Who To Turn To*

Today, I read the final chapter and the conclusion in Media, Gender, and Identity: An Introduction by David Gauntlett. This chapter made a very interesting observation of the different role models that people have, especially children. The role models that Gauntlet mentioned were:

The ‘straightforward’ role model: a successful individual. Usually a well celebrated celebrity or a person of power.

The ‘triumph over different circumstances’ role model: someone who has went  against the odds to change the world.  

The ‘challenging stereotypes’ role model: a person who goes against stereotypes, even though those stereotypes have been placed on them.

The ‘wholesome’ role model: a person that parents want their children to look up to.

The ‘outsider’ role model: free thinkers as well as people that reject what society has told them to become.

The ‘family’ role model: either a person in one’s own family or a celebrity that is family focused.

  Gauntlet then went further to discuss how young girls look at Britney Spears as a role model. For example, we can look at the fact that she changed from a girl to a woman in the light of the media and how church groups would give her praise for boosting about how she wants to wait to have sex until marriage. Gauntlett then brings up that Britney Spears fans then turned away from her as she became more daring in her performances. I thought it was interesting that one of the quotes that Gauntlet mentioned talked about how one fan liked how Britney Spears matured as she grew up. I do wonder how her fans would think of her now: she is basically naked in her music videos and she had a mental breakdown a few years ago.

I decided that since Gauntlett discussed role models, I  would briefly share a two of my own. The first person I would like to mention is the director M. Night Shyamalan. Even though he is an Oscar nominated director and an okay screenplay writer, I feel that I look up to him for a different reason. I think that he is a really great director because his family is a strong influence on his life. First  of all, he has time for his children. For example, he goes to his children’s music concerts. In addition, most of his films were filmed near his house in Wayne, PA. The movie he is currently working on, The Last Airbender, is a show that his children really enjoy and the film Lady in the Water was based off of a bedtime story that he would tell his kids. I just find it very commendable for him to be such a family man because the value of family in the film industry seems to be slowly losing its importance. This is a perfect example of the ‘family’ role model given by Gauntlet.

I was actually upset by the fact that Gauntlett didn’t mention another type of role model: the fictional character. Sometimes an author can bring to life a character that people feel a strong connection with or to look up to. One of my role models, somehow on the opposite side of the spectrum of M. Night Shyamalan, is Howard Roark from the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. There are a few attributes of his that I find admirable. I must confess that I am still working through the large novel, but there is something about him that I find intriguing. I hope to be the type of filmmaker that is as determined about film as Roark is about architecture. In other words, I want to be an artistic risk taker: I want to make movies that I want to make, even if that means I have to work as a production assistant, live in a cardboard box for a long time, and not become famous. I say that because the American film industry is going downhill. People in the industry are making movies that they know will make money. However, independent filmmakers are starting to step up and trying to make interesting new movies. I hope to join this revolution. I like to think that soon there will be the next New Wave in the film industry, the first since the 1960’s and 70’s. I feel that by having the same amount of passion for film that Roark has for architecture, I will be a part of it. Roark would be the ‘outsider’ role model in Gautlett’s list because he is a strong believer and advocate of freewill.