Celebrities may offer encouragement, or cautionary tales, but role models?
In fact, parents have always had the responsibility to be role models for their children. The many hours the family spends together, the support or chastisement, the various situations that test a parent's philosophy in practical terms make them the most important role models their children will ever have. IMO
Having a celebrity bring attention to a situation is fine. Believing a celebrity to be a role model, not very realistic. Expecting a celebrity to be a role model, unbelievable. These people who signed on to be singers, or actors, or dancers are doing so because they have talent, and/or they want the kind of immediate attention that performers often receive. They may be role models for young people who want to be performers, but that does not necessarily make them role models for living the kind of life parents may want for their children.
I think part of Miley Cyrus's current public persona is attributable to her need to break away from the role she played on screen. When she first started taking more adult parts, since she was an adult, people criticized her not for her performance ability, but because she was no longer portraying an adolescent that had become a role model to some for their children. So, she made very clear to everybody that she was not the character. She was not a role model. She was a young woman who, at this time in her life, was going to explore all the aspects that made her an individual. She was going to make choices that not everyone would agree with. She was not telling little girls to do what she was doing. She was not telling parents how to raise their children.
Sometimes, IMO, a celebrity who is known for playing a character that is set up as an idealized version of a boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, husband, wife, father, or mother begins to believe his/her own press. Someone who does not have a person in his/her life to say, you're delusional, begins to believe that as long as people like that character onscreen or onstage, then maybe they can present that character as their public persona while keeping their private vices and quirks safely hidden from prying eyes.
When a celebrity goes around criticizing how people live their lives, there's often someone who will make disparaging comments. Puncturing the little bubble of pretension and self-righteousness with well placed barbs. But when a celebrity pretty much declares himself to be a moral authority within his community, cruelly condemning the efforts of those people he deems lesser humans than himself, getting away with misbehaviour because of his earning capacity and fan base, he can become dangerous.
Just how dangerous did BC become? I think, as we've been researching the issues rising from this and previous threads, we've unearthed a lot, but there is much more to be revealed.
So, take heart Beginner'sLuck. In our real life situations, parents are, for better or worse, the most important role models during their children's formative years. And, I think, whether we are copying and deliberately not agreeing with them, their influence extends throughout our lives. At least that is what I have found. And the good news is, celebrity is not a requirement to help those in our community who may need our assistance.
