Beauty and the Beast, Sports Illustrated and Lessons Learned

"For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light." ~ Jesus, Luke 16:8


I think it's safe to say Disney's marketing strategy promoting Beauty and the Beast was a runaway success. The movie opened with the biggest opening weekend ever for a PG-rated movie and the biggest opening weekend for any movie in March.

A big part of the that strategy was the quote a couple of weeks ago from the director about there being a “gay moment” in the movie. The article was perfectly timed so that the resulting furor would have maximum impact in social media in the week and a half prior to its release date. And a furor they got. It was impossible not to miss the impact of the quote in the week following the article's publishing.

I don't have any doubt that it was intentional. The media have learned their lesson well: get the Christians sufficiently riled up, and you're in for a bonanza. It's too bad many Christians haven't yet learned the same lesson.

One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon is the story of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The issue is by this time an American institution for better and for worse, mostly worse. For those of us under the age of 60, it's just always been there. But its origins lie at a place where happenstance and Christian outrage met.


Sports Illustrated was not always the behemoth I remember when I was growing up. (Print magazines are so 20th century). In 1964 SI was struggling to find a focus and an audience. It was far behind the largest sports weekly of the day, The Sporting News. And it had difficulty in determining exactly what it wanted to be all the time.

When there wasn't any baseball or football to cover, the magazine looked more like an outdoors or a lifestyle magazine. There were cover stories on hunting, travel, outdoors activities, even yachting with John and Jackie Kennedy.


It was anticipated to be a slow news week in mid-January 1964 (the NFL playoffs were usually over by Christmas back then). The managing editor, Andre Laguerre, planned a Caribbean travel story and told the photographer to hire a model to pose in a bikini for the cover. It was a brazen choice at the time, but Laguerre liked to push the boundaries and had little taste for American moralism. 

The cover (see it at this link if you wish) featured the picture with the following caption: "A Skin Diver's Guide to the Caribbean - Fun in the Sun on Cozumel." There was nothing about "annual swimsuit issue" or anything like that. Inside was a travel story with one more picture of the model and some other pictures of beach scenery.

Three SI covers from the 50s
and 60s that have nothing
to do with sports.

The cover created controversy. The magazine received thousands of angry letters and cancellations. At the same time, newsstand sales of the issue exceeded all expectations for a slow news week. Whether those sales were directly related to the anger expressed I have know way of knowing, but that is what happened.

Any time there is reaction, that is gold to marketers. They really don't care if it is positive or negative, as long as there is a reaction. A single issue which generated this kind of controversy and sales made everyone take notice. In the weeks that followed it was Laguerre who came up with the idea to put another girl in a bathing suit on the cover next year and bill it as the "second annual swimsuit issue."

Thus was born one of the most influential publications in American history. By all rights it should have been another one of those early SI issues that seem so weird to us who remember the magazine's heyday in the 70s-90s. But it lives on because of a firestorm of negative reaction from well-meaning folks.

I'm not saying those folks were wrong about the particular issue. I'm sure it was a shock to many subscribers looking for stories about basketball, hockey or perhaps the upcoming Winter Olympics. But if enough of them had simply and quietly pitched the magazine into the trash can and went on with their lives, the Swimsuit Issue wouldn't be around today. 

More than 50 years later, many Christians still haven't learned this lesson while the world has. The world eagerly lays out plans, knowing many Christians will quickly share anything that irritates them on social media without ever considering if they are being manipulated by either powerful media moguls looking for free publicity or by struggling Web publishers looking for cheap clicks. Either way, the manipulation is real and, unfortunately, easy to pull off. If Christians would just once not take the manipulation bait, the people pulling the strings might think twice about it. Personally I think it'd be nice to see Christians be the manipulators for once instead of the manipulatees. 

Note: The information for this article came mostly from an interview I saw a few years ago on TV with Frank DeFord, longtime writer and editor at Sports Illustrated. Unfortunately I could not find a link with the interview, but the basics of what I remember from the interview are confirmed in this article.

What if?

