are pop stars obliged to live up to their social statuses as role models?

or should they just take the kids' money and not give a fuck?

nb this is less about the person who is the star per se & more the people who are responsible for making decisions for that person + swaying/pushing them into particular positions

do you mean like an ethics clause that they tried but failed to get charlie sheen to sign for two & half men?

my wish is that society would have higher standards than charlie sheen but I think at this point I'm just gonna have to become an ascetic

pop stars have an obligation to not do things that are morally wrong, like kill other people. returning to an abusing boyfriend is not morally wrong

I don't think returning to an abusing boyfriend is morally wrong, for the record.

and like I've tried to say I don't think Rihanna herself has done anything wrong. I'd rather not make this thread about Rihanna, it's just a general thought that's popped into my head frequently since I've spent so much time hanging around the popist echo chamber.

if MTV has the wherewithal to cure Beavis of his pyromania for fear of setting a bad example, then celebrities should at least make the attempt to keep secret their self-destructive behavior, though at a certain point if you get so bad that no reasonable person could conceivably see you as a role model, you're kind of absolved from that responsibility.

this only feels morally dodgy if the star is heavily marketed at kids, beyond that then fuck being a role model

i don't start from the assumption that all pop stars are marketed at kids, or that a star's target audience can't change btw

the concept of role models is so bizarre to me. i never had any growing up. teach kids to have the confidence & strength to be themselves, never let them emulate anyone else let alone celebrities. loving someone's music or image or personality or whatever doesn't mean trying to be them.

blaming "role models" is an excuse for bad parenting imo

I did have a lot of role models when I was growing up, and I don't think I'd have survived without them.

But the idea of blaming Rihanna for who she loves, rather than blaming Chris Brown for administering beatings is kind of next level o_0 to me.

(Though that might be because I've just finished Elizabeth Wurtzel's Bitch and her chapter on domestic violence just got things SO rong I wanted to hurl the book across the room.)

ONCE AGAIN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I'm not blaming Rihanna for whom she loves! I'm blaming the people that allowed a Rihanna/Chris Brown collab to happen.

I know it's insane to blame an abuse victim.

Hey they greenlighted it because clearly it generates a huge amount of ~controversy~ and controversy sometimes translates into SALES and hey who doesn't like record sales? It's one of those things that people who are cleverer and more clearminded and less prone to rrrrrage might be able to turn into a ~teachable moment~ and start an honest to god discussion about people's attitudes to domestic violence. I don't know; I somehow doubt it, though.

I guess it's the cynicism that bothers me more than anything else.

But, there are lots of projects that get greenlighted that I think are totally and utterly indefensible (why I don't see movies, parts 1 to 8 billion most of the time) for many different reasons. There are artistic projects that I think have appalling role-model-potential but they still deserve to be made and some that are just stupid, and should never be brought to fruition. But anything that gets used against The Things I Hate can also be brought to bear against Things I Like.

(Though I have a sneaking suspicion that things are already being brought to bear against the Things I Might Like, when I read things like that "screenwriting student reveals how classes deliberately teach screenwriters to fail the Bechdel Test")

So I don't know.

w/r/t rihanna specifically, i said what i wanted to in the CB thread, but i think you can be disappointed in her for going back on all the fantastic stuff she said three years ago - THAT was doing a "teachable moment" right in a way that few public figures do - and depressed at the way she's framing it as part of her "rebellious" image, without blaming her, and while reserving your anger for CB and the music industry in general.

(a lot of the stuff directed at rihanna today is reacting to an event - the anger over the situation existed already, regardless of her involvement)

(also the rihanna/chris brown thing has obviously been planned for a while - this song was probably recorded months ago)

As long as I live I don't think I will ever understand this 'role model' shit

Sorry if I'm covering old ground here, I've not been following the Chris Brown thread because, well, I loathe the guy and handwringing over wifebeating is triggery as all hell for me.

I guess that's what's bothering me - framing it as "rebellious"?

