Daily Verse | Exodus 33:11
The Lord would speak to Moses face to face,
as a man speaks with his friend.
Tuesday and the crazy continues apace. Bacon-wrapped brussel sprouts are my go-to Covid snack.
It’s not big news anymore that Ella Emhoff, the 22-year-old step-daughter of Kamala Harris (the vice-resident), just scored a major modeling deal with IMG Models (and a friendly profile in Vogue magazine).
What is surprising is that IMG represents women such as Christie Brinkley and her daughter, Sailor Brinkley Cook, Hailey Bieber (Justin’s wife), Gisele Bündchen (Tom Brady’s wife), Gigi Hadid, Miranda Kerr and Chrissy Teigen (John Legend’s wife, vocal anti-Trumper and abortion activist). In other words, IMG represents women who define what passes for super-model “beautiful” in the Western world.
Enter Ella Emhoff.
Who’s zoomin’ who?
As Al Perrotta over at The Stream put it, “We leave it to you to decide if the same industry that ignored Melania Trump for four years suddenly designed to sign Emhoff on the merits.”
And not just Melania who actually was a fashion model (yes, yes, I know she posed nude—the press didn’t let that fact escape us during the 2016 campaign), but also Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. Are you telling me that Emhoff somehow rates a gig as a model but that Ivanka Trump didn’t? Elijah Schaffer thinks so.
I don’t know Elijah Schaffer but I now know something about him.
To be clear, I’m not mocking Ella’s face or fashion or hairy armpits. Oh no. I’m comparing her face and fashion and hairy armpits to what, until January 6, 2021, was surpassing beauty at IMG. Ella Emhoff may be some kind of beautiful, but she is not that kind of beauty.
There’s a couple of points to be made here. The first is that the fashion industry will “tell” you what is beautiful and what is fashionable. They decide what the new colors will be in the spring or in the fall or in the winter. They will tell you what styles are in or out. They will tell you whether waiyffer theene is the preferred body image, or if “plus-size” is now what we’re all to feel good about.
Of course, none of these things refer to biblical beauty.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. (1 Peter 3:3-4)
Be careful not to think that the Bible rejects physical beauty. It does not. In fact, many women recorded in scripture were so beautiful that they were lusted after (Tamar), chosen as queen (Esther), and taken by foreign rulers (Sarah and Rebekah) precisely because they were beautiful. Neither does Paul say in the passage above that a woman should stay plain and homely—only that the persistent beauty of a godly spirit is what God values.
The second point to be made is that Emhoff and her fashion sense, such as it is (neon checkerboard paired with black and white prison stripes—really?), is not visually pleasing. Instead, it is a conscious rejection of what might be considered definitive or classic beauty in the Western tradition—a rejection that so much of our current culture is preoccupied with.
It’s true that there have always been the anti-establishment types in a variety of fields. Fashion seems to be one of the most prominent, especially in this modern era where there is a celebration of what in other eras would be considered profane—such as Harry Styles’s dressing in women’s clothing.
Of course, the Bible warns us against cross-dressing.
A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
So, good for Ella Emhoff, but let’s recognize her new gig for what it is. It is first nepotism, followed closely by another instance of cultural corrosion, which progressives pursue in their manic desperation to replace the standards of beauty and order that reflect the highest ideals and accomplishments of Western civilization with the opposite.
[Image: Instagram]