George Michael

[kenyancowgirl]

He did an awful lot of good for the LGBT community. The pressure he was under to conform for record sales must have been hideous. Whilst certain areas of the media and salacious gossips want to focus on areas in his troubled past, other more responsible sources are focusing on his amazing generosity and support of complete strangers - usually completely anonymously. If that isn't a good role model, then I'm not sure what is. All individuals are flawed. No one is perfect and children particularly are more likely to accept a person who has flawed and then resolved.

[copella]

Timothylewin does it matter if he was a role model? He never set out to be one. My children just see him as another one of those old people their parents liked who has nothing to do with them. I enjoyed his music. It was the music of my youth. I know where I was and the stages of my life from just hearing the songs he wrote.

However just seen kenyancowgirls post which I wholeheartedly agree with and want to add I know of nurses who went to his free concert. I think it's great that he chose to give back directly to those who helped.

[Amber]

What I want for my kids more than anything else really is to be decent human beings. This involves doing things for other people without expectation of personal reward. The more high profile people who do that the better imho. This mad world has gone far enough down the path of individual self-seeking materialism. I do get very frustrated with the media framing of things though which decide what people will think. It is hard to see a way out of it when so many people are totally hooked on celebrity.

[quasimodo]

Isn't this a good role model for anyone ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIxj7Ew_99w" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[doodles]

+1 for KCG and +1 for Copella

Interestingly on Christmas Eve DH and I had been explaining to DS's the social significance of some of our "old" music such as BandAid, George Michael etc. Some who are now held up as being "classic" we're hardly good role models, Coleridge springs instantly to mind


Edited to add crossed with quasi.

[Rob Clark]

This role model stuff is a media construct too, though, isn't it?

I don't think pop singers sing thinking they want to be role models, or hoping to be role models – the media claim they are primarily so they can set them up for a fall later, because we all make mistakes.

George Michael sounds like a really nice person who carried out many kindly acts under a cloak of anonymity. I for one had no idea he was so generous. I couldn't care less about his ******** orientation.

[kenyancowgirl]

Neither could I, Rob - but I am very glad that he, Ellen de Generes, Graham Norton etc etc have hopefully helped to make life for any LGBT teenager easier. They may not know they have, but the more mainstream acceptance can only help.

I do agree that celebrity role models are a media construct - great sportsmen and women are to be admired but more and more they appear to have to embrace celebrity to be seen as role models. I just asked my younger son who his role model was - his great grandparents who came over from India with nothing in the 1940s, didn't speak a word of English, but made a great life for their family. I'll take that....

[Tinkers]

So he wasn't perfect, but then none of us are. We all just get on with the deck that life gives us.

What he did do, and what more of us should do, is notice that some people have a lousy deck of cards and tried to improve their lot, simply because he could and not because he wanted the publicity. Not the "look at me, I'm wonderful. See how much I give to others", but simply because despite his faults, he was a decent person.

[Catseye]

Pop/rock stars, premier footballers ..... don't choose to be role models, it's a burden they could do without.

I think, KCG, grandparents should be the true role models for our children in terms of morals and the value of education.

Which KCG has obviously inherited-despite our occasional spats

[kenyancowgirl]

Why, thank you, Catseye!