And that goes along with that last chapter of Bitch, where Wurtzel, who has clearly never *been* in an abusive relationship, is conflating those "big, dramatic, door-slamming passionate Heathcliff bad boy relationships" with "domestic violence relationships." And maybe Rihanna has been playing with that thing, too, recently - esp that Calvin whassiface video. That there is that kind of mad, passionate "can't live with him, can't live without him" screaming matches in public relationship which is all about being in love with Bad Boys and being in love with the image of Bad Boys. And that kind of feeling is big and expansive and amazing and addictive and it's a high.

And then, when you actually find yourself trapped in an abusive relationship, it becomes clear that it's not about too-much-passion, it's about too-much-control. And it's not something that makes you feel big and high like Bad Boys do, it's about constraining and controlling and one person's attempts to make the other person's world ever smaller and more limited. It's not about Heathcliff on Wuthering Heights and passion too big to contain, it's about having your world reduced to the dimensions of a tiny L-shaped studio apartment. And I get that people often think that glamourising the former means glamourising the latter - but this is kind of the problem? Conflating the two? That it isn't running across Irish clifftops in your smalls shouting at one another, it's about not being allowed to leave the house and your partner won't even allow you to see your friends.

So what are they glamourising here? I don't know.

But, y'know, this is derailing with the detail.

The role model thing, it's like... it makes me feel really quite small when people act dismissive of role models, like you're supposed to just *know* How To Be A Human Being and figure it all out on your own, without anyone to guide you.

I'm sure it's great if you grow up within a strong family, or entrenched in a really connected community where there are adults all around you to show you good, strong, decent models of behaviour for you to model yourself on. Then you have no need of pop stars or athletes or whatever as your role model.

But when you're really disconnected, for whatever reason - maybe it's situational because your family are fucked up and useless, maybe you've moved so much you have no stable community, maybe it's because you belong to a minority which doesn't get any kind of representation around where you are. At that point, you look around you for people who show you How To Be Human.

Role models may not have been important to you - and in that case, you're very lucky. But given the situations in which I grew up, they were *utterly* critical for someone like me, and, frankly, FUIUD.

Except you don't have any idea of the circumstance I or anyone else here grew up in

You're right, I don't. But your circumstances don't give you the right to say that 'having a role model" is *shit*, if it's something I found meaningful or helpful in mine.

I guess that's what's bothering me - framing it as "rebellious"?

it's not something rihanna's explicitly said, but given how assiduously she's cultivated her "rebellious" image (separate to the CB thing), and how aware of how this duet will scandalise people...it seems she's conflating a whole bunch of shock tactics in dubious ways.

w/what you said in mind WCC, do you think rihanna has a duty to act as a role model?

I'm sure it's great if you grow up within a strong family, or entrenched in a really connected community where there are adults all around you to show you good, strong, decent models of behaviour for you to model yourself on.

fwiw i didn't, but i'm not gonna talk about that online.

Fair enough, it's not shit if it's useful to someone in real life, but I assume your role models weren't footballers and celebrities? (xp)

If your teacher or your uncle or the man works in the corner shop is your role model then I can get that, if Ryan Giggs is your role model I can't

I don't have a problem with people who say "I never found role models useful to me" but people who just come on and make that leap to... therefore the very idea of role models is shit (and people who find them useful are stupid or deluded or brainwashed or need to grow the fuck up) ...that's just really irritating and presumptuous.

My role models were, and still are, I dunno, celebrities? I guess I'm cringing because I'm expecting people to point and laugh because I still do it. And I've just been through an experience where I had to turn to A Pop Star and their oeuvre as an example of "how to behave ethically and responsibly" when no one in mine own circles were being particularly helpful or useful. And yes, that is laughable to a lot of people, but I would not have got through that experience intact (in fact I'd probably still be *in* it) without that ~celebrity spirit animal~ (go on, LOL away)

That said, I don't think that Rihanna has a duty to anyone except her own damn artistic muse.

However, I do think that the press, the media, the whole manufacturing-of-celebrity industry around her do actually have a responsibility not to glamourise it when anyone does dangerous or stupid things. So I guess sort of what Crut said.

See, I had (note past tense) real problems with the whole idea of 'role models' back in the day.

