From: ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman)
Subject: Image in Christian Music (was Re: People is not America)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 18:15:44 GMT

In article <85802@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

>You know, I'm wondering about something.  I saw a Christian heavy
>metal group, don't know the name, on MTV; they wore spandex tights
>and spandex undershirts, lots of hairy chest exposure.  Why did
>no one ever write an article saying that they wore "skin-tight"
>clothes that "leave very little to the imagination"?  Why no
>coy, snide press announcements about them being sinfully sexy?
>Why no in-depth threads in this newsgroup about the appropriateness
>of _their_ attire?

Good point.  There does seem to be a double standard there, at least
on the part of the secular media.  However, I can recall a lot of
grumbling from the Christian camp when Stryper (who cavort in the 
type of attire you describe) employed a similar image.

And that makes me wonder about the role of image-making in Christian
music (uh-oh, sounds like another highly conceptual, abstract
discussion.  You nuts-and-bolts kind of guys and gals would probably
feel better if you pressed "n" now).  

I confess that I've only seen three videos made for Christian musicians.  
One was for Bruce Cockburn's song "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," in
which Bruce dresses up as a Sandinista and frolics around the jungle
and tries to look like a battle-hardened soldier in his round, wire-
rim glasses.  Another was for Sam Phillips' "Trying to Hold on to
the Earth," which, as I recall, alternates between arty shots of abstract 
shapes and quick cuts to Sam, who is always shown enveloped in a dry ice 
fog.  The third video is a Michael Toth number where he caught Mike Knott 
and LSU in performance at last year's Cornerstone Festival, and features
Mike looking like Jim Morrison reincarnated, heavily made up, and
writhing around on the floor of the stage.  

Okay, it's obviously not a wide sampling, and it's probably not
representational of most Christian music.  But I'm fascinated by
the ways these musicians, and others in the secular world, use visual 
image and stage presentation to get their music across, and I'd welcome 
comments from others who have thought about this as well.  

A few random musings:

- Any musician who performs in public has an image, whether he/she likes
it nor not.  The audience automatically focuses on the performer.  

- Image now plays a much more significant role in marketing music than
it did in past decades.  I don't think there's any startling news here.
MTV, like it or not, has had a tremendous impact on popular music.  
Fifteen years ago making a music video was unthinkable.  Now, making
a major-label album *without* making music videos is unthinkable.

- Secular music videos tend to be focused on sex, looks, glamour, sex, 
beauty, exotic locales, violence, misogyny, looking cool, safe sex,
dancing, phallic symbols, vaginal symbols, and sex.  Did I mention
intercourse?  It's hard to know whether there are actually sex any
subliminal messages in there, but I wouldn't at all sex be surprised
if there were.

- Given the fact that Christian musicians have images too, and given
the (debatable?) notion that secular musical videos have made all
the right moves from a marketing standpoint and all the wrong moves
from a moral standpoint, how should Christian musicians present
themselves?  What sort of an image should they cultivate?  

- Okay, I'll give away my bias.  No, I don't think cloning MTV is 
a good way for Christians to go.  Neither do I think that the
stereotypical image of Christian musicians wearing crosses,
raising their hands in praise, and looking heavenward and smiling
beatifically is a good way to go.  One conforms to MTV.  The
other conforms to CBN.  Some days I wonder which is worse.  IMO,
IMO, IMO, IMO, IMO, IMO, OK?  

- There should be one image that is foremost in our minds, and that
is the image of God we bear and that we are to reflect in the world.
I'm just raising some issues, and I don't necessarily have any
answers.  Anybody have opinions on how Christians should bear the
image of God in the video age?

>===============================================================================
>Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
>"What a waste it is to lose one's mind.  Or not to have a mind.  How true  
>that is." -- J. Danforth Quayle at United Negro College Fund luncheon

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
att!cblpn!ajw  or
ajw@cblpn.att.com