One role too far

It seems that angels Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz have been flying high down Hawaii way.

The broken-hearted beauties were consoling each other after their respective breakups and bonded on their joint holiday over a shared roll-up cigarette. You’d think between the millions they’ve made they could afford a cigarette each but I guess sharing is caring and it obviously did the trick as the girlies giggled their way through an afternoon of high-jinx.
These are two extremely successful women who, judging by their excessively successful careers, quite obviously have their heads screwed on the right way, so, however, they choose to de-stress should be none of anyone’s business but their own.
Ironically though, the very thing that has made them so successful is the very thing that interferes with them being able to get on with their lives without being pictured by sneaky paparazzi in the bushes. Their bouncy girl-next-door-life-and-soul-of-the-party image that has everyone fascinated, means that the world and his brother are interested in every aspects of their lives, so pictures that implicate the girls doing anything less than wholesome are bound to wing their way around the world in no time. It won’t be long before cries of what a bad example they’re setting fly around the globe too and parents are up in arms because their child has been caught having a sly puff behind the bike shed and it was all because of Drew and Cameron!
And therein lies the crux of the matter. It seems that the majority of the world is under the impression that because a person becomes famous, they automatically become role models for the rest of us. Why? I can understand that when a famous person does something, right or wrong, it can influences others to do the same but what I don’t understand is why we seem determined to place the blame on someone-else’s shoulders just because they’re famous.
Actors, musicians, sportsmen, films and video games are regularly blamed for bad behaviour, broken laws, increased violence, gun control problems and crime in general. The implication being that we don’t have minds of our own and just follow blindly like sheep the lyrics of a gang rapper. If a 12-year-old girl wants to leave the house in a micro mini skirt and a bikini top it’s Beyonce/The Pussycat Dolls/Mariah Carey’s fault because of what they were wearing in their latest videos.
But are they really to blame? No. Beyonce herself recently commented that she didn’t go into the music business to be a role model and it wasn’t her responsibility to worry about how the way she dresses or dances affects other. She became a musician and performer because singing and entertaining was her passion from a young age. She followed a dream that she had and in doing so found out that she was exceptionally good at it. As a result of being as good as she is, she became famous. Why should that mean she has to make every decision based on what young girls are going to want to emulate? Shouldn’t we be teaching our children that the thing to admire in someone like Beyonce (or indeed any famous person) is the hard work, passion and determination they’ve put into realising their dreams, not what they do or don’t wear.
Famous people are famous through down right hard work and serious slog to get to where they’ve got — well OK most anyway, Paris Hilton and Jade Goody don’t count. Fame and fortune, as pleasurable as they can make life, are byproducts of the hard work they have put into their careers.
Kylie Minogue’s ex, Olivier Martinez, had it right when he recently said in an interview: “I don’t want to talk about [my private life]. I know you have to ask but I’m like an iceberg. The part above the water is my acting life and the part under the water is my private life. So I’m sorry but I can only share the part that’s above the water.”
Many people reading those words would think he was just some uppity actor that made a choice to be in the public eye and therefore has no right to refuse to share personal information, but truth be told he’s absolutely right. Maybe he is an uppity actor, who knows? But whether he is or isn’t doesn’t change the fact that he has every right to refuse to share his personal life with the rest of the world.
Truth be told, as much as we can blame the famous for all the things our children do wrong, our first and only line of defense against children taking the wrong paths in life is the way they are brought up by us as parents. If you teach them right from wrong, decent from indecent, they can and will decide
for themselves the morality of their actions no matter what they see on television or read about in the papers.