Now, with kids of my own, I do see that they can take inspiration from the paths that people they like (and are like) take. Without subscribing to 'everything they do, I do to' which is madness and thankfully not something I ever had to advise my 2 against, they already knew.

LLohan! AWinehouse! Both acted as inspiration without being role models. In that, they are a whole lot smarter than Johnny Borrell and his "I read that Tim Buckley took Heroin, so I did" bol.

xposted, but hey.

I don't have a problem with people who say "I never found role models useful to me" but people who just come on and make that leap to... therefore the very idea of role models is shit (and people who find them useful are stupid or deluded or brainwashed or need to grow the fuck up) ...that's just really irritating and presumptuous.

Some prodigious leaping there!

Yeah, I never thought 'people with role models are shit', it's more 'how heavy you subscribe to them' ...

my posts are getting meaningless (or too meaningful) thanks to xposts, but still.

Because you are the *first* person, Tom D, who has ever commented on role models, on this thread or anywhere else.

Yeah, I never thought 'people with role models are shit'

Not sure anyone actually said that here? Haven't read the whole thread.

I guess this is the problem, with ILX, that I'm never just responding to the poster who says something irritating, I'm responding to 10+ years of "things that people said that were like that." It's the problem with a pattern making mind.

As long as I live I don't think I will ever understand this 'role model' shit

― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.),

^^^^Tom D being disingenuous and not even reading the part of the thread that contained his own post!

How's that?

Well, it suggests that there is but one definition that everyone with 'role models' subscribe to.

You will note, I hope, that I did write 'role model' and not role model

It also directly implies the negative connotation "shit" to the concept "role model."

And if you try to tell me that in Glasgow, "shit" just means "thing" like "cunt" just means "mate" I will actually punch you and tell you I'm just being Glaswegian-friendly, so there. :-P

To 'role model' not role model

I will actually punch you...seriously? That's just in bad taste considering the subtext of this thread.

Can I introduce the concept of Rollmop Herrings here?

http://www.elsinorefoods.co.uk/images/product/57b75b4a0de0b2ec658b6afba17de002.jpg

Sorry, "Rollmop Herrings"...

I will actually punch you...seriously? That's just in bad taste considering the subtext of this thread.

It is a bit, uh, Cousin, uh, Slappy

Anyway, the question:

Should Rihanna be prevented from 'getting back with CBrown' for the single reason of 'being a role model to her young fans', no.

She should not, for entirely her own reasons.

That said, I don't think that Rihanna has a duty to anyone except her own damn artistic muse.

However, I do think that the press, the media, the whole manufacturing-of-celebrity industry around her do actually have a responsibility not to glamourise it when anyone does dangerous or stupid things.

this is a good way of putting it

I just wish there were some way to smash this whole system that apparently gives more value to #TeamBreezy's digital downloads than to maintaining integrity and keeping abusers out of the public limelight - the patriarchy, capitalism, pop culture junkiedom, whatever thing or combination of things it is. welcome to Earth, I guess.

Kids have always treated their favourite celebrities, if not as "role models" then at least as people they respect and take cues from. Posters on the bedroom walls, reading/watching interviews, copying fashion, catchphrases etc. So music industry people (including Rihanna tbh) have to be aware that things like this send signals that fans are going to pick up on. This doesn't mean that they are obliged to always send the "right" signals, but they can't pretend it has no effect.

Are people operating under the assumption that "role model" automatically means "celebrity"? Because if not, I really feel like the people claiming they never had ANY are straight-up lying to themselves.

Multiple people helped you become the person you are today, through both positive and negative examples. I can buy not looking up to celebrities but claiming there was never ANYONE in your life that you looked up to or used as a model of thought and/or behavior is flat-out impossible unless you raised yourself in a cave until adulthood, to which I say congrats on inventing a language for yourself indistinguishable from English.

As I say, it's about the level of "do as they do" that's crucial.

Not a role model, I walk a hard road to follow
I sold bottles of sorrow then chose poems and novels

(xxp) Yeah, DJP, kinda looked up to my big sister more than I did to Lou Reed, though I preferred his music

To address the OP, whether or how much you buy into the idea of role model, any public figure absolutely has a minimum responsibility that goes beyond their basic creative output.

