Are there any good role models anymore? |20 May 2016

This is a question that many of us have been asking ourselves these recent years. Are there anymore good role models out there?

Maybe some of you are thinking that in order to answer this question, we need to perhaps understand that the word ‘good’ may be understood differently depending on an individual’s point of view, what he or she values, or considers to be right or wrong. Therefore depending on these perceptions, then some people will consider a good role model to be someone who shares what they value in life, and does things that they consider to be right or acceptable, and these actions or deeds may not necessarily be viewed in the same context by other people with different views of what is good for them.

In a perfect world, a Utopia, it would have been the parents who would have been looked up to by their children as a role model. They would have been, if not the perfect representation of benevolence and good intention, at least as close to perfection as is humanly possible. Unfortunately ours is not a perfect world, and good role models have become somewhat of an endangered species.  So we find that kids nowadays don’t really know who to look up to. So they either look to their friends, or at the celebrities that the media introduce them to.

So the question now is, do these celebrities have the right characteristics that would make them to be ideal role models for the kids that look up to them? In most cases I would personally say not all of them. In fact, the sad truth is that the ones who the kids choose to look up to are usually the ones with the least exemplary behaviour, or characteristic. I may be somewhat biased in my analysis, but I don’t think that I would want my child to grow up to be like Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj and the group that falls under the label Young Money Entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, some of these rappers do give to charity, but the themes that they promote in their lyrics and music videos send out a different message.

What do we therefore consider to be good role model qualities? What should a role model inspire in those who look up to them? Should someone who is looked up to as a role model be accountable for the kind of behaviour they inspire in their followers? These are some of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we look at the kinds of celebrities that the young people of today tend to choose as their role model. Most of these role models portray questionable lifestyle decisions in their life, but also in their movies, songs, and music videos, whereby they promote drug use, alcohol, sex, posh lifestyle, and telling kids that money or rather having lots of it, is all that really matters in life and that it doesn’t matter how you make it. For example the 50 Cents Album ‘Get Rich or Die Trying’, which was released in February 2003, is one of such examples of rappers promoting a gangsta lifestyle, of drug, sex and money, and whereby the title of the album itself speaks volumes.

The sad thing is that a large number of hip-hop albums tend to follow this trend, and it is rare that you would find a hip-hop song promoting positive life values, and it’s sad that these are the songs that the young people listen to nowadays, and sadder still that they try to emulate what they hear, thinking that it is cool. Drug is not cool. Cigarettes are not cool. Indulging excessively in alcohol isn’t cool either. Ruining your life and others’ life just so to make money is at the top of the list of not being cool, and having little or no respect for your body doesn’t make you look cool, but instead it makes others judge you to be someone easy and without self-respect.

Sometimes even when we know that someone or a group is not promoting a positive way of life in their lyrics or music video, the media still provide them with coverage, which only boost the influence they will have on the young audience. When such groups of people are allowed to promote their songs within the community they are able to capture even younger audiences or spectators to propagate their negative views, and values. What young people don’t understand is that these individuals or groups, care less about the negative influence their music is having on the youngsters, how they are adversely inspiring them to rebel within the school, and not respecting the law and the authorities. All they really care about is how much money they can make, and how famous they will get so that they can prey on the naivety of those who see them as popular and want to share in a little bit of their glory.

Movies are just as bad. Portraying a group of law breakers as the heroes of a movie and the law as antagonist only fuels the rebellious nature of teenagers. Not everyone can look at a movie and enjoy it, but understand that all that is being depicted is fictitious, that the film makers and actors are doing it for the money, and a majority of these characters resemble little of the actual personality of the actors that play the roles. Of course kids don’t realise it, exactly like most of them don’t realise that wrestling matches are fixed beforehand, who will win and who will lose, and that during the match the wrestlers are telling each other what they are going to do, so that the other one braces himself up for the move. Unfortunately, parents allow very young kids to look at wrestling and the kids, having no clue of what is actually going on, decide to try some of those very dangerous moves at school on their friends.

The need to look up to someone must be something that is ingrained in our nature, because we always find ourselves looking up to someone, and sometimes we find that we change who we look up to as we grow older. These people we look up to, without realising it, we adopt little things they do, like for example if he/she has a crooked smile, we imitate this, without at times realising it. The way they talk, how they pronounce a certain word, the clothes they wear, the phone they like, and even the kind of people they hang out with. We pick up these things, sometimes knowingly, but sometimes oblivious, and one day you just suddenly have an epiphany, realising that what you have become is of a direct or indirect influence from those you have looked up to over the years. Now depending on the kind of people you chose to look up to, it will undoubtedly reflect what kind of a person you have turned out to be.

So as parents we need to be good role models to our kids, and also teach them well so that when the time comes for them to look up to someone else, they will have an idea of what to look for in that person. Eventually all we can do is point them in the right direction, and hope that you have taught them well enough to make the right kind of decision in life.

K. B.