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by Douglas Eby Role
models can be examples of how to discover and realize your own unique
talents,
and inspiration to do more, to be more authentic. A number of prominent
actors and other people admired as role models have commented about
being
responded to that way, and about their own choices.
The film's star Emma Roberts, 16, said, "When she first came
out in the books there weren’t a lot of young teen girls that
independent and that sure of themselves and stuff like that, at least
not in movies and books. There still aren’t many.." [From my article Where are the
good role models?] Fictional as well as "real" characters may inspire. Leonard Nimoy found Spock to be a part of himself. "Not a day passes that I don't hear that cool, rational voice commenting on some irrational aspect of the human condition," he said. Geena Davis has said her acclaimed role in "Thelma and Louise" had an impact on her work: "It was so different to have people come up to me and say, 'You changed my life.' I thought, 'This is really cool.'... I wanted to be in movies where I do something cool, not where I'm super virtuous, but where I make my own decisions. After 'Thelma and Louise' I took on more responsibility for what I was doing and a desire to choose parts where women could feel free to identify with my character."
"Once I was stuck in an elevator and I'm incredibly claustrophobic and I said to myself, if I were Ripley, I would just wait for people to come and save me. Which I was able to do." Amanda Tapping (of "Stargate SG1") has commented "There is a lack of good role models for women in popular culture, but it's changing. The industry is controlled by men, for the most part, and I think there is an incredible lack of understanding of how to write an equal female character that isn't way over the top - too sexy, or bitchy smart."
"People have written and said when they've gone to a doctor's office to hear about whether a tumor is benign or malignant, they've called upon Scully's strength. It's kind of miraculous." An interviewer of the actor noted, "Scully has become a huge role model. I have a 15-year-old niece and she and all of her friends at school want to be forensic scientists or FBI agents." Anderson responded, "And how amazing is that? If there is one good thing that has come from the show it is what it has done for science and the medical community in terms of the amount of women and young girls that are now interested in those professions. "It's wonderful that women of all ages find Scully to be a role model. She is honest. She is independent. She is smart." Who are some of the women these actresses admire as heroines and role models themselves? Anderson has said her own fictional character, Scully, has become such a model for her: "She has taught me a lot about humanness. She's very responsible, very adult, very mature, she's compassionate. She has a lot of qualities I haven't been but always wished I could be, and have started to pay attention to a little more." Jane Seymour has commented, "One of the most important things about "Dr. Quinn" is that it is inspiring young women to become doctors. I think it inspires young boys to respect women."
"I
don't
think there's ever been someone who's that young as a queen and I think
that's so wonderful, because young girls don't have that kind of role
model
in their lives... "Girls [lose] a lot of confidence in themselves as they grow up. They become much more worried about their looks than their intelligence or their personalities or their kindness or their souls." Portman has commented on being a college student: "I also feel I'm a positive role model by not putting my education on hold. I'm showing girls my age it's not dorky to want to study and go to school instead of just partying." Actress Jena Malone, 15 at the time, commented about working in the film "Stepmom" with Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts: "They inspired me to not do the norm." More recently, Malone said she thinks role model is "such a weird term. There are people who inspire me, but [ultimately] you have to model yourself after yourself. It's great to find people who inspire you and keep them in your life, especially in this business where the experiences are so unique and so alien. Some of the people that I love the most in this business are the ones that have become sort of like surrogate mother types who have totally been there whenever I needed anything." But "being different" or having other qualities that inspire admiration can have an underside as well. "I remember the first time I saw pictures in a magazine of a girl wearing the same sort of freaked-out clothes I wore," singer Cyndi Lauper once said. "I went cold. I felt that my identity had been stolen." Goldie Hawn, speaking of her character in "Private Benjamin" once said, "I suddenly became the prototype for the new woman who was able to call her own shots. That's a myth: no one really calls their own shots. You just come to another plateau in your success." Sally Kirkland (who has had a series of operations to deal with her breast implant problems) has said "Many women look to actresses as role models. I don't want other women to look at having implants as something to follow." Michelle Williams [known for her role in the TV series "Dawson's Creek"] has said one of the reasons she chose to act in "Halloween: H20" was the chance to work with Jamie Lee Curtis: "I had no idea going into it how amazing it would turn out to be, or what she was like, and she's truly a remarkable woman. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her." Williams also admired Curtis' role in the first film: "I was really drawn to her intellect, and how sharp she was, and that she wasn't the helpless victim."