To suggest that what they do is distinct from who they are, in terms of what their audience buys into, is either self-deceptive or straight-up lying. They may not like that but it seems to me to be an inescapable trade-off.

That said, the extent to which that responsibility has to manifest itself is obviously much harder to settle upon. Maybe it doesn't go any further than acknowledgement or making more of an effort to keep certain activity/behaviour private.

That said, I don't think that Rihanna has a duty to anyone except her own damn artistic muse

Don't think Rihanna's artistic muse has much to do with it given how little control she seems to have over her own projects. But you can't ignore the vast amounts of money, professional/industry pressure and so forth that must have been in play here. Look at how heavily the Chris Brown Rehabilitation Machine has been working for years, sneaking him back in everywhere in guest spots all the way up to the Grammies.

The motivations of victims of victims of domestic abuse is a difficult enough issue without huge military-industrial complexes grinding into gear to rehabilitate the perpetrator and doubtless throwing a load of money at the victim in the process. Who the hell knows what Rihanna actually wants, and does anyone in charge particularly care. The whole machine behind this is so reprehensible that whether or not Rihanna is personally acting as a good or bad role model feels almost like a side-issue.

I think I genuinely go with NV's early post that it doesn't matter too much unless the artist in question is heavily marketed at children which Rihanna clearly is. I don't see that, say, Pete Doherty has any obligation to act as a role model to anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tteBJURf7ME

I think this is a really thorny question. Fame clearly comes with trade offs; your every move is broadcast and analyzed to death by everyone, plus everyone thinks that they know you because they see you all of the time (I see images of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry more often than I see my parents). It seems facile to say that the constant presence of these people will have no material impact on any given person's life.

Yes, and the type of fame is not insignificant. Peewee Herman's minor indiscretions are/were of a greater impact (fairly or not) than – say – Jude Law's (objectively) more major transgressions. But the discrepency between the private/public image of PH is greater than the barely-there discrepency between the public/private image of JL.

Hence, one loses his career and the other loses a single night's sleep.

I just wish there were some way to smash this whole system that apparently gives more value to #TeamBreezy's digital downloads than to maintaining integrity and keeping abusers out of the public limelight - the patriarchy, capitalism, pop culture junkiedom, whatever thing or combination of things it is. welcome to Earth, I guess.

love you for this man

.. hat it doesn't matter too much unless the artist in question is heavily marketed at children .... I don't see that, say, Pete Doherty has any obligation to act as a role model to anyone.

― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 13:46 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe not, but I still think the old "take no heroes, only inspiration" works with regard to PDoch as much as Rihanna.

Rih, caught smoking an off-duty roll-up. Is it her responsibility to not get photographed, or the media to not lead 'impressionable kiddies' into thinking 'that looks cool, hmm'?

pete doherty's fanbase surely has a higher proportion of teenagers than rihanna's

What? No way.

Do most teenagers even know who Pete Doherty is?

lol lex. maybe in Britain, but certainly not here.

pete doherty's fanbase surely has a higher proportion of teenagers than rihanna's

you are insane

Rihanna's fanbase is obviously bigger and broader than Doherty's and in the heyday of the Libertines it would have been mostly teenagers but he's not marketed at kids in the same way Rihanna is.

Do most teenagers even know who Pete Doherty is?

well in the actual heyday of the libertines, not now!

8 Babyshambles Killamangiro Single Dec 2004
4 Babyshambles F**k Forever Single Aug 2005
8 Babyshambles Albion Single Dec 2005
17 Babyshambles Janie Jones (Strummerville) Single Nov 2006
6 Babyshambles Delivery Single Sep 2007
5 Babyshambles Shotter's Nation Album Oct 2007

So, not since 2007.

This is irrelevant, the Libertines appealed predominantly to 20-somethings and older teenagers who admittedly do a lot of stupid things, but Rihanna's fanbase at the younger end skews WAY younger.

there was one teenager in america who knew who the libertines was, I met him once

well yeah i'm sure rihanna's fanbase has more tweens in it

i'm appalled that anyone in america knows who pete doherty is. why? there was never any need for you to.

no it was just one dude

he already forgot too

http://www.kidzbop.com/music/kidz-bop-collections/Kidz-Bop-Sings-Rihanna

I think this is more germane to Matt's point

when i say kids i'm thinking of pre-teens really.

i dunno how much of the gossipy personal life stuff gets thru to the under 12s, probably more than i realise, but that's as much a media/parenting issue as it is one for the artist.

