The Accomplishment of Appearance

We live in America, and as such we are surrounded by an ideology – appearance is everything. Most of us have probably heard many times that we should not judge people by their appearance but instead should look past the way a person looks to view them in light of their character. Most of us have probably not only heard it but agree with it. Yet despite our own conviction in the matter we continue to do it because it is ingrained in us by our culture to judge by appearance. Benjamin Button was a recipient of this judgment because in a world that believes that appearance is everything, Benjamin Button was dealt a poor hand.

There were countless times in Benjamin Button’s life that he was cast out because of his appearance. When he had de-aged to a small child his appearance caused his son to treat him more like a child than a father. When he appeared to be a teenager he was treated as a teenager despite his honorary status of general in the military. There was one instance that I feel gives even greater insight into the mindset that “appearance is everything.”

How many times have we looked at someone and thought to ourselves, “That guy is too old to do that.” Benjamin Button knew exactly what it was like to be thought of that way. He had been alive for 18 years but his appearance told the registrar at Yale College that he was 50. His appearance meant more to the registrar than any words or evidence that Benjamin could have supplied and he told him to leave at the thought of a 50 year old freshman. What intrigues me is that the culture of that time period said that older people could not start a college education and by judging only Benjamin Button’s appearance, the registrar concluded that Benjamin was too old for college; but his decision was basically influenced completely by culture. We do exactly the same thing today. Our culture tells us that if people dress a certain way then they cannot belong to a certain group, if they look too old then they cannot be cool, and if they are not super thin then they are not beautiful; and we reinforce this cultural idea… even on this campus. But what if we obeyed Romans 12:2 and did not conform to the thinking patterns of this culture? The results might be opposite of those of Benjamin Button - a man who accomplished many great things: owning a top business, becoming a football star, becoming a general, and having a family; but in the eyes of the people around him nothing meant more than the “accomplishment” of his appearance. Is SEU culture destined to treat others the same as the world treated Benjamin Button?