idea magazine

Talking about ... Role models

May / June 2007

Whether we are talking from a pulpit or over a garden fence, Tony Watkins helps us to give relevant answers to the big issues raised by contemporary popular culture...

The world is a bewildering place. It always has been, but in our media dominated society it is immeasurably more so. Television has transformed how we engage with the world. No longer are we limited to what we experience, but encounter an ever-broadening range of perspectives on the world in our own homes.

"Television," says Kenneth Myers in his book All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, "is the single most significant shared reality of our entire society."

How does someone growing up in this context learn to make sense of the world? In the relatively settled cultures of the premedia age, people's beliefs and values were largely shaped by role models within closeknit communities. These people had been through the same process of making sense of the same culture; their wisdom made sense.

But when cultures experience rapid change, the communities in which people grow up resemble less and less those of the previous generation. The example of elders no longer seems relevant or attractive; instead young people gravitate towards other role models - figures who have more connection with their world.

Shane Meadows' shocking film This Is England is pointedly set in 1983. In the story, 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) desperately needs someone to look up to. His father has been killed in the Falklands, and Shaun is being bullied. But a gang of skinheads befriends him, and the leader, Woody (Joe Gilgun), becomes his hero. Unexpectedly, Woody is kind, fair and accepting of ethnic diversity. But when racist Combo (Stephen Graham) turns up, having just been released from prison, the gang is divided. Woody refuses to associate with someone so narrow-minded, but Shaun is swept along by Combo's apparent ability to make sense of the world, and soon he finds himself involved in racist vandalism and vicious assaults.

The Western world has changed enormously even since 1983. In our culture, the role models to which people respond are frequently found within the media. The central characters of Nick Cassavettes' film Alpha Dog are easily seduced by the glamour of gangsta rap because they have such abysmal role models around them. They ape the stars' obsession with macho images, but the violence of the lyrics spills over into real life with horrific consequences.

It is based on a true story. The pastor of one of the young men's families laments the influence of a music culture that glorifies drugs, alcohol and violence and leaves young people "vulnerable to an evil that can destroy them," says Cinema in Focus critic Denny Wayman. Ironically, the central characters deride gangsta rap as "not being real", yet don't realise that this makes their role models woefully inadequate. 

Truth or fiction?

The same is true of any media role models. Post-modern philosopher Jean Baudrillard, who died recently, was largely right to say that the media so dominates us that we can no longer distinguish reality from representation, truth from fiction. We forget that we don't see the real people behind the celebrities we idolise. What we see is a creation of the media: an impressive public persona assembled by stylists and publicists. And once a celebrity slips up, the media are quick to repaint them as failures or villains, as Britney Spears knows so well.

Baudrillard's Christian counterpart Jacques Ellul wrote prophetically almost 20 years ago in The Technological Bluff that people are "being plunged into an artificial world which will cause them to lose their sense of reality and to abandon their search for truth." This is the world in which we now find ourselves, a world in which media personalities set the agenda for our lifestyles, shape our values and manipulate our beliefs.

We eagerly seek out programming which gives us the illusion of being less artificial. Big Brother, Castaway, The Apprentice and countless other examples of reality TV pretend to be a window into ordinary people's lives. We connect with the participants because they're just like us, and we turn them into celebrities who are famous simply for being famous.

So alongside positive role models like David Beckham we also have Jade Goody, who has become a millionaire celebrity for being reviled in Big Brother 3 and again in the last series of Celebrity Big Brother.

Confucius believed that rulers should be the ultimate role models. Helen Mirren's Oscar-winning performance in The Queen made clear that even monarchs are vulnerable to media manipulation, whether of themselves or their subjects.

But Confucius was on the right lines, because the ultimate role model is the King of kings, Jesus Christ. We can do no better than to imitate His humility, integrity, love, grace and more besides. And that connects us with the ultimate reality.

• Find out more about the issues raised in this article at www.damaris.org/ideamagazine
• www.ToolsForTalks.com provides a onestop shop to help teach the Bible in the language of contemporary culture. The site contains quotes and illustrations taken from the latest films, music, magazines and TV - updated weekly.

Tony Watkins is resources and training co-ordinator for Damaris Trust