RiRi's "S & M" or Britney's "If U Seek Amy" gave me real o_O moments as a parent because there comes a point when my daughter is gonna be singing along to this stuff. On the whole I don't mind the double entendre element of pop music - kids are never the primary market, and a hell of a lot flies over heads that are too young to get it - but when especially kid-friendly artists go from double entendre to blatant sex mode I am discomfited. I think the issue really is in pitching themselves specifically at kids and thinking that their adult personae won't bleed across.

Tbh if a child asked me about the whole RiRi/Chris Brown thing at least it would be an opportunity to talk about abusive relationships and the fucked-upness of big business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0dDMbvQrX0

okay that is the greatest thing ever

I usually tend to see the "age of the target audience" argument as being kind of a red herring in these discussions? Because is the problem here "this industry is selling domestic violence to 9 year olds" or "this industry is using a warped glamourous version domestic violence to sell pop records to 15 year olds" - or both? Like, are there actually some things that are so horrific it's not OK to use them to market to *any* audience?

And "OMG the sexualisation of children" is often used as a handwaving distraction to justify the suppression of other material - and also there are things which I find *just* as problematic involving marketing to kids, but no one seems to speak out against them because they don't involve ~s.e.x.~

There was a great article last year on Feministing about The Problems Of Paternalism and how bad it is to determine policy based on "I don't want my kids doing that!" (I will have to look for the link but it was basically saying how "I don't want my daughter being a hooker, therefore criminalise prostitution" allowed paternalistic emotion to cloud the issue, which was actually more like "given that, unfortunately, there exist hookers and there exist johns, wouldn't it be better if, were your daughter to become a hooker, she had legal recourse against the abuse of johns?")

I really liked DC's points here:

Don't think Rihanna's artistic muse has much to do with it given how little control she seems to have over her own projects. But you can't ignore the vast amounts of money, professional/industry pressure and so forth that must have been in play here. Look at how heavily the Chris Brown Rehabilitation Machine has been working for years, sneaking him back in everywhere in guest spots all the way up to the Grammies.

The motivations of victims of victims of domestic abuse is a difficult enough issue without huge military-industrial complexes grinding into gear to rehabilitate the perpetrator and doubtless throwing a load of money at the victim in the process. Who the hell knows what Rihanna actually wants, and does anyone in charge particularly care. The whole machine behind this is so reprehensible that whether or not Rihanna is personally acting as a good or bad role model feels almost like a side-issue.

^^^^that was what I was getting at, that the problem is not with Rihanna's actions (and who know what she wants or is being coerced into) but with the huge industry built up around using a survivor of domestic violence to prop up the career of her own abuser to extract money from teenagers. That is just gross, no matter how you slice it.

yes.

The best way of having yr daughters avoid 'ensing up doing that' is to know what it is you/they are avoiding in the first place, and why.

But I'm kind of going against my own points now, because...

There's a part of me that thinks that the marketing of Chris Brown as menacing, slightly malevolent, hulking brute is part of the appeal for teenage girls. And that's not sick marketing, that's just somehow in the nature of teenage girls, because I can remember that being really attracted to violently depicted men (for me, it was James Bond, the book version, not even the films, which I devoured relentlessly aged about 11 or 12) at that age because their violence was somehow expressive both of the turbulent emotional violence of being a teenage girl.

But also that whole narrative of how women are supposed to catch and tame and civilise the violent brute (see also: 40,000 books about horses which are irresistible to females of that age group) - maybe this is a script that needs to be examined and discussed and have that teenage girl violence that fuels poltergeist rumours if left unchecked, I dunno, recognised and addressed, rather than used to sell Chris Brown records.

