A few days ago I was giving my daughter a bath, and I figured that it would be fun to play some music in the background. So, I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a CD of VeggieTales songs. The words of the first song astounded me. The song was “I Want to Dance” from a 2004 (20 years ago!) VeggieTales spoof on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde called “The Strange Case of Dr. Jiggle and Mr. Sly.” I hope in this post to discuss the message of the song “I Want to Dance,” with a focus on the danger of the kind of all-too-common message it contains.
The Story
The story of the VeggieTales Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde spoof focuses on Mr. Butterbun and his butler, Poole, as they seek to discover who the disco-dancing man named Mr. Sly really is. The people seem to love Mr. Sly – he plays fun disco music and dances in the alley. But Mr. Butterbun thinks there is something suspicious going on; so, one night after Mr. Sly finishes dancing in the ally, Mr. Butterbun and Poole watch Mr. Sly go into the house of Dr. Jiggle. By the end of the story, it is revealed that Dr. Jiggle was Mr. Sly all along. Dr. Jiggle is a little portly – he is a gourd after all – but his life dream is to dance. The only problem is that he will jiggle if he dances and he is afraid that people will laugh at him for how he looks. The story ends with everyone accepting Dr. Jiggle for who he is and celebrating his dancing abilities.
The moral of the story is best summed up in the song called “I Want to Dance,” specifically the disco version that plays at the end of the short. It starts out with Dr. Jiggle singing “I can do it” as he begins dancing in front of people as himself for the very first time. Mr. Butterbun jumps in to say “You see, Dr. Jiggle, when you know God made you special, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; you can just be yourself!” This is the most important line in the song, as it summarizes the message of the whole story. The song then goes on about Dr. Jiggle accepting his lifelong dream and living it out.
Mr. Butterbun – “Your only aspiration was to be a gourd who danced.”
Dr. Jiggle – “What I never knew that I could do in widely tailored pants.”
Poole – “But for what it’s worth, your portly girth doesn’t make me want to giggle.”
Mr. Butterbun – “Though dense when weighed, you’re specially made.”
Poole – “We love our Dr. Jiggle!”
Dr. Jiggle – “I want to dance! I want to groove! I need to feel the rush, of the wind under my shoes.”
The whole point is that we should just be ourselves, namely, we should do what we want to do, and not care so much about what others think. After all, “God made you special.” The phrase “God made you special and he loves you very much” is the classic VeggieTales line given definition in this song. In this story, it appears the point is that God made Dr. Jiggle with the desire to dance, and he was only being himself if he did dance. More broadly, the point is that each of our unique desires is part of us being made special by God. Because God made us each special with these desires, we should act on them. So be like Dr. Jiggle. The more subtle message is that we should be like the other characters too: everyone was supportive of Dr. Jiggle’s life choices.
The Good
On a surface level, the message seems really good, and at that level, it is good. Recall that Mr. Butterbun tells Dr. Jiggle “When you know God made you special, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.” There are three great takeaways here:
- God made each of us. This is clearly a biblical concept; think about Psalm 139:13-14. David says to the LORD, “You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Job also recognizes this very thing. “Did not He [God] who made me in the womb make him [Job’s slave], And the same one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15). Or consider the LORD’s words to Jeremiah the prophet: “Before I formed you in the innermost parts I knew you, and before you came out from the womb I set you apart; I have given you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer 1:5). It is clear in the Scriptures that we are each made by God. We cannot have such a narrowminded view of our own existence, such that we limit our understanding to the field of biology. There are natural processes that God has created (Gen 1:1-2:3; Col 1:16). But we must remember that God is still at work through the natural processes He has arranged (Ps 135:7; Col 1:17). It is great that the VeggieTales song “I Want to Dance” affirms the fact that each of us is made by God.
- We are all unique. Sure, God made us, but it is also important to note that God did not make us all the same. We are not created like a factory line product is. We are each unique, or as they say in VeggieTales, we are all special. This point should be self-evident by just looking around. But Paul discusses this concept when he speaks about the nature of the church in 1 Corinthians 12. He uses the body as a metaphor for the church, his point being that each person is like a different body part – they have distinct roles and abilities. His conclusion is that each member of the body is important, even if they aren’t flashy (1 Cor 12:18-22). So not everyone in the church has been appointed as an apostle, prophet, teacher, etc. but we are each important (1 Cor 12:28-30). In the same way, humans are not all created exactly the same; we are each unique with diverse gifts and abilities. It is great that “I Want to Dance” teaches that we are all unique and that is okay.
- We should not care what people think. This idea can certainly be taken too far, but it is biblical to say “it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks” if the One whose thoughts you do care about is God. Look at what Paul says in Gal 1:10: “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.” Often, we care what other people think because we want them to like us, or be pleased with us. Paul’s point is that he is not trying to please people, but he is also not trying to live for himself; he is living for God. Notice that Paul even calls himself a slave of Christ. The implication here is that whoever you are trying to please, they are your master. If we are so concerned with other people’s thoughts of us, such that we change merely based on their opinions, we are demonstrating that they are our masters and we are their slaves. But the problem is that we can only have one true master. This is why Paul says he is seeking to please God and not men (Matt 6:24; Rom 6:16). So, it is good that this song teaches that it should not matter so much what other people think of us.
