Essay about Celebrity Role Models and Children

Hollywood is a very powerful modern day institution, where a star's image can characterize, shape and circulate societal myths and ideologies. The construction of a star's image as a commodity of their societal myths and ideologies has the extraordinary power to exert messages so that even the smallest details become significant yet not overtly obvious. How a star's image is produced and then consumed can justify a society's relationship with that image and therefore aid in explaining the social construction of what society deems as their 'reality'. A star's image is created through a range of representations churned out by Hollywood. Capitalism from the commercialization of these images has made Hollywood the dominant force it is

The Sociocultural Perspective explains Britney Spears’s case because she grew up in a bad home environment. Spears grew up with an alcoholic and verbally abusive father (Surge, 2016). This event led to her picking up the same bad habits of her father, and become an alcoholic. Instead of the rage, she just lost herself. It is hard to imagine being in that position. Everyone’s eyes always on everyone else’s, their every move being monitored, making sure they do not say anything irreversible. Due to her manager, the paparazzi were always around her. At the time, her manager would leak her location to the paparazzi, knowing that she was having a

According to Sociologist Craig Calhoun, socialization is “the process through which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a society and learn to function as its members”(Calhoun, 2013). With that in mind, media, particularly the music video and advertisement industry, are essential parts of contemporary socialization, especially involving the perpetuation of gender roles in our culture. At a very young age, children learn, without difficulty, the differences between boys and girls, and what standards they are held to. Women are often objectified, systematically demoralized, and dehumanized in the music video industry and mainstream advertisement. External forces, such as the media, not only guide children to understand the norms of each gender, but these forces also shape children and adolescent’s perception of the self. The documentaries Killing Us Softly 4 directed by Jean Kilbourne and Dream World 3 directed by Sut Jhally explore the distorted and fallacious ideals of femininity and sexuality expressed in contemporary media.

Within our society today, media plays a huge role in everyone’s life - an important role. Media offers entertainment, news, information, and education; however, with these benefits come negatives as well. For example, foul language, drug abuse, and sexual content may be presented to an unsuitable audience, specifically children. It’s easy to see sexual content on tv, hear foul language in songs on the radio, or even hear about the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Children are especially good at mimicking what they see and are easily influenced. So, with all this content being shown openly with no censorship, children think this is a social norm, as well as spending long periods of time watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet. Modern technology has transformed the way children learn and interact within their environment, it is having a negative effect on them in this younger generation with all the easy access to all genera’s of media material for long periods of time.

To individuals who knew few blacks in the past, stereotypes in film and television reinforced negative views about black laziness, sexuality, and criminality, making comedy shows such as Amos ‘n’ Andy easier to carry out as there was minimal explaining that was needed. By providing African Americans with inferior roles on television, it reinforced the idea that African Americans were not as valuable as their white counterparts. In essence, “we are what we consume.” The more audiences watched African Americans playing roles such as servants and buffoons, the more society began to see these roles as a reflection of the kinds of characteristics they possessed in reality. Pop culture, as such, is an expression of a communities shared experiences. Pop culture influences how people follow the general view of society. Such is apparent even in today’s society as celebrities such as Kylie Jenner “can put out a tweet or an Instagram photo and it becomes all the rage, she drives pop culture like no other celebrity does” (White). Her infamous lips have resulted in teens demanding lip injections in order to mirror her looks by asking doctors for “The

Reality show characters are often shown in embarrassing situations and their personal matters are publicized to the world. The research found that frequent viewers of reality TV highly value revenge, competition, and achieving status and prestige (Mendible, 2004, p. 336). Mendible further discussed reality television’s strategic use of humiliation as a form of entertainment to draw in viewers (Mendible, 2004). With constant exposure to media images, audiences may be influenced by the television show’s values and subliminal messages. People use reality television as an informational tool to “people watch” and observe what is socially acceptable or not (Tyree, 2011, p. 397). The problem with using television to observe and decipher social norms with is that reality shows are not actually based on real events.