But that desire, that horsebreaking desire for bad boys, I don't know. I haven't made up my mind and this is where I'm worried I'm turning into Liz Wurtzel. Does it fuel domestic violence and women ending up in abusive relationships, because this is the narrative - a woman's love is ~supposed~ to tame and civilise the bad boy (and it's the ones where the narrative goes wrong - where the brutal man suppresses the woman instead - which are so problematic) and it traps us in abusive relationships to internalise that narrative with the wrong men?

I think the Chris Brown thing sells records because it's engaging that narrative, which is very powerful (in just our society?) but is it that the narrative needs addressing or changing? Or that it's sick and wrong to be exploiting it to sell records to tweens?

I've read this twice and I don't even know what the point I'm making is, let alone if I've expressed it coherently. But it seems like this is a ~thing~.

no i think that's absolutely crucial - i read a blog the other day (brain blank, can't remember who or where) that said that for all our outrage at CB and the industry, his continued career is ultimately down to the fact that he has fans who remained loyal to him even when everyone assumed his career was done. if that fanbase had deserted him, best believe the industry would have as well. and much as we mock #TEAMBREEZY - and we mock b/c they make us uncomfortable, i assume - they do seem motivated by exactly what WCC describes. at some point if you're gonna talk about chris brown you do have to talk about WHY he has loyal fans, even if you think they're idiots who need some damn good parenting in their lives (and some of them get it: iirc la lechera posted in the CB thread about talking to her little sister about the issues when she tried to stan for CB?)

oh no, it was gyac, not la lechera, my bad

It is like how there's a great deal of 'support' for Roman Polanski and Matthew Broderick which goes beyond and in spite of what happened.

One was an accident, one wasn't. But there was/is a great reaction from people seemingly more concerned with the 'loss of great art' or "a career that could please a great many people, cut short"

With the MBrod one, it went so far as the people in the town affected had absolutely no issue at all with the guy himself, but a heck of a big one with all his 'supporters' that had no concern with the affected people...

What did Matthew Broderick do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Broderick#Car_accident

Well shows how much I know!

No, it's not like how there's support for Roman Polanski (which is the whole "turn a blind eye to or discount crimes because we like the person's art") it's almost like those teengirls are so engaged with the Chris Brown narrative *because* of the violence in the narrative. All those teengirls saying they'd love to take a punch from him. It seems to be a part of the appeal?

(Unless Hollywood is sicker than I thought and they've canonised Polanski *because* he drugged and anally raped a teenager, not because they liked Chinatown?)

Mmm, yeah..

I dunno, it's somewhere between the two, it's as you say the teengirls may say they'd like to 'take one' but I doubt it's true it seems more that 'they'd be sooo nice, that CBrown would never treat them mean, etc'

Like, I sense that they are saying "Rihanna was probably nasty to him"..

OK, yeah, I see that, too, victim blaming being part of the script and "I bet he would treat *me* real good" etc.

The (mysterious, to me) appeal of 'bad boys' stretches beyond teenage girls of course

I think Chris Brown's more general sexual charisma is the bigger factor than the "bad boy" image per se; these girls liked CB before he hit Rihanna and are doing some crazy cognitive dissonance shit to justify still listening to his music & pretending he's just the sexy pop star they were excited about before that pesky abuse issue got in the way

& all the "oh I wish he'd hit me instead" talk is a particular representation of that, reimagining his abuse as playful sexual "aggression"

oh yeah, i think all of these things are wrapped up in it

a celebrity obsessed society will always have self centered assholes for role models.

"my wish is that society would have higher standards..." equals weltschmerz.

I'm all for role models. I just wish it was the hard working guy/girl next door, who takes care of his/her family and handles life's problems as come along, and still has time to help a neighbor, be politically active, or rock a karaoke night.

that society places an unhealthy amount of influence on self-destructive celebrities doesn't discharge their responsibility as human beings not to knowingly visit harm upon others, which will happen if they cultivate an impressionable fan base. it's weird to think of someone like andy dick as having a dimension of moral responsibility, but by being such an unemulatable, unglamorous mess, he's managed to limit the circle of damage.

forgot abt this thread or i would have posted this here

weird is there a reason i cant post a link? at any rate, I made a thread about Too $hort you guys should look at