In another interview, Foster, a magna cum laude Yale graduate, commented on part of the value of role models: "I think what we need to do is find out how to make women leaders. Encouraging a leader psychology in women is... much more complicated than just having women be paid the same amount." Melissa
Joan
Hart, asked if being a role model felt like a big responsibility,
responded
"It is and it isn't. I don't know, it's something that just comes with
the job and it's something that I've always felt anyway. I'm the oldest
of 8 children and my career has always kind of revolved around what I
do
and don't want them seeing me doing. And so in that way I'm also kind
of
protecting my audience, I guess."
Helen Hunt has said "It never occurred to me to aspire to be any of these women on TV, because I didn't think I was going to do a TV series. I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman." Meryl Streep upon receiving the first Bette Davis Lifetime Achievement Award, said "I can't even begin to say how thrilled I am to even be mentioned in the same breath as Bette Davis. It's sort of a dream come true..." Claire Forlani has said, "Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis and Claudette Colbert [are] role models. They managed to play the game yet not lose who they were."
"In Annie Oakley [1935], you get back to what made her so great and so popular: She was the original cowgirl. Annie Oakley was a real person, so I'm sure Barbara strongly identified with her, being this lone woman fending for herself in the Wild West shows and whatnot. In a way, I guess Barbara was kind of a lone gunslinger in Hollywood." Agent and manager Joan Hyler has commented about renowned agent Sue Mengers: "She was like this big hurricane... I grew up watching all those Joan Crawford movies where women were always somehow punished for presuming what a man presumes. You know, like, 'I can do it. I'm the best.' She was the first completely autonomous woman. Remember the myth of Athena, where Athena came out of Zeus's head full-grown? That was Sue Mengers. There was a brilliant vulgarity about her." Contemporary actresses are often examples for other actors. Marisa Tomei has listed among her role models Joanne Woodward and Gena Rowlands because, she explained in a magazine interview, "the choices they make about their work are always from the heart. Winning the Oscar gave me a chance to make some very commercial movies. But I felt tormented accepting parts that my heart wasn't in. Once I began choosing roles the way they did, things became a lot easier." Halle Berry has acknowledged her fifth grade teacher, Yvonne Sims, as her hero: "Ms. Sims took me in and guided me in ways that have shaped the woman I've become. What's really remarkable, though, is that she's done this for hundreds of kids. ... She taught me about having a purposeful life and being a woman of integrity. ... She has inspired me to be the best that I can be." Amy Brenneman based her character and her TV series "Judging Amy" on her own mother, seeing her as a role model. "My mom was appointed a juvenile court judge in Hartford in 1967, and as the daughter of a trailblazer I was interested in exploring that," Brenneman said in an interview. An article discussing research on this topic says that gifted students, compared with adolescents in general, tend to admire people as heroes or heroines for showing dedication to work, overcoming adversity, and for having intelligence, creativity and ethical principles. ("Mentors, Role Models, and Heroes...") The article also quotes researcher M.F. Singer [from a Science magazine article]: "The label 'role model' is well intended, and the concept is useful. Yet, the term is bothersome. ... No young American woman could imagine the sacrifice of the lonely years Marie Curie spent in Poland as a governess ... and none of us would want to emulate her disregard for the known dangers of radiation ... "Still, these heroines are more worthy exemplars than contemporary women occupying the roles to which young American women aspire... "Role models will be for naught if there are no heroines from whom to learn about courage, noble purpose, how to reach within and beyond ourselves to find greatness." Talented adults may also admire others for those kinds of values and qualities. In talking about the lives of accomplished women in politics, Dorothy Cantor and Toni Bernay (in "Women in Power..") cite examples where both the mother and father of these leaders were looked to as role models of power, autonomy and what the author's call "Creative Aggression" -- taking initiative, leading others, speaking out. Actress Alicia Witt has said she admires people "who go for what they believe in, like David Lynch for example, and say what goes through their heads, and are not afraid of people not accepting them." Psychologist Gloria Wright, Ph.D. has written, "We tend to think of celebrities or people we don't know well as role models and people we know as mentors. But I don't think it's as simple as that. My definition of a positive mentor is someone whose influence you integrate to help you improve or accomplish goals, while leaving your true self intact." That idea is echoed in a comment by Prof. Kathleen Noble: "A woman to live heroically must belong to herself alone; she must be the center of her own life to pursue a wholeness or integrity that is fluid, inclusive and interconnected... a female hero must insist upon herself, something that most women are neither taught nor encouraged to do."