Is every Christian who enjoys football an idolater?
Some folks make it seem that way. Photo Credit

You've seen it in your Facebook feed, heard it in sermons, maybe even said it yourself: something to the effect of "What would it look like if we got just as excited about Jesus as we got about" fill in the blank - football, NASCAR, Christmas shopping, deer hunting, American Idol - the list is endless. I've come to the conclusion that's not the right question for us to be asking other people. It reveals a faulty understanding of Scripture and lays an unnecessary burden of guilt on those who may take it seriously.

Why do I say that such a statement reveals a faulty understanding of Scripture? Let’s look at a few verses. Romans 14 (and the first part of chapter 15), as you may know, is an important passage giving us direction on charitably handling differences of opinions and preferences. Most of the passage is about the stronger brother (the one who trusts that all things not obviously sinful are gifts from God) not offending the weaker brother (the one who has objections that such life choices are sinful). But in order for the weak and strong brothers’ relationship to work, consideration has to go both ways:
"Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:3-4)
“Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense. It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin. (Romans 14:20-23)

“Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” When we (I’m including myself, because I’ve done it too) condemn other people for participating in stuff we may not particularly care for, we are violating that principle in the lives of others. In the first passage quoted above, it is not our place to judge a fellow believer in such matters. God is the judge for all of us, and He will work in a believer’s life if they have a genuine problem.

Another portion of Scripture that has a direct bearing on this topic is Deuteronomy 14:22-29. This passage is about the special, every-three-years tithe that the Hebrews were to bring to the house of the Lord. Notice what verse 26 says specifically:“And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.” (NKJV)

This tithe was not merely a donation, although that was part of it. Part of this special tithe was that a person would buy whatever food or anything else they wanted with the tithe money, and enjoy it in the presence of God. This time of enjoyment was just as much an offering to God as sacrificing a lamb or a calf, and equally a part of God’s commands for His people at that time. Now I know we can’t directly appropriate Old Testament laws for the church age, but the principle is pretty clear: God is honored by us enjoying anything that makes us happy when we acknowledge Him while we are doing it. If you struggle with this, I recommend you read the entire passage.

This is the amphitheater in Ephesus,
where Paul spent three years. Could
he have seen a play here? Photo Credit

Nowhere in the Bible will you find that it is wrong to enjoy food, activities or hobbies in this life. In fact, Paul on at least four occasions - Acts 17:28 (two references in that verse), I Corinthians 15:33 and Titus 1:12 - referenced pagan Greek poets or playwrights in his discourses and epistles. It’s hard for us to think of Paul taking a break from his work building churches to go down to the city amphitheater to see a play, but apparently it’s something Paul enjoyed.

As many people as there are in the world, there are that many and more things that make them happy. This is not a bad thing. God intended for us to enjoy His creation, enjoy spending time with each other, enjoy making and doing things that make us happy. Whenever I hear someone make some remark (particularly when it’s obviously addressed to me) about somebody loving some activity more than they love Jesus, the thing I infer from that question is that someone thinks I have an idolatry problem. They think I love something more than I love Jesus. That seems to me a reasonable inference to make. How can they know? What business is it of theirs?

Do we need to guard our hearts? Certainly. Even though we are Christians, the unregenerate part of our being is capable of creating an idol out of practically anything, including the fact that we don’t do such-and-such, so we must love Jesus more. We have an entire lifetime of work on our own to keep our own hearts and minds where they need to be before God.

Is it wrong to encourage one another to love Jesus more? Of course not. In fact we are repeatedly commanded in the epistles to do exactly that. But is laying a guilt trip on someone for enjoying something not sinful a good way to encourage each other? No. My advice to you (and for me) is to find positive ways to genuinely encourage one another. Find a good quote or picture or article, and share that on Facebook instead of condemnatory rhetoric. Share your spiritual journey with the folks at your church. I find that the most encouraging things people talk about at church is how we are really working through some issue or circumstance in our lives. That’s encouragement that will make a difference in people’s lives. Condemnatory, arrogant attempts at encouragement only break people down. That’s not what the church or the broader community of believers is for.