Model Whores

We were recently affronted with an invitation to vote for a supposedly Christian woman going by the name of Starla Carmela in support of her endeavor to be "America's next top model". We were appalled, and here are our thoughts on the matter. 

So the pretty young blonde, lithe and limber, wants to be a model, while at the same time she professes to be a Christian. The road to stardom is littered with the corpses of such women, crushed and crumpled. Those few who do make it are always compromised. The most fortunate among them, so it seems, ride the slower road to hell. Among these are women such as Heidi Klum, who has a beast for a husband and a brood of beasts as her posterity. Or Christie Brinkley, with three children from as many fathers, some of whom were Jews. Or Charlize Theron, who has been seen with a strangely ape-like creature swinging from her hip. The PETA activist has evidently confused animals for humans. Those models and actresses whose lives are not publicly corrupted nevertheless have such things as obscure pornographic movies or other obscenities buried in their pasts. Purporting to be both a Christian and an aspiring model does not lend credibility to a life spent in pursuit of worldly rewards exacted from worldly lust. One cannot succeed as a model or actress without compromising even the most basic Christian principles. 

Keep a sure watch over a shameless daughter, lest she make thee a laughingstock to thine enemies, and a byword in the city, and a reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude. Behold not every body's beauty, and sit not in the midst of women. - Sirach 42:11-12 

As for modeling, acting, news and sports reporting and related vocations, at any level they are all a part of the media and entertainment industry: an industry controlled in its entirety by those eternal enemies of God and Christ. The experience of the former beauty pageant contestant and evangelical Christian Carrie Prejean very well summarizes the challenge a woman of any sort of Christian conviction faces when desiring to succeed in the world of the anti-Christ. It is not by chance that sexual deviants are set up as judges over such pageants by the people that control them. One such sexual deviant asked Prejean a question about the acceptability of certain deviant so-called "marriages". When her success in the pageant hinged upon her answer, Prejean chose to answer honestly. In her own memoir she describes the choice she faced: "I was being dared — in front of the entire world — to give a candid answer to a serious question. I knew if I told the truth, I would lose all that I was competing for: the crown, the luxury apartment in New York City, the large salary — everything that went with the Miss USA title. I also knew, or suspected, that I was the frontrunner, and if I gritted my teeth and gave the politically correct answer, I could be Miss USA."

Yet while Miss Prejean would not compromise her faith publicly, after she was fired by the pageant and filed the customary lawsuits it was revealed that prior to the pageant itself she had engaged in some very un-Christian behavior, ostensibly while endeavoring to further her modeling career. According to an article at CNN entitled Carrie Prejean 'sex tape' spurred pageant settlement, Miss Prejean, who claimed that she was fired for her religious convictions, had been exposed as having once posed for a series of very racy lingerie-modeling photos. Pageant lawyers also brought forth a sexually graphic home video featuring the contestant. The video was said to be so graphic that the Jew Harvey Levin, managing editor for the celebrity gossip website TMZ, said that it was “too racy” to publish on his website. It was Levin who somehow came to possess the video and make it known to the public and to the pageant lawyers. While the pageant had filed a counter-suit, the revelation of the video evidently persuaded Miss Prejean to settle with the pageant officials out-of-court. Before the settlement, however, at one point the pageant had demanded a return of $5,200 they had given her to pay for breast implants. 

Charms are false, and woman's beauty is vain: for it is a wise woman that is blessed, and let her praise the fear of the Lord. - Proverbs 31:30, Septuagint

Breast implants? Racy videos? Lingerie-modeling? Are these the things that a good Christian girl does to succeed in the world of beauty queens and modeling contracts? Well, they are a start, and popular culture is littered with tales of the sexual favors granted by aspirants in exchange for fame and fortune. Even male models and actors, such as John Travolta and Corey Feldman, have revealed similar things that they had undergone in order to satisfy the perverted lords of the media and entertainment industry. 

O thou seed of Canaan, and not of Judah, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thine heart. - Susanna, 56

If it were not for her lawsuit, the compromises which Carrie Prejean made in order to succeed may never have come to light. However the aspiration to modeling or acting also drives young girls to many more subtle lapses of judgement, and the first thing many of them do while striving for acceptance is to emulate the models which the entertainment industry itself promotes. In Starla Carmela's case, she emulates the disgusting and perverted Sicilian generally known to the public as “Lady Gaga”. 

Below: two pictures of Lady Gaga, and a third of aspiring model Starla Carmela

This beast, Lady Gaga, commonly appears in public nude or half-naked, and frequently includes graphic sexuality in her performances. She inspires headlines such as “Lady Gaga tells hermaphrodite truth on 20/20 with Barbara Walters” and “Lady Gaga comes clean on hermaphrodite rumours, and talk of her sexuality”, in articles which recently appeared in papers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun. Lady Gaga, supposedly raised as a Catholic, is an outspoken activist for the rights of sexual deviants. And she has professed a desire to “turn the world gay”, which was announced in a recent Huffington Post article. She, or perhaps it, is certainly no role model for Christians. 

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. - Romans 1:26-27 

Could Starla Carmela possibly be a Christian, and emulate Lady Gaga? Could a Christian woman even pursue a career in modeling or entertainment without compromising her faith? “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Mark 7:6). Starla Carmela, professing to be a Christian and emulating Lady Gaga, is really only mocking God. We have no hesitation to label Lady Gaga a whore: for her lewd behaviour earns her the title, especially since her economic position benefits greatly from that behaviour. However the apostle Paul describes for us the punishment of those “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:32), and therefore Starla Carmela shares in that same judgement. 

The modeling business manufactures images which are idealized in order to sell products. The images are often manufactured out of people. Those images adorn the world around us: on television, in the media, in posters and on computer screens. Those people who are the subjects of the images collect large sums of money for the use of the images, as do the people who create the images. Therefore, the people who see and have adoration for the images actually serve the images when they buy the products which the images are made to represent! It is not a coincidence that the subjects of these images are called idols. The Scripture says at Exodus 20:4-5: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me”. The consumer serves the image by choosing to buy those products because they are are associated with the image. The model who provided the image, selling his or her body for profit, becomes a whore whether or not any sexual activity is performed, and abuses the beauty that was endowed by God. 

Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female... - Deuteronomy 4:16 

Modesty is a required component of good Christian behavior. The adornment of women in gold and pearls and in Babylonish garments is not acceptable to Christians. Both Peter and Paul agree on Christian modesty: 

“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.” - 1 Peter 3:1-4 

“Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.” - 1 Timothy 2:9 

Modeling, acting, the entertainment industry, these things are not only idolatry, they are all adverse to Christian modesty. The good woman is found working with her hands to help build her house, and not peddling images of her beauty. Such is evident from the Proverbs: “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands” (30:10-13). Models are chosen and hired as objects of lust. Who in today's world would adulate the obese, the scrawny or the otherwise ugly idol? The unattractive prospect would therefore be a failure in a venture which seeks to exalt idealized beauty. Therefore the Proverbs also state that “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised” (31:30). Christians are not to worship the ideals or the idols of the world. 

As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. - Proverbs 11:22 

Christians are admonished to choose honest vocations in order to make their living. Modeling, acting, the things that lead men to lust and to sin, these are not honest vocations. In this manner Paul advised the Thessalonians: “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). However by embracing the sins of the world, Christians become lovers of the world. Therefore James warned “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). We pray that the young lady playing the role of Starla Carmela recognizes her sin, and repents. We also pray that those who call themselves Christians, but who are encouraging her, see the error of their ways and that they themselves also repent.