This is a question that regularly comes back, why should rock stars be regarded as role models? They aren’t and never should pretend to be, but we keep forcing them to play this role in our society as if it was something unavoidable.
Rihanna has said she preferred to have fun than to be a role model, this is her own right, and I must admit she sounded very right when she declared
‘I want to set the right example and, at the same time, live my life….I feel like pop stars can’t be rock stars anymore because they have to be role models, and it takes the fun out of it for us, because we just want to have fun with art.’
Richard Mars basically said the same thing when he was arrested for cocaine possession, ‘I'm not gonna preach that I'm a role model, I'm a fucking musician!’
They were right because yes, rock stars should not be considered as role models, however little girls wants to dress up like Rihanna or Nicki Minaj, little boys wants to sing like Mars or Bieber, and inevitably act like them. Rock stars are a big part of the culture we are bathing in, and with big bucks come big influence! Rihanna or any other stars of the moment can’t escape the game.
If some don’t want to be role models, others try very hard to precisely be role models, I am talking about the Lady Gagas of the music world, and their dare-to-be-yourself’ or be-anything-you-like attitude, despite the over-sexualisation of the gay parade raunchy outfits.
But this may be a recent phenomenon, we weren’t talking about it decades ago when the Stones, Dylan, the Beatles, the Doors, Marvin Gaye dominated the charts. Think about stupid it would have been to ponder the question whether Keith Richards is a good role model or not! But our culture has become more and more oriented toward children and now we are always concerned by them.
But at the end, do Rihanna’s last song or Lady Gaga’s last discourse matter? Far less than you think according to a recent Canadian study by Dr. Jean-Yves Frappier, a researcher at the University of Montreal. In an online survey, adolescents were asked about sexual health information, communication about sexual health and sexual activities, and only 15% appeared to look to celebrities to form their sexual opinions and attitudes. 32 % of the adolescents taking the questionnaire regarded their friends to be a role model, and the majority looked to their parents. There are even other studies which seem to corroborate this funding and this totally makes sense to me. We should stop thinking about our rock stars in terms of role models and we should stop blaming the culture, it’s the parents!