Role Models…Are They?

Many times it is written that the emerging and established film stars are role models for today’s youth. And this “role model” argument wins heavily when big companies want to project their products through advertisement before the masses. 

Now what is unique about these stars that they are considered the “role models”? I will try to enumerate. The sine qua non quality that these role models have is their network. They take birth in royal (moneywise or contact wise) families and the high society connections they get as their birth right. When they grow up the connections pay off and they become actors in movies. And after that the insane PR advertises as if the new savior of filmdom has incarnated.  And the advertising Gurus declare them the next big thing. Companies vie for their attention and advertising agencies present “role model” in a package. 

They think that the youth of India will get enamored by the stunts made by computer graphics and start worshiping the movie stars as role models. One advertisement (in which the role model for many had featured has been taken off air recently after flaring up a controversy) shows the reasoning capacity of the so called “role models”. Why in the first place he would consent for an advertisement that would belittle other profession? I mean didn’t he think a single time before agreeing to do the ad that will show other profession in a bad light or such role models only think through the specs of moolah?  I don’t think that the great advertising men like David Ogilvy and J. Walter Thompson would have approved off such mistakes in the name of “role models”. (It is just my thinking.)

Now what is the role of these so called role models—to inspire, right? And inspire in what way? Jumping from the hill, doing parkour, and serenading a girl are not the essential inspirational skills to survive or to earn a living for millions of youths in this country.  So, in a way they are not inspiring but just entertaining with their antics that are done with all safety supervisions. So, they are entertainers in the first place not the role models.

To assume that the youth will get inspired by the antics of movie heroes done in controlled environment seems ludicrous. I mean how come a youth will get inspired by the cosmetic chivalry of movie stars and will remain ignorant to the real bravery that is shown by their parents in day to day life to survive; bravery that is shown by the soldiers on the borders to save the country; bravery that is shown on streets by street vendors to eke out a living.  I am just trying to explain that the environment in which these stars live and the opportunities that these stars have is very different in dimension and nature that the most of the youth have. So, they can’t be role model for a nation where most of the youth is after the opportunity to learn and earn not to jump and run.

At the most these movie stars can be is the ‘brand’ not the ‘role model’, and however you argue the brand will always take a second seat in competition to a role model.

 I mean Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Che Guevara , Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, Vir Savarkar, Martin Luther King Jr., Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Khudiram Bose should be called role models whose fight were for real not for reel. You might not be the fan of their ideologies but you cannot take away the credit of being “role models” from them.

If at all the film stars can be called role models, they can be called only for those persons who aspire to become film stars or want to pursue an acting career. Since acting is also a form of art and with your acting, if you inspire someone to become an actor, you could be considered a role model. But save for this aspect, I don’t think that the youth of India in entirety should feel comfortable with the “role model” tag being imparted to the movie stars.

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