeks its own good, but instead is focused on the other person. It is a love that always hopes for the best in others without seeking something in return, and it always seeks to benefit the person who is loved.
The sexual behavior depicted on television and in movies is completely irresponsible and unrealistic, and it communicates that sex is common and without consequence or commitment. Here are a few lies:
The author of the book God’s Vision or Television wrote this: “It is easy to be convinced that ‘everybody is doing it’ from one television show or newscast, when in fact nobody is doing it but the people on the show. The founders of MTV, for example, were very explicit in defining their aim as shifting youth culture, not just reflecting it or marketing to it.”8
A cruel irony of hip-hop music is that many artists who have been fortunate enough to escape the poverty of the inner city—a poverty in large part fueled by cycles of fatherlessness and illegitimacy—have gotten rich singing about full-throttle sexual immorality. The media clearly portrays the image that the best sex is to be had in an uncommitted relationship. The next time you watch TV note how much sex is portrayed and who it’s portrayed by—you’ll be surprised at the number of couples engaging in sexual activities outside of marriage.
Just how many women has James Bond slept with, anyway? What are his odds of being dead, not from some stray bullet or explosive device, but from his casual sex?
Or what about Sarah Jessica Parker? It’s a good thing that Sex in the City ended, because they’d be hard-pressed not to have to deal with some real consequences of her promiscuity. Her character, Carrie Bradshaw, was a cat with nine lives—she was long overdue to pay the piper, so to speak!
Or check out General Hospital, one of the longest-running and most popular soap operas of all time. Think about it: The show takes place in a hospital. How is it that in America, 80 percent of reported viral infections are STDs and abortions are the most common surgical procedure after cesarean sections, but we don’t see these on General Hospital?
Many onstage artists simulate everything from masturbation to bondage-oriented sex with band or audience members. Remember the Destiny’s Child (who were professing Christians) lap dance performance several years ago? Christina Aguilera, Foxy Brown, Faith Evans, Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Jessica Simpson were all professing Christians at one time or another—one of these artists even made the cover of Rolling Stone wearing only her underwear, under the headline “Christian of the Year.”
Female artists are often exploited. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think some of these videos were God’s Girls Gone Wild.
“We’re bored with the concept of right and wrong.—Madonna, during the performance of “Like a Virgin” at the 2003 MTV Music Awards, during which she infamously kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera”
The recording artist, Snoop Dogg has turned away from gangbanging to God. When asked how he justifies his dirty mouth, porn involvement and violent themes, he says, “We keep God in everything we do, and we try to be more positive than negative.”9
Would you lie to me?
Never
Would you die for me?
Whenever
—Snoop Dog, “Bo$$ Playa” featuring Arch Bishop Don Magic Juan10
I don’t know what god Snoop’s worshiping, but the Bible is clear that those who love God will keep His commandments, and that blessing and cursing cannot come out of the same mouth. Media will allow anyone to profess their faith in God or even Christ as long as it fits their idea of what “god” should be.
Just pay attention to the latest awards show and watch how many “artists” come up to the microphone—in outfits made from less cotton than in an Aspirin bottle—to thank God for their latest booty-shaking video.
“It [is] rather ironic that teenage girls with breast implants and rappers with violent and misogynistic lyrics spent the whole night thanking Jesus Christ of all people. It’s clearly by unchristian means that these alleged ‘friends of God’ have made their millions.—Marilyn Manson11”
American television has an influence not just in the U.S. but also around the world. Some of my foreign friends refer to the inescapable presence of American shows as “media imperialism.”
A mentor of mine returned from an advisory trip to the nation of India and shared the far reach of the media’s influence. In India’s recent history, it has experienced a sharp increase in its unwed teen pregnancy rate. The Indian government was baffled about what could have triggered this increase in the population. What on earth could have caused this increase of out-of-wedlock births, when everyday society seemed to be the same as before? There had been no sweeping cultural change such as the mass return of American men after WWII (igniting the “baby boom”) or the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
After doing some research, the government found the common thread: Only the villages that had television sets had an increase in illegitimate births. Many of these villages had acquired a single TV for the entire community and established it in its own hut, similar to a movie theater. In some cases, the youth in the villages commandeered the huts, where only two stations could receive clear reception: BBC News and MTV. Suddenly they were watching the spanking-est new music videos. To say hormones were ignited would be an understatement. I’m sure you can figure out the rest of the story.
