New Reality Show On The Cutting Edge?

Anyone who watches a good deal of TV today knows that there is almost no limit to the number of ‘reality shows’ to be viewed. For the most part, these rarely appeal to me for a variety of reasons. First, few really represent reality on any level. I’ll never understand how anyone can act normal and ‘real’ with a camera crew and director a few feet away from what is going on at any given moment. There is also the reality that reality may have to be ‘spiced up’ at times to be made interesting enough to hold viewers and ratings. Then too, there is the subject matter that sometimes includes various levels of morally inappropriate subject matter.

Many will recall the wildly popular “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” that followed the ‘real’ lives of a couple who had 2 sets of multiple births, with the later one being sextuplets! The result, or should we say the ‘reality’, of their lives under a microscope was eventual infidelity and the total breakdown of a marriage between two supposedly committed Christians according to a book released just before it all unraveled before the adoring gaze of an entire nation. Amazingly, the show continues today. The current title is simply, “Kate Plus Eight” that showcases the single mom who, through numerous makeovers, now leads the life of a supermodel as much as a struggling mother tending to the needs of a huge family.

But now, there is another reality show to add to the mix, one that seems to go a bit too far, even when compared with others that have already pushed the limits (sporting titles like “Knocked Up”). But E! Network has outdone even themselves with this new concept called ‘Brideplasty’.

In this upcoming slice of real-life engaged women, in their preparation to enter wedded bliss, will be competing for the chance toget multiple cosmetic surgery procedures near or at the end of the show. Their goal is to achieveas near to physical perfection as possible prior to their big day. The winner will also receive a lavish, celebrity-style wedding paid for by E!

When the show season ends, and the wedding begins, there is also the reality of a groom standing at the alter who may get to say, “I do” to someone who may look nothing like the woman he proposed to months earlier. It should also be noted that the any groom who allows or suggests that his future mate go through a nationally televised circus-like event, and the reality of certain hazardous surgeries, himself has a few loose screws of his own in my humble opinion. It all reminds me of what I sometimes say to my teens when we witness someone saying or doing something highly inappropriate in public. “Now there is a real keeper.” They are even beginning, on occasion, to say it to me first before I get the words out!

The search for physical perfection has become an epidemic in 21st century America. The number of teens requesting and undergoing cosmetic procedures has increased dramatically over the last decade. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that more than 333,000 cosmetic procedures were performed on patients 18 years of age or younger in the United States in 2005, compared to approximately 14,000 in 1996. In 2005, one in four of these were surgical procedures such as nose reshaping, ear surgery, breast augmentation, liposuction, chin augmentation, and tummy tucks. And obviously these numbers have risen significantly even in the last 5 years or so. It should like-wise be noted, again, that some of these procedures performed on these youngsters come with a degree of serious medical risk.

As with many of the reality shows, the contestants are as devious and underhanded as they can be to win the coveted prize – this time radical surgical procedures. This whole concept, at least for me, reveals that they need an internal makeover far more than anything desired to be improved upon on the outside.

In 1 Samuel chapter sixteen the writer records an event surrounding the search for a new king to replace Saul. Verse 6 reveals how it was assumed that Eliab would be the perfect choice because of his outward and external strengths. But shockingly, verse 7 declared a basic truth that should be a lesson for all of us – especially those competing on ‘Brideplasty’ or young people obsessed with surgically enhancing the physical attributes given them by their Creator. In verse 7 we read, “But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

There in nothing wrong with Christians taking good care of the body God has given them. Actually that is right since it is the literal temple of the Holy Spirit – the body used to serve and glorify God in this life. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 supports this reality. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”

The reality is this. There is no one who is “perfect” physically speaking. And those who may seem ‘close’, for a time, whether it be natural or through artificial means, will someday find their exterior attributes slowly failing them. And it is for that unpleasant reality, but for reasons far more critical, that life’s perfection should be sought and found through Jesus Christ – something stressed throughout the Scriptures. (Romans 12:2, 1 Peter 5:10-11, Ephesians 4:11-15, Colossians 4:12)

The Apostle Paul summed up the goal and the ‘reality’ of a real, meaningful, and eternal perfection in Colossians 1:28, when he wrote, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

Bill Breckenridge