We're Just Like You (Only Prettier)

Yesterday I had fun recording Miranda Lambert's "Only Prettier" on Myspace karaoke. I had recently discovered the song while listening to the country stations on XM Radio, fell in love with it, and fell in love with the music video even more. Of course, since Myspace decided to restrict viewing of its videos to members only, and I know not everyone has a Myspace account (anymore), I had to extract the mp3 and post it on my Tumblr. Here it is, if you haven't seen the post already: http://heckledtrio.tumblr.com/post/1553581529

Now, most of my readers, I know, aren't really into country music and probably won't listen to the song. Fair enough. However, the music video is pretty awesome, and I highly encourage you to view it. If you really hate country music that much, just turn the volume all the way down. It's still a fun video to watch:



I loved that the 4 singers-- Miranda, Kellie Pickler, Laura Bell Bundy and Hillary Scott (of Lady Antebellum) played both the pretty-in-pastel, goody-two-shoes characters opposite their alter egos: the sexy, dressed-in-black, rebel bad girls. I thought the video was very well-done (and fun to watch!) in that regard.

But what I loved most about the video was the basic message of the song. It's sung mostly from the point of view of the "bad girls", but it reveals that deep down, these bad girls that society likes to judge and look down upon are really no different from the rest of us. That society judges people by their actions and outward appearances, when it's a person's character that truly matters.

Sound familiar? Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech, perhaps? Mother Teresa reaching out to the world's poorest and most rejected? Jesus's basic message of extending love and compassion toward your neighbor, no matter who they might be?

At the end of the video, the girls have reached a sort of understanding-- instead of sneering and scoffing at each other, they give each other nods of understanding (if a bit begrudgingly) that they really aren't so different, after all. Not exactly embracing each other, Disney-ending-style, but at least it's a start. And I think that society would do well to begin down that path, too. To stop judging each other. That's God's job, because in the end, the person doing the judging is himself full of flaws and subject to the same judgment he passes on others. To realize that every person has dignity and worth deserves love and respect, not scorn and disdain. To actually treat each other with that love and respect.

It all goes back to my previous blog post on examining actions through the lens of love. Do your actions pass that test?

At the beginning of the video, both sets of girls were guilty of judging each other lovelessly. At the end, they started to see that such action was needless. And that's why I like the video-- it gives me some hope for humanity. Heaven knows we need a lot of it! ;-)