Celebrities Higher Standard

Anderson Ferreira

Composition 1

20 October 2017

Dr. Garner

        In today’s society, many of the actors, performers, and professional athletes are looked upon as role models, especially in the developing minds of young children. Many children see these celebrities on television, social media, or just hear about them from friends.  Children often believe that to be famous or to have people like them, they should behave like their celebrity idols.  There are so many negative influences out there affecting today’s youth.  Prominent rappers such as Meek Mill are getting arrested for parole violations.  The music of artists such as 21 Savage, Lil Uzi, and Lil Yachty glorify the use of drugs and violence. These types of individuals go out and show off how doing illegal, deadly drugs makes them “cool”.   Still, there are celebrities who stand on the exact opposite side of this totem pole. Ashton Kutcher is world known actor for many comedies that he has done, most importantly his MTV sitcom show “Punk’D”. What is not as known as his acting career is that he also runs a non-profit organization dedicated to combating sexual trafficking.

There is also Colin Kaepernick, a professional football player who as of recently become a very influential person due to his kneeling during the national anthem for racial injustice in today’s society. With contributions of no lesser, possibly greater than the two aforementioned celebrities, there is Ellen Degeneres, whom many of us know from her hit television series, where she has donated over 50 million dollars.  What do you think our youth is going to believe? Should we just condemn the actions of celebrities such as Meek Mill as those of regular delinquents?  Should we demand that all celebrities take a moral high road due to their influential power?

        Teenagers listen to an average 2.5 hours of music per day. In this time teens range from rap, to R&B, hip-hop country etc. 1 in out of 3 tops songs reference to drugs or alcohol according to The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.  Statistics will show that children are receiving more than 30 different reference or negativity between drugs and alcohol for every hour they are listening to music. Even though songs about drugs have been popular since the 1980’s, that is not the issue. What is getting so much more attention is that teenagers have more access to these types of music because of today’s technology.

        In 2006, Western Connecticut State University conducted a study to evaluate young people and see if rap music videos conducted violent behaviors. 11 teenagers watched a violent music video, 11 teenagers watched a non-violent music video, while 11 didn’t watch any music video acting as the control group. In the violent music video, it had aggressive behavior, degradation towards women, and had violent lyrics it was later found out that the 11 teenagers that watched the violent video acted more violently when asked questions about families, morals, or hypothetical scenarios regarding women. It is proven that people are more likely to act from what they see.

        How many celebrities can you count that have been charged with a crime? Snoop Dogg has been charged with drug possession 5 different times, while also charged with a firearm in 2006. Mark Walhberg was addicted to cocaine, among other things by the age of 13. At the age of 16 he assaulted to Asian men which was said were racially motivated attacks. O.J. Simpson charged was found guilty of kidnapping, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in 2008. Jay-Z was found guilty of stabbing his record producer in 1999. These are just few of many crimes celebrities have committed.

        The presence of celebrities’ criminal actions is quite overwhelming. However, that is not to say that there are not many celebrities that do spend their time working on just causes. For example, Ashton Kutcher he began a non-profit organization named Thorn which was once called DNA Foundation. Thorn is an international anti-human trafficking organization that works to address the sexual exploitation of children. Thorn was created after Ashton Kutcher was viewing a documentary on human trafficking and sexual slavery of children in Cambodia. While catching some interest and doing some research Ashton Kutcher later realized that human trafficking not only exist in Cambodia but it also exists here in the United States.

        Ashton Kutcher and his ex-wife Demi Moore started this organization because they felt it hit home, thinking what if it was their children being kidnapped.  In 2012, the name changed from DNA Foundation to Thorn. Since that time, the organization has saved over 6,000 sex trafficking victims and over 2,000 people have been incarcerated for the illegal act.  

        There are also many other celebrities that have left a positive impact on society. Colin Kaepernick has made one of the biggest impacts in the year of 2017. Colin Kaepernick showed us and preached about his feelings towards racial injustice and corruptions within the political leaders. Colin has made his own website with created the “million-dollar challenge” in which he donates a 100,000 a month to different charities to make a difference in today’s youth. The Colin Kaepernick foundation goal is to fight oppression of all kinds globally through education and social activism, as said on his website.

        “I will donate on million dollars plus all the proceeds of my jersey sales from the 2016 season to organizations working in oppressed communities, 100,000 a month for 10 months.” (Colin Kaepernick)

Colin said that in early October of 2016 many people didn’t think he wouldn’t push through and he was all talk but his goal was reached in July 2017.

        Every month Kaepernick donated $100,000 which mostly included donating into 3 to 4 different organizations and explained in detail what the money were used for. In October of 2016 Kaepernick donated $25,000 to Coalition for the Homeless. That money was used for delivering food to those in need all 365 days a year. Connecting more than 9,000 homeless people with shelter, housing, public benefits, substance abuse treatment, mental health programs, domestic violence counseling and job training. In December of 2016 Colin donated $50,000 to UCSF for The Mni Wiconi Health Clinic Partnership at Standing Rock. With that donation, they were able to buy building material for the mobile medical clinic, medical supplys and to the doctors and nurses on set.