The Problems
There is a lot of good that is in this song, as is seen above, but I think that there are also some major problems. These problems have manifested themselves as demonstrated by the continual move Western culture has taken away from God and His ways.
Who is the person we are pleasing? As discussed above “I Want to Dance” gets it right when it teaches us to care less about what others think. But the problem is that Mr. Butterbun never elaborates on his phrase, “When you know God made you special, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.” Above I gave the songwriters the benefit of the doubt: “anyone else” refers to anyone other than God. Mr. Butterbun did just mention God so this is reasonable. But the rest of the song tells a different story. The chorus is all about what Dr. Jiggle wants – what he thinks he needs. He is expressing what he desires, he is expressing his thoughts. It is his own hidden desires that he should not have let others hamper – that’s the whole point of the song. The problem is that this little VeggieTales story does not clearly show that God’s thoughts and desires are what matter, so it ends up seeming like our own personal thoughts and desires are what matter. Would Dr. Jiggle be able to say “I belong to Christ Jesus, so my fleshly passions and desires have been crucified” (see Gal 5:24)? I highly doubt it, considering he says “I want … I want … I need …”
Is this message any different than that of the world? Ultimately the message of “I Want to Dance” is no different than that of the secular world today. The message is to follow your dreams and not let others get in your way. This is a self-centered philosophy in which I am the center of the universe. The only difference is that the VeggieTales song dresses this philosophy in Christian garb. But in the Scriptures, we are reminded that we are not the center of the universe; God is. The heavenly throne room scene from Revelation 4 reminds us of this. “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (Rev 4:11). And one day we will all bow before the God-man, Jesus the Christ, and acknowledge that He is the center of the universe, not us (Col 2:9-11). And so, Jesus tells those who would follow Him that you must “deny [yourself], and take up [your] cross” (Matt 16:24). In Christ, our desires are transferred away from ourselves and towards God and others (Matt 22:36-40; Eph 4:17-32). Although the desire to dance is in itself harmless (Ps 149:3), the message is delivered in such a way that the desire to dance is entirely self-centered and has become disordered (“I need,” but he does not actually need to dance). The world tells us that we need to follow our own passions, the world tells us not to let anyone get in the way. But God tells us that we have been bought by Him, we are His possession, and so we must live for Him and Him alone (1 Cor 6:20). Saying that God made you, dressing a self-centered message up with some truth, does not make for a truly biblical message; in fact, it only mimics the deceptive strategy of Satan (Gen 3:1-7).
Where did we go wrong? This song “I Want to Dance” is stereotypical of the way some Christians tend to speak to kids. It sounds like an encouraging message dressed up with some basic Christian lingo, or worse, theistic lingo, or even worse, empty moralistic lingo, but in reality, it is secular garbage that points kids away from Jesus and toward themselves. This song was released 20 years ago. In those 20 years, we have seen the degradation of Western culture increase rapidly. For example, we have seen a self-centered cultural phenomenon take shape, a movement that is wholly based upon an individual “just being himself” (to borrow the words from Mr. Butterbun). How else can someone declare that her gender is something other than it is unless she believes that her inward desires are necessary to her person, and they are therefore good? The anthropology (or view of man) of “I Want to Dance” is a Christianized version of the same anthropology that is present in the modern cultural phenomenon of transgenderism. As Paul reminds us, the presence of a society living in such outright sin is God’s judgment upon them (Rom 1:18-32). Western culture went wrong long before the 2010s, and in this song, we can see an example of how many in the church also went wrong. We need to get away from man-centered teachings like “I Want to Dance,” and we need to move towards teachings that truly capture our heart problems and exult Christ as the only solution.
The error of these “just follow your dreams” teachings begins, I believe, with a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. The quote “You see, Dr. Jiggle, when you know God made you special, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; you can just be yourself!” assumes that because God made you, your desires are good. But this is far from the truth. Yes, we are made by God and made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1-32), but to jump to the conclusion that our innermost desires are good completely skips over Genesis 3. We know that we have all inherited the sin nature of Adam post-fall, not only because he is the father of us all, but because we all sin (Rom 5:12). In Galatians 5, the Scripture specifically discusses the war a Christian has between his natural sinful nature and the Spirit-filled state that he now has in Christ Jesus. Paul writes that we should “walk by the Spirit” so that we “will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). We have a sinful nature that seeks to control us, but only by God’s grace can we overcome such disordered and evil desires.
This is the big problem with “I Want to Dance” and more generally telling kids that “God made you special, so you can just be yourself.” God creating you in your mother’s womb does not mean that you are without a sin nature; you were still made from your sinful father and mother. The image of God has been distorted in all of us through sin, and this is why God promises to make us into the image of Christ, the only one who lived a perfect life, the only one who was the perfect image of God (Rom 8:28; 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18). When we talk to kids about who they are, we must not leave out the fact that they are in need of God’s grace.