A Funny Sense of Reality

Whilst I was watching the AFL (Australian Football League) the other afternoon I was struck by a funny sense of reality.  And no, it wasn't anything to do with understanding how the rules of that game work.  I had to wonder to myself: "Does a character in a TV show really look after his skin?".
Maybe you too have seen the newish advert by L'Oreal Paris for their Vita Lift 5 that is fronted by Hugh Laurie.

I already had a funny sense of reality when Pierce Brosnan, Matthew Fox and Gerhard Butler had previously confronted me with the idea that there were five signs of fatigue and somehow they weren't a good thing.  I had always found it a bit strange that Matthew Fox would tell me in his advert that he never allowed himself to look tired, when at the time each week I would watch him look more and more worn out and disheveled in the then hit series Lost.

But what has exacerbated the whole funny sense of reality is that I realised this weekend that this new Hugh Laurie advert is a good old bait and switch.  Whilst the advert says it's Hugh Laurie, I can't help but escape that it's actually Dr Greg House, from the series House, who is selling me this product.  The biggest give away being that Hugh Laurie doesn't have an American accent (due to his British heritage) which this advert obviously carries.  But adding to this the whole styling used and the attitude conveyed, and subtracting that the woman he kisses and drives away with isn't Hugh Laurie's wife (Jo Green), just screams Dr Greg House!  This makes me wonder, does a pretend character actually worry about the five signs of fatigue?  Surely if a pretend person is so concerned I should be too....either that or I think that because I'm being sold a product by a pretend personality that product only works in a pretend world...where there are only five signs of fatigue and a daily face cream is the best answer....

From a theological perspective this type of shallowness to sell a product challenges how I think about representing Jesus within the world.  There seems to be a constant temptation to make Jesus the solution for the five signs of whatever.....and to be happy to sell that solution using whatever way possible....which makes me wonder, if we start to sell Jesus in the same way are we really in the process making Him little more than a face cream...or washing powder....or that fancy new car....