Month: March 2015

The Ugly Truth of “Pretty Woman”

Posted on by Susan Panzica

I’ve seen the movie Pretty Woman more times than I want to remember. But I never saw it through their eyes – through the eyes of two young girls, one interviewed in the movie Nefarious, one in the movie Sex and Money.

Years ago, when I saw the movie through my middle class lens, I saw the title character as a beautiful, young woman who wanted out of “the life.” She’d entered a life of prostitution as a last resort. Her mom called her a “bum magnet,” always drawn to the wrong guy, and when she found herself penniless on the streets of LA, she sold the only thing she had, her body.  She was still plucky and moral, just down on her luck. Until one day, her luck turned for the better as a dashing millionaire in the wrong neighborhood needed directions.

But when the two young girls saw this movie, they saw it differently. They saw something that I never envisioned. They saw prostitution as a chance to meet their own Prince Charming, and the movie Pretty Woman was the catalyst for them to enter “the life.”



Each of these girls soon discovered that reality is far different from Hollywood. There was no Prince Charming, no fairy tale ending. They suffered abuse of the worse kind; they lost their freedom and their dignity, and they still experience flashbacks, PTSD, damaged emotions, and lifelong scars.

When I heard their stories, I was sick to my stomach that I had enjoyed something so destructive.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Pretty Woman. Abolitionist Kimberly Rae posted an open letter to Julia Roberts about the history behind the film. I had no idea Disney white-washed this script, creating a fairy tale from what was a “grisly, ugly story about these two people.” And if I had known, I’m not sure it would have made a difference to me then. But it does now.

Please read Kimberly’s post all the way to the end. And ask yourself the same question she asks Julia Roberts, the same question I asked myself, the same question we each must answer – “now that you know, would you do something about it?”

And if you want to do something, but don’t know what to do, visit us at Justice Network. We’re a group of like-minded people like you doing what we can to contribute to ending human trafficking. 

The Profound Mystery

Posted on by Susan Panzica

“You’re Still The One” 2015
http://bit.ly/1x7iv9y

As the Scriptures say,

“A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife,

and the two are united into one.”

This is a great mystery,

but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

Eph 5:31-32

Paul paints a tangled web in Eph 5. Back and forth in the instructions Paul gives to husbands and wives, he describes the husband and wife relationship as a metaphor for the church and Jesus, the Bridegroom, calling marriage a great – or profound – mystery.

In the New Testament, the word “mystery” denotes, not the mysterious, but that which can be made known only by Divine revelation… In the ordinary sense, a mystery implies knowledge withheld; it’s Spiritual significance is truth revealed. (Vines)

The word “mystery” means something which is concealed, hidden, before unknown; something into which one must be instructed before he can understand it. It does not mean that it is “incomprehensible” when it is disclosed, but that previously it has been kept secret.

The idea of this being a mystery, is only a mystery to those who haven’t understood that this chapter is about Christ’s relationship to His Church.

“Jesus declares you are His bride. He chose the highest expression of commitment between two people to express His commitment to you. Your identity is wrapped up in the reality of your relationship with Christ.” Eric Geiger

Becoming a Christian is like being carried over the threshold into a sunny room. We leave behind darkness and fear and cross into the light. We enter in to a new relationship, a new lifestyle. We begin a new covenant relationship, sealed with blood.

Entering into covenant relationships with our earthly husband and with Jesus Christ are just the beginning of the profound mystery. Each day presents new challenges. Satan attacks marriages because they represent the Divine union. That’s why this past weekend, and once a year, my husband and I attend a marriage conference called “You’re Still The One.” We are now coaches helping other couples learn the skills and tools that have helped us so much. 

Just like these tools help my husband and I to communicate better resulting in a greater sense of oneness, we also need to maintain effective two-way communication with our spiritual Bridegroom to have a greater sense of oneness. Tools like prayer, fellowship, and reading the Bible are essential to maintain that oneness and allow God to reveal Himself to us in greater measure. 

We begin to understand that which was previously “incomprehensible” to us, and the profound mystery unfolds. But unlike an Agatha Christie novel, we will have full understanding only when we see Jesus face to face. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 1 Cor. 13:12

Until then, we heed Paul’s words in the tangled web of Eph. 5 that provides instructions for earthly and spiritual oneness:

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.