“This is what I feel about a lot of the music industry. I think nobody is telling these kids the truth. That it just isn’t about the bling, the perpetuation of violence, and marginalization of women, and I feel like we’ve just lost it and they’re projecting this image around the world a superficial idea of what it’s like to be successful.—Oprah12”
Hip-hop is the universal language among youth around the world, and I believe it has great potential for good. Its origins are found with the African-American and Puerto Rican youth of the inner city of New York, but it has gone global. Regardless of your feelings toward hip-hop, it has become the language of youth around the world.
If you don’t believe me, listen to this: My friend Bradley Rapier leads a hip-hop/break dance group called The Groovaloos who took first place at the American Street Dance Championships. (If you have seen a Sprite or an iPod commercial, the movie You Got Served, the back-up dancers for Justin Timberlake or most any major awards show, you have seen The Groovaloos.) Bradley came back from an international dance battle and told me some of the best break dancers are from Denmark. Denmark?!
“I love rap music, but I’m tired of defending it! It’s hard to defend [lyrics like], ‘I got hos in different area codes.’ It’s hard to defend ‘Move, b - - - h, get out the way.’ You go to the clubs and you see girls dancing, just loving it. I feel sorry for the guys that got to pick a wife out of this bunch … [W]omen who like rap don’t care what they are saying. If the beats are right she will dance all night. I see girls on the floor dancing to the nastiest [lyrics] ever made … And you know what’s real wild? If you mention to a woman that the song is disgusting and misogynistic, they all give you the same answer. ‘He ain’t talkin’ ’bout me.’—Chris Rock13”
Still don’t believe me? The brother of a friend of mine came from Austria to visit us in Los Angeles. Laurent was on a mission to bring back the 411 on the hip-hop scene. He had me driving into areas of Watts that I just don’t normally go to take photos of The Watts Towers, graffiti murals and hole-in-the-wall urban gear shops, all for his latest underground remix. Laurent—who looked like an Aryan recruit for Hitler Youth but sported a fade with the best of them—couldn’t wait to get back to Austria with photos of his “new girlfriend.” (That would be me, I guess.) To have a girlfriend who even remotely looked like Beyoncé was a symbol of prestige.
And if that doesn’t convince you that hip-hop is the international language of youth, let me tell you this: Hip-hop has also scaled the Great Wall of China. My girlfriend Amy was a TV music VJ in Hong Kong. She called to tell me that “ghetto” is all the rage in China: saggy pants, oversized American Athletic Apparel, French braids (which don’t come from France, by the way), and so forth.
Recently I received a call from an Indian gentleman with an invitation for Club Varsity (the company and ministry I lead) to go to India with the abstinence message in “an authentic hip-hop production.” He placed heavy emphasis on the word authentic because hip-hop has become so natural among Indian youth that they can sniff out wannabees. Though India literally has dozens of languages and dialects spoken around the country, this Indian man was so excited at the prospect of Christians coming to India to speak “the language of the youth.”
You may prefer other forms of music and dress, but Garth Brooks doesn’t pull this kind of weight around the globe. The universality of hip-hop music and culture is unlike anything the world has ever seen.
It is not only hip-hop that has the potential for good. Any form of media, used to communicate in a coordinated fashion, can elicit change. In Uganda, as we saw in earlier chapters, the entire nation banded together to promote the primary message of abstinence. The message was delivered in middle school classrooms, churches and community events through radio, print and television broadcasts. The government established highly effective partnerships with the religious community, working cooperatively to design and implement the ABc program. The effect was to create what researchers call a “social vaccine” against HIV: a set of cultural values that encourage more responsible sexual attitudes and behaviors.14
Media—including TV, movies, music, video games and the Internet—is neither fundamentally good nor ultimately evil. It’s the messages contained in the media that are moral or immoral, and you must be alert and become aware of those messages so that they do not influence your decisions without your permission. Media can be a fun and effective way to communicate—I’d be quite the hypocrite if I said I was anti-media!—but you have to be smart … don’t “just listen to the beat.” Listen to God’s Word: “A false witness will perish, and whoever listens to him will be destroyed forever” (Prov. 21:28). When the media is telling lies in truth’s clothing, don’t listen to the beat! Turn it off—or better yet, make your own media and join me in telling The Naked Truth.
• What type of movies, television, video games and music do you take in? How much of it has an effect on you?
• In what ways are you just listening to the beat right now in your own life?
• What changes do you need to make in your own life with regard to the types and quality of media you watch and listen to?