What Hollywood Does To Us. . . .

I got an email from our associate staffer Paul Robertson yesterday asking me about a song that popped onto his computer through his internet radio station. I hadn't heard the song before but the lyrics from Angus and Julia Stone's "Hollywood" shook me up with their clear, straightforward, and truthful message.

Hollywood

I blame you Hollywood, for showing me things you never should show a young girl, In a cruel world. Because life’s not a happy ending, I’m sure there is some, like Johnny and June, and maybe other people too. They all would have been killed in the sound of music, they would have found out that Pinocchio could never tell the truth. She never would have made it to shore, the little mermaid. He would have married a whore from a wealthy family, after all he was royalty. Cinderella would have scrubbed those floors till her hands grew old and tired, and nobody would look away, that’s the way it goes today. I blame you Hollywood, for showing me things you never should show a young girl, In this cruel world. Because life’s not a happy ending, I’m sure there is some like Johnny and June, and maybe other people too. And maybe other people too (x5) Like me and you

Interesting that I should run across this song a few days after picking up a book called The Marketing of Evil recommended to me earlier this year by Kelly Monroe Khulberg, of the Veritas Forum and author of Finding God At Harvard - and a few days before speaking at The National Youthworkers Convention on the role media plays in the lives of our kids. Simply stated, media shapes our concept of reality. . . what the world is like and the way the world should be.

That's why I'm fascinated by the song and video from Angus and Julia Stone. I thought I would pass it on to you as it's definitely something worth watching and discussing with your kids. The things we face in life don't always have a happy ending. Life is not a fairy tale. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Truth is sometimes really, really ugly. That's what I like about this song. While life on this earth may be filled with pain, I'm elated that there's a bigger story that I've been invited and brought in to. . . . and that that story's end is full of glory.


Angus & Julia Stone - Hollywood
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