Role Models????

Do role models exist anywhere?  When I was a teenager the Mickey Mouse Club had just spit out there group of Teen "Role Models" and look were they ended up.  Most notably is Britney Spears, but the rest of them I wouldn't exactly call role models either. 

If you look at sports, you got football players running dog fights, and baseball players taking human growth hormone.  The one athlete I would've called a role model has lost that title in my mind.  Lance Armstrong overcame cancer and proved to be the best of his sport numerous times, and then he left his family for Sheryl Crow????   That's a great message for anyone!  Overcome disease, prove to be a success and then leave the people that stood by you when you were down! 

Politicians....Not even going there.

 

I would love to say religious officials, teachers, and parents should be the perfect role model but sadly anyone could pull numerous examples that prove otherwise.

Role models are made, not born.  No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.  Anyone you call a role model probably has done, or will do something reprehensible that makes that title null and void.  

"Black Box"

After the class discussion about the idea of the "Black Box" and how a movie theatre is a perfect example of that. I thought it was really interesting how the purpose of the movie theatre is to limit distractions and really captivate you in the movie yet the things that destroy and break down the "black box" are things that are sold to us at the movie theatre. The room is supposed to be black so that we as viewers are focusing on nothing but the movie. The things that break down that focus and concentration are things like people, POPCORN, CANDY, and SODA! All of which are things people love to have at movies and probably even go to the movies specifically for the popcorn, I know my mom does. So I find it hard to understand why something in our main stream culture and something commonly practiced is so contradictory to itself. Also, if anyone has ever read Plato's The Republic, there are very interesting corellations between Socrate's allegory of the cave and with the "black box" theory.

lssacademy.com/2008/01/14/shadows-or-reality/

The pull of controversy

I agree in full about the whole controversy=money concept. Where there is controversy, there is press and media hype, and where there is media hype there are people there to see just what all the fuss is about. One example of this theory was a few years back (I think it was in 2004), and was centered around a movie that was to be released; "The Passion of the Christ."
According to this news clip that I found,

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/earlyshow/leisure/boxoffice/main595101.shtml,

much of the controversy stemmed from the film's visually graphic and violent scenes, from the fact that it was a religious story, from the Pope's reaction to it, and also from some critics saying that the film was anti-Semitic. The news clip also mentioned how many of those critics who were criticizing the film hadn't actually seen it.

"The Passion of the Christ" was released as an independent film. Usually when films are independent, they don't get as much publicity or money. Yet, for this film, this was not the case. Because of all of the controversy the media and press were making over it, people came to see it not only because of their religious affiliation, but also because they wanted to see what what was so controversial. Mel Gibson (the film's creator) must've known this too. Not once did he try to reason with the press about how his movie wasn't graphic or anti-Semitic. He just let the controversy take its course, bringing in more viewers all the while, because where there's controversy, there's money.