Jesus, an Upstander, and Me!
By Kalyani Srinivas
Block 6
Images of Jesus
Culture and Media
Guilt and Shame
How to be an Upstander
The four gospels, although extremely similar, are very different in their portrayal of Jesus. Jesus has appeared differently to each author as to attract more followers from the audience to which Jesus is portrayed.
In most of the gospels, Jesus is depicted giving his sermon on a mountain, overlooking the people he was talking to. This shows a more strict idea of Jesus.
In the gospel according to Luke, however, Jesus is seen as giving the Sermon on a Plain, so that Jesus was on equal grounds as those he was speaking to. This gives Jesus a more calm, caring look as to appeal to the lower class people.
There are many examples of such differences between the gospels.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew]
VS.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. [Luke]
The first quote is from the Gospel of Matthew, who was writing to attract the audience of Jewish converts. Therefore, since there were Jews of all statuses, he said "poor in spirit". Luke, on the other hand, was speaking to lower-class Greeks. Since they were literally in poverty, Luke wrote Jesus as saying "poor".
In a way, Jesus is being molded by the Gospel creators to attract more followers. This influences followers of all backgrounds to follow his teachings and to model themselves after him.
Cultures as well as the general media depict the general population as they think they should look like or behave. As a result, an unspoken code of dress and conduct is given to the population.
This is bad because although the media is doing this to sell, they are also sending subliminal messages about discriminating against others who do not live up to their standards. This leads to a drastic decrease in self esteem, especially for women.
The average girl would watch 5,000 hours of TV before she even starts school.
Media images of female beauty influence everyone. They influence how women feel about themselves, and they influence how men feel about the real women in their lives.
81% of the women in the United States think that the media set a standard for beauty that most of the women won’t be able to reach. This massive stereotyping causes many women to feel insecure and unhappy about themselves.
By the time a child is eighteen years old, the child will see about 200,000 acts of violence on TV.
Bibliography
http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_vlent.shtml
http://www.google.com
http://www.youtube.com
Gospel Stories, Gospel Choices

Children who watch more TV and play more video games not only see more violence, but are more likely to act violent toward their peers.
People who view media begin to model themselves after those portrayed, as models become their ideal standard of beauty. This happens in women more than it occurs in men, though the men's statistic is rising. This is important because it shows the impact media has on the psychology of the people.
There are many ways to be an upstander concerning these issues. One way is to just tune this out. Many people only feel bad about themselves or participate in violence because they have an outside voice telling them to do so, usually in the form of magazines or TV. By tuning them out, you can ignore the messages.
Note how in the game, Mafia 2, they play light-hearted music while people are getting killed. Also, in the end, they make a joke out of finding a dead man in their car trunk.
Another way would be to speak out against this and to help others, such as activist Sarah Maria. Sometimes, people are in so much self-hatred that they lose control and need outside help. People who do so give hope to them. This is important because by giving people hope, one allows the person they helped to live a better life.
And this relates to...
Which results in...
So how do we stop this?