Saturday, September 10, 2011
Role Models
For this blog post I decided to focus on the idea of super heroes as role models. First I googled "super hero role models". Surprisingly, many of the first few links were about how super heroes where BAD role models for young boys. They said how modern super heros taught boys violence and aggression, focusing specifically on Robert Downey Jr.s portrayal of Iron Man. As I continued searching, I did find many sources that did think super heroes were good role models for children- saying how they supported doing right and justice. I thought both were valid points to make and wondered if women super heroes where supported as role models for young girls. I had a hard time finding information specifically on women super heroes as role models, most of them grouped all superheroes together or else focused specifically on boys. The one good site that did have specific information to do with super heroine role models (http://motherwise.us/PHP-Nuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=57), was in general supportive of using super heroines as role models but did state how difficult it was for a young girl to find a women super hero to look up to.
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I agree with superheroes teaching violence to young boys. They read these comic books and watch movies with these "heroes" and see people getting beaten up and sometimes killed. I understand that point is to teach them the ideas of right verses wrong and justice, but i think a different approach should be taken in doing so.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that it teaches direct violence. Something that directly teaches violence could be movies (or books) such as The Godfather, Casino or maybe the Fast and Furious series because they display violence for the purpose of protecting your own benefits, whereas superheroes, most of the time, have specific purposes for doing what they do. Of course not all of them are very principled, but the message a boy would take out of a super hero wouldn't be plain violence. It would be more on the lines of to protect what's right, against people who are not afraid to be violent, you have to be brave enough to be violent as well.
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