Hollywood formulas are so well known at this point that watching a two-minute trailer usually tells you everything you need to know. Mock trailers, though, turn the formulas on their head, transforming the well-known into something completely new.

The following mock trailer is so perfect that it doesn’t really need an introduction or commentary, so just watch it (slight language warning):

If you didn’t watch it, here is what happens: Brooke Shields is a successful career woman, but she decides to give it up to open a candle store. In the candle store, she meets a handsome, shirtless man. Sounds like the plot of a great romantic comedy, right?

Well, not exactly. Brooke then gives up the candle store to open a vegan bakery, where she meets another handsome man, before deciding to give it up and become something else. And then she does it again. And again.

Brooke Shields is us. Brooke Shields is me. From the cradle to the grave, the search for identity is constant. We begin by making the right friends or the right grades so we can get into the right schools and get the right jobs. We get married to the right person.

Then, for some reason, it doesn’t work. So we switch jobs, believing that this one will be the one that allows us to live up to our full potential. But that job doesn’t quite do it, so we decide that we need a new car or a new house or a new spouse. We convince ourselves that, if only the circumstances were different–if only we had kept in touch with that high school sweetheart or called that guy back about that position–then things would be perfect and we would be happy. And so on and so on and so on.

Of course, the truth is that nothing is perfect, and nothing will ever be perfect. Including us. But the good news is that perfection is not required. As NYC conference speaker Tullian Tchividjian writes in his book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything:

The gospel frees us from this pressure to perform, this slavish demand to ‘become.’ The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ ‘we already are.’ If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: who you really are has nothing to do with you–how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not in your sin.

So, whether you are Brooke Shields, a vegan baker, or a candlestick maker, there is no need to start over. The only identity we’ll ever need is the one we already have. Just don’t open a video store. It’s probably not the best business right now.

COMMENTS

---