Do Like He Did and Get Over the ‘Role Model’ Fixation

Every so often, phrases creep into the public dialogue that at first seem harmless and even enlightening. Then, it’s as though everyone feels a need to use the phrase at least once a day or risk being banished from society.

In 1991, the Clarence Thomas hearings on sexual harassment spawned “they just don’t get it” and, for a long time after, rare was the debate on any subject in which one side or the other did not eventually invoke those words. It got to the point that whenever I heard someone use the phrase--regardless of which side of an argument they were on--I instantly wired money to their opponent.

Other nominees on my list would be “not a happy camper,” which then-Vice President Dan Quayle helped popularize, and the accolade that someone “not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.” A perfectly good sentiment, but can we please think of another way to describe it?

Thankfully, those phrases seem to be in varying states of decline nowadays, but a replacement buzz phrase is always at the ready. The one rocketing around the landscape these days is “role model.”

You can’t tell the role models without a scorecard, but the conventional thinking seems to be that Dennis Rodman isn’t a role model, but Michael Jordan is. Madonna isn’t; Meryl Streep is, or at least would be, if she ever said anything in public. John McEnroe a role model? Never was. Threw too many rackets and cussed out too many linesmen. Take Pete Sampras instead.

According to my dictionary, “role model” originated in 1957. I’m guessing either a psychologist with an acting-out patient or the Sputnik design crew used it first and never imagined it would be applied 40 years later to a basketball player with dyed hair.

But here we are. Los Angeles Times files for the last three years reveal that “role model” has appeared in just under 2,000 articles. That should alarm any citizen.

As with the other phrases that get my goat (a phrase that will never go out of style), the problem with “role model” is that it is now used willy-nilly. It probably had a specific usage way in 1957, but now anyone in the public eye is a potential role model.

With most designations in life, though, a person aspires to such a title. Someone sets out to be a “skilled actor” or “successful politician” and is judged accordingly. Role modeldom, however, is thrust upon people whether they want it or not. A person may know full well that he or she is a jerk, never claiming otherwise, but suddenly finds him or herself lambasted for being a bad role model. That would be like someone attacking me publicly for being a bad chef.

Not to beat a dead Bull, but isn’t it rather absurd to even discuss Mr. Rodman in a role-model context? Did he ever say he wanted to be a role model for America’s youth? As best I can determine, his primary purpose for existing, at present, seems to be to grab as many rebounds as possible on the court and be as ridiculous as possible off of it. Why is anyone moved to consider him as a role model candidate, good or bad?

This new ‘90s-style insistence that athletes or actors be good role models may have the opposite intended effect. Even Rodman, who gives the impression he’s not overly concerned with convention, has lately sounded repentant. He says he shouldn’t be likened to Hannibal Lecter, the madman killer in “Silence of the Lambs,” which suggests to me that ol’ Dennis is taking this role model stuff way too seriously. (Incidentally, Lecter would not be a good role model, whereas Clarice, the FBI agent played by Jodie Foster, would be as the result of opening career doors for other women.)

Maybe the shrinks would tell us we have role models on the brain because we need them. Perhaps there is a void in our lives. We don’t have George Washington or Abe Lincoln around anymore (both good role models) to tell us not to lie or cheat, so we transfer their status to people like Bill Cosby and Colin Powell and hope we don’t make a mistake in judgment, as we did with Pee Wee Herman, who went from good role model to a guy in a raincoat.

I realize I’ve added one more Times entry to the overall total, but maybe this will be the last we’ll hear about role models. In truth, 99% of the good ones are working undercover already, as parents and fellow workers in American homes and offices.

As for our celebrity friends, it would be nice to reach a point where we’d go to a movie or a ballgame and admire the artistry of the performers but not contemplate the impact on our lives of their personal conduct.

If we could just stop doing that, then maybe we’d stop reading about them and, at long last, that infernal and overworked phrase would get a well-deserved rest.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.