Objectification includes the perception that individuals can be treated as objects or tools. For instance, social media like the different social networking sites and other forms of media like commercials, and reality television treat women as objects to be used, for example to sell cars, to advertise different merchandise, even food. In Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played with Fire”, Erdely explains the drawbacks of creating an online image by focusing on the tough and harsh treatment that Kiki faced over the internet. In Rachel Kadish’s article “Who Is This Man, and Why Is He Screaming?” she states her concern in that “there is something dehumanizing in the spectacle of a young man’s face being carried on the wind like dust” as she debates the uncontainable spread of her cousin’s image. Finally, in her article “Ghetto Bitches, China Dolls, and Cha Cha Divas”, Jennifer Pozner reveals the ways in which she thinks reality television stars are manipulated and edited into extremely typecast images in a way that

A state in which the mind is elevated above the reach of ordinary impressions, unconscious of sensible objects, and under the influence of overpowering emotions celebrities find irresistible and enticing. Celebrities distinguish themselves in such ways that others admire and want to emulate. Celebrities are worthy of imitation; "everyone needs a role model". The immense amount of drug usage that celebrities, athletes, professionals, and politicians take part in has improved society in countless ways and will continue to do so if everyone emulates these social icons.

In this world people put lots of stress on celebrities to be perfect all the time. Celebrities are worldwide. Celebrates cannot walk down the street without being bombarded by paparazzi. All of that comes with a reason. Kids look up to them, so celebrities have to be media train. Like with rappers, most of their characters portray a life full of crime and enjoyment. Children see that and they think its real life. Kids are on the internet doing ridiculous things to get frame. In this day and age with no free thinkers pop culture is effecting the youth.

One of the most popular teenage entertainers ever is warping the minds of our youth. Appearing on television commercials, MTV videos, many magazine covers, and the radio, Britney Spears is taking control of raising today’s children. Her perfect looks and sexual appeal have mesmerized young viewers. Children and teens strive to be just like her. Although some people allow their children to idolize Britney Spears, I now see that she is an inappropriate role model for her targeted audience of five to thirteen-year-olds.

This picture is a perfect portrayal of celebrity culture in today’s era. The desire to be virtually ‘connected’ and share everything in one’s life is the new trend. And this has resulted from the constant competition from the new community of ‘microcelebrities’, which is based on achieving fame through broadcasting oneself through media. One of the demeaning aspect of the picture is the lack of genuineness and enforcement of stylish lifestyle on the audience which makes it loose the emotional quotient.

Do celebrities make bad role models? I believe they do. Kids see celebrities in the news everyday and mimic what they do, thinking that they should be like them. But that is wrong. Most celebrities don’t know what they are doing in their life because they have a hard time telling reality from fantasy. They are like you and me, but people think that they are more than that. Most magazines and movies have pictures/videos of airbrushed celebrities and when teenager look at these they start believing that looking like how celebrities do is the only way to be popular and loved.

Television doesn’t just affect children, it also affects teenagers and young adults, but more so their self-identity and self-esteem than physical development. Television sends messages to these immature self-identities and shapes them according to popular cultures beliefs and values, modifying healthy and realistic self-identities to unrealistic standards of beauty and popularity. This effect is found more with females than with men; but men are more likely to have their standards modified through music videos than television (Ward 2002).

Media such as the internet, broadcasting, and publishing is a way to express opinions and keep up to date with the latest fashion trends. While these trends continue to go on, new trends are thought of, the trends may be a little tricky to keep up with even for celebrities. While the thought of being perfect for society, cause many adolescents to breakdown for following the false beliefs of society. Some people may use the media to be updated on important news. On the other hand, others believe the media is a horrible setting, resulting in adolescent to do whatever it takes to become just like them, poisoning their minds to become something they are not. The media produces bad influences for body image and messes with adolescents’ minds.

Negative effects of Mass Media for teenagers,  The exposure of sex images and excessive portraits of violence in movies and dramas have instilled negative thoughts and taboos in the mind of these teenagers for they have been consistently getting increased exposure to things which are not suitable for their age.