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Yes, Even Foul-Mouthed Teddy Bears Can Speak to Grace

Yes, Even Foul-Mouthed Teddy Bears Can Speak to Grace

Last updated on: June 29, 2015 at 3:59 pm by Paul Asay

Yes, Even Foul-Mouthed Teddy Bears Can Speak to Grace 2015-06-29T15:59:49-06:00 Paul Asay

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Ted 2 pretty much bombed this weekend, and it deserved it. The original Ted was pretty much a one-joke movie, and the sequel added nary an extra chuckle. It was simply (ahem) stuffed with too much profanity and drug use and plain ol’ ook for my taste.

But even though Ted 2 didn’t exactly have a heart of gold underneath its crass exterior—or even one of polyresin fluff—it did have an oddly redemptive twist. And believe it or not, it only gets there through its use of terrible content.

Ted (created and voiced by *Family Guy’*s Seth McFarlane) is on a quest for civil rights. Sure, Hasbro created him originally as simply a child’s plaything. But he clearly became much more than that (and also became, paradoxically, completely unsuitable for children).

But despite his obvious self-awareness, Ted technically has no more legal rights than a LEGO set (less, if you consider the LEGO’s inalienable right to cause excruciating pain to barefooted interlopers). Society begins snatching away Ted’s personhood perks like so much lunch money: In less time than it would take you to say “Teddy Ruxpin,” Ted loses his job, his marriage and all of his customer rewards cards. And Ted, his best pal John (Mark Wahlberg) and their lawyer, Sam (Amanda Seyfried) decide to take on the system and make Ted legal.

But making Ted into a civil rights champion is a little like casting Bernie Madoff as a spokesman for UNICEF. It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Ted et al eventually take their case to renowned civil rights attorney Patrick Meighan (played by Morgan Freeman, improbably enough), who tells him that he can’t take the case: Ted is too big a jerk to be a person.

Well, Meighan doesn’t say it so bluntly, perhaps. But that’s the message. The lawyer believes that, to enter into the human fraternity, Ted would need to bring something to the party besides a bale of weed and a potty mouth. He would need to prove himself worthy of personhood. Instead, Ted has frittered away his days and nights in a haze of marijuana and bad behavior. His only contribution to society, it would seem, is the longest rap sheet ever accumulated by a stuffed animal.

“You could’ve been a leader, a role model,” Meighan says. “Instead, you’re Justin Bieber.”

In a way, I wish the movie would’ve ended right there. ‘Bout time that foul teddy got a little comeuppance! I might’ve huffed. I’ve always felt that life should be about more than taking up space—more than living for your selfish self, as Ted is prone to do. If he’s going to get a life, he should earn it.

But Ted doesn’t, and so he and his pals slink out of the office. And after a bitter falling out with his only supporters, Ted slinks off to New York’s Comic-Con. While there, Ted runs into an old enemy who nearly kills the bear. Only John’s dogged pursuit of his ungrateful stuffed animal saves Ted from fluffy destruction. And in trying to rescue Ted, John nearly gets himself killed.

And just like that, Ted 2 becomes, for a moment, a Biblical metaphor.

I felt a little Pharisaical in that moment. Because, see, I think we’re all a little like Ted. We’re strange, weak, fallible creatures who, according to the Bible, don’t really deserve all the blessings we’ve been given. And in a lot of ways, we’re not even alive—not in the way God designed us to be. We don’t have that spiritual life that Jesus promises. That eternal life. We don’t deserve it and we’re too flawed to earn it.

And yet we’re given it anyway, by virtue of a sacrifice we can never repay.

When John lays down his life for Ted, most of the world sees it. And society, observing Ted’s grief and love in that moment, believes that the stuffed bear might be a worthy person after all.

Ted 2 doesn’t conclude on that note of happy redemption, of course. Ted doesn’t repent, really, or promise to be a better role model. He takes his gift of life and runs with it, just as sometimes we’re prone to do. He squanders what he’s been given, just like I sometimes do. I still don’t deserve the life I have.

But I do realize sometimes what a wonderful gift it is—and hopefully, to show my gratitude, I inch, little by little, closer to the guy God always wanted me to be.

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