It’s hard to be a young celebrity these days. You have fame, fortune, and privilege at precisely the time when you’re least capable mentally or emotionally of managing them responsibly. Plus, there’s always paparazzi lurking around to make sure your every step is photographed, recorded, and critiqued. It’s a sweet deal and generally works well when you’re doing things right, but can be a nuisance when you aren’t. Here are a few of the more recent and noteworthy mistakes (some are much bigger than others):
· Michael Phelps posed for a picture while holding a bong during a visit to the University of South Carolina. Kelloggs, as a result, chose not to renew its endorsement contract with him. They felt that the photograph was not consistent with their image.
· Miley Cyrus made a few fashion choices that raised eyebrows. She has yet to meet a camera she didn’t like.
· Pop singer Chris Brown became embroiled in a domestic battery case following an alleged altercation with his girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. His contract with Wrigley’s gum was suspended, pending legal proceedings.
In each case, it wasn’t long before someone popped the big question: should these folks still be role models to children? It is a familiar, if ancient debate.
As a college administrator, I recognize and understand the importance of role models. They help to validate, motivate, challenge and inspire. Role models encourage us to dream big and pursue our personal potential. A role model says, “Follow me. I know the way to where you want to go and I’ve been there. If I did it, you can.”
Most of us think it a good idea for children to have role models. Unfortunately, we don’t teach them how to think critically about role models. We don’t teach them that role models have feet of clay and make just as many (if not more) mistakes as we regular folks do in our own lives. We don’t teach them that there are lessons to be learned in the failures and missteps of our personal heroes. And we don’t teach them that- like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy- our mental picture and accompanying expectations simply aren’t realistic or even real.
No, those lessons come only with age, exposure and experience. Or so we’d like to think.
In 1993, Charles Barkley did a commercial for Nike in which he proclaimed that he was not a role model. In no uncertain terms, he boldly told the world that his only job was to ‘wreak havoc on the court’. Barkley reminded us that role modeling was the task of parents and not power forwards.
He was right, of course. Parents should be our first, best models of behavior. Any parent, however, can point out the flaw in this line of logic. They will tell you that their influence in the life of a child waxes and wanes, seemingly at random. In a world where fathers imprison daughters in basement cellars and where stepmothers lock stepsons in bathrooms for a couple years, that’s probably a good thing; some parents flat-out suck at it.
Though Barkley was right, I always took issue with his message. Influence is not diminished by way of vehement denial or reluctance to acknowledge its presence. One doesn’t get to pick and choose what a fan will remember and imitate. Like it or not, celebrity behavior- whether bad or good- is recorded because it sells magazines, captures viewers, and fills stadiums and arenas.
And on some deep and secret level, I think maybe we want to believe the myth. Maybe we want to believe that the people we watch, whose CDs we buy, and whose books we read have discovered some small portion of the so-called secret to living a fulfilling and problem-free life. Maybe we want to believe that the Tooth Fairy really exists.
The unfortunate truth is that they don’t. And that’s made clear every time one of these guys make a mistake.
No comments:
Post a Comment