She thinks these powerful women in many ways provide a modern version of a Greek Pantheon: "When I think about Martha [Stewart], I think about Hestia, the goddess of home. When I think about Oprah, she represents Athena, wisdom and strategy and fighting for causes. And Rosie is Hera, the goddess of motherhood and wifedom." Kathleen Noble, Ph.D. [Research Associate Professor of Women's Studies, and Assistant Director of the Early Entrance Program, Univ of Washington, Seattle] commented: "Recently I was talking to some of my students, who are very bright and aware young men and women, fifteen and sixteen, and I said 'I don't see any what I would consider real role models for women: strong, heroic models, on the tube; what do you think? And these kids, who are extremely verbal, lapsed into silence. "We had a debate about whether Xena, the 'Warrior Princess', could be considered a role model, considering the fact she's bursting out of her costume, and what is it we're supposed to notice? Her martial arts skills or the fact that no warrior could dress like this and keep her dignity intact? Basically the consensus was we couldn't think of any role models." Writer Alice Walker has said, "Models in art, in behavior, in growth of spirit or intellect -- even if rejected -- enrich and enlarge one's view of existence." [from article: "The Importance of Being Influenced"] And psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has declared, "The most important message we can learn from creative people is how to find purpose and enjoyment in the chaos of existence." [from his book: "Creativity.."]
She has said, "I finally realized that being a role model
doesn't mean
people are encouraged to be like me -- they're encouraged to go out and
be more of themselves." Sources
of quotes: Gillian Anderson: Lesbian News - posted on Gillian Anderson site Halle Berry: InStyle mag., March 2002 Amy Brenneman: New York Times, October 24, 1999 Joan Hyler: Premiere mag., 1993 Jena Malone: Parade, 5.14.00; Interview mag. March 2002 Natalie Portman: TV Guide, 05.20.99; Calgary Sun, November 7, 1999 Laura Shamas: LA Times, December 18, 2000 Leelee Sobieski: Interview mag., March, 2001 ~ ~ Reference articles: Mary K. Pleiss and John F. Feldhusen, "Mentors, Role Models, and Heroes in the Lives of Gifted Children", Mensa Research Journal, Summer, 1997 Angela Watrous, "The Importance of Being Influenced", Moxie, Spring, 1999] ~ ~ ~ photo of Barbara
Stanwyck by George Hurrell: Hurrell's
Hollywood Portraits  Related
Talent Development Resources pages:Role Models Self-esteem / self concept Identity The Dark Side of Fame ~ ~ ~ |
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In the new (2007) movie "Nancy
Drew," the heroine uses
and celebrates her intuitive and intellectual abilities as a teen
sleuth, and comes to accept the fact she is exceptional, and does not
fit in with her high school peers mainly concerned with cliques,
clothes and crushes.
Sigourney
Weaver said of her warrior character in the "Alien" films, "I'm not
brave
at all... there've been a couple situations where I was so at a
disadvantage
that I'd ask myself, what would Ripley do? 
Gillian
Anderson once said of her "X-Files" role as FBI agent Dana Scully:
"What
I'm most wonderfully surprised by is what an inspiration this character
is for women. I am constantly approached by women saying she's such a
wonderful
role model who's helped them get through difficult times. 
Jodie
Foster said in a magazine interview that she was drawn to her role in
"Little
Man Tate" because her character Dede was a single mother: "A real hero
to me is a women who has five kids and no money and takes care of them
and survives. That's a heroic feat." 
......Leelee
Sobieski also admires Barbara Stanwyck: "The great thing about [her] is
that she was so tough, and she also managed to be vulnerable at the
same
time. I think that's a rare quality--she's both warm and cold at once.
Watching her films, you never feel that she's this self-effacing
character
that's going to give everything up for a man. ... 
Laura
Shamas, who teaches theater and communications at USC & Pepperdine,
has commented, "Admiring or attempting to emulate a Rosie [O'Donnell]
or
an Oprah is about trying to be your very best." 
This
perspective
has also been expressed by actress Lucy Lawless, who portrays "Xena,
Warrior
Princess" and is often seen as an inspiration to other women and girls.