They seem to come out of nowhere. They have a lot to say. They seek those who will listen.
They are role models. Or are they?
Recently, Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, set out on a campaign to urge young people to practice abstinence. “If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex,” she told People Magazine. “Trust me. Nobody.” She became pregnant by former boyfriend Levi Johnston and gave birth to a son in late December.
Carrie Prejean, the reigning Miss California and Miss USA contestant, answered a question about gay marriage by saying she was against it, which then created a flap that brought about a raft of other news stories about her.
The actual issues in these cases, and in many others involving those who find sudden fame and then translate that into a platform for their views, raise an interesting debate:
Do these individuals really have an influence on young people? Are they indeed role models?
“They certainly have the potential,” said Kristin Anderson, associate professor of psychology at the University of Houston-Downtown. “Kids tend to find role models that have something in common with them, or potentially in common, such as gender, or ethnicity, or even social class.”
“One of the interesting things in kids 9- to 12-years-old is that they’re pretty sensitive to hypocrisy,” Anderson said. “I don’t know if I knew much about hypocrisy at that age.
“A definite theme from their comments is that so many pop stars get into trouble that they’ve become sensitive to those who fall from grace. What we did is ask them who their main role models were. We thought most kids would pick pop stars or athletes, but most picked their parents or relatives.”
An attitude of mockery, not awe
Robert J. Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University who specializes in pop culture, agrees that young people are savvier than ever. Although the ones he tends to deal with are college aged, he said there is a heightened awareness when it comes to honesty from the suddenly famous.
“Many young people today — certainly most of those that I encounter as a college teacher — are more likely to follow celebrities with an attitude of mockery and superiority rather than an attitude of awe and imitation,” he said. “This is also true of younger kids as well.”
“Spurred on YouTube clips of ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Saturday Night Live,’ many youngsters see Bristol Palin as a punchline, the abstinence business being just the latest variation on the theme,” he explained. “That isn’t to say that some kids don’t use celebrities as temporary role models, but only if they represent something they already believe. A kid who doesn’t like gay marriage might embrace Miss California. It’s unlikely, however, that she changed a single kid’s mind.”
Now put yourself in the place of someone who is newly famous and is sincerely trying to be a good role model.
That is the place that the reigning Miss America finds herself in.
While Prejean triggered discussions about gay marriage, Donald Trump, racy photos and fake breasts, the Miss America folks quietly set out on a campaign to make sure the public knows the difference between their pageant and the one in which Prejean competed.
Miss USA is a for-profit venture owned by Trump. Miss America is a non-profit dedicated to raising money for scholarships and community service. Needless to say, the making of that distinction was a challenging new duty for Katie Stam, the 2009 Miss America.
Miss America's job just got harder
“It is making my job more and more difficult by the day,” said Stam, who said she has logged 20,000 miles of travel time each month in carrying out her duties. “Even though it’s challenging, it’s a challenge I welcome. People have a stereotype in the back of their minds that every beauty pageant is the same, and it’s an opportunity for me to say that there are so many amazing opportunities available with each pageant, and it just depends on what you do with those opportunities.”
Stam recently returned from Germany, where she made a series of appearances. She often tours hospitals and schools and, among other causes, is involved in Heroes At Home, which helps rehabilitate houses for use by military families. She said she often gets feedback from kids about her status as a role model.
“When I go to schools, little girls say to me, ‘I want to be just like you when I grow up,’” Stam said. “It’s very heartwarming because I can put myself in that position. When I was three, I wanted to be Miss America growing up. I’m just a small-town country girl from Indiana with nothing to my name except my name, my fantastic family and a wonderful community. I had this dream and this goal.”
But Ed Robertson, a journalist and pop culture critic, said that while individuals like Stam are indeed positive role models, they are secondary to family and loved ones. “More than ever, it’s really up to parents and teachers and caregivers to instill good values and responsibilities,” he said.
One of Robertson’s points of emphasis is reality television. In a way, both Bristol Palin and Carrie Prejean could be placed in that category, if you broaden the term beyond “The Real World” and “Survivor.” He said there is an important distinction between those who may have some influence during their 15 minutes of fame, and those who have more than 15 minutes’ worth of influence to offer.
“These days,” he said, “kids grow up with reality TV shows where you’re basically encouraged to make a jerk out of yourself and are rewarded with instant fame.
“If you’re a parent and you can avoid the immediate knee-jerk reaction, you can say to your son or daughter, ‘OK, they’re going to get noticed. But unless you have a marketable skill, something you build your sudden fame upon, whatever impact you have is not going to last.”
Michael Ventre lives in Los Angeles and is a regular contributor to msnbc.com.