Jessica's Boots

I have, for quite some time, been critical of people who are critical of Christians who operate in the mainstream of the entertainment industry. I think of the heat that Amy Grant took for her “Baby Baby” video which was completely harmless. Grant was shown in romantic situations with a man who wasn’t her husband. In this case, romantic doesn’t mean sexual – it means that they were shown taking walks, goofing off, hugging and other things of that nature. But some in the Christian community just couldn’t get past the fact that she was acting in a video with someone other than her husband. Other examples of this are the hassles that accompanied Michael W. Smith’s song “Love Me Good” or Sixpence’s “Kiss Me.”

I write all this as an introduction to what I’m about to write about what I saw on MTV this morning while eating breakfast. When Jessica Simpson first broke into the industry one of the few things that separated her from Britney and Christina was that she said she was a Christian. I actually remember looking at her web site early on when I heard this and, if I remember correctly, she even addressed the issue in one of her posts. She was trying to make it in the industry with her morals intact. I gave her a lot of credit for the stand she took on premarital sex. She seemed to be at least trying to be a person of faith and standards.

So this morning I saw her new video, “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, a tie-in to the new Dukes of Hazzard movie. She, of course, wears what one would expect – the Daisy Duke look of super short cut-off shirt and shorts but the dancing that she does goes pretty far beyond what I can see as what a person of faith would do. I was pretty stunned by the whole thing until, near the end of the video we, for some odd reason, get to see her wash the Dukes’ car in a bikini. At least I think it was the Dukes’ car – frankly it’s hard to pay attention to the car.

Is this video consistent with what Simpson professes?

EDIT: I found out I'm not the only one who noticed this. An article at SouthFlorida.com inlcudes this quote from Jessica's dad:

Simpson's father Joe, the aforementioned pastor, isn't bothered by the apparent sexiness of the video.

"She is not trying to be sexy. If you watch her, she's laughing throughout the whole thing," he tells "Inside Edition." "She's dancing like a crazy thing, like her mother and sister would dance at the house and be stupid. This is not her trying to be a Playboy model, which is what we're hearing."

Is he watching the same video I watched????????