Recently Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington, wrote an op-ed on Americans’ fascination with the love-life, and recent wedding, of Jennifer Anniston. Regardless of whether or not you care for Jennifer Anniston, the principles of the article can apply equally to our obsession with Beyonce, Adele, Lebron James, or the stars of “Teen Mom” or “Jersey Shore.” In her piece, Schwartz notes that we live in a media culture today that so frequently brings the lives of celebrities into our living rooms, smart phones, and tablets, that they feel like friends to us. Furthermore, and this is the point that was most fascinating to me, Schwartz noted that because of the familiarity (however real or contrived it may be) that we feel with celebrities, we find ourselves living vicariously through them. When it comes to Anniston specifically, Schwartz says that women follow her love life because A) when Anniston gets dumped it helps women to feel better about their own heartbreaks arguing, “if Jennifer Anniston gets dumped, anyone can” and B) Women are watching to see if true love will stick this time for Anniston because, again, “if it can happen to her maybe it can happen to me.” Schwartz closes the article by stating that the "fairy tale ending" we hope to glimpse in the lives of celebrities “is a stand-in for the fairly tale ending we want for ourselves.”
After reading the article, I couldn’t help but reflect back to my favorite book on preaching written by Frederick Buechner in 1977 entitled Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. One of the main premises of the work is the way in which each of us, regardless of time, language, and culture is drawn to fairy tale: the ugly becoming beautiful; the poor becoming rich; the oppressed finding justice; the overlooked becoming the centerpiece. It is, in so many ways, written on our hearts. It is what we long for in every good movie, every good song, and every good novel. It is the ageless story of the cross, and it is the gospel. We are all searching for it, this good, seemingly impossible news, that despite all of our warts and wrinkles, we might be found accepted, loved and wanted.
J.R.R Tolkien once wrote, “It is the mark of the good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art.”
Our culture is dying to experience the fairy-tale. Surrounded by counterfeits, many have settled for living the life the wished they had through others, rather than entering the fairy-tale God has already written. Jennifer Anniston’s marriage doesn’t have to work out to offer you hope. Lebron doesn’t have to win the championship game. The creator of the universe knows you by name, is more aware of your failings than you will ever know, and was willing to move heaven and earth to rescue you. No fairy-tale could ever compete with that truth. Hollywood could never write a better story.
