Hectic life

Where Have all the Good Guys Gone?

By Mark Rhoads

Most young mothers with boys under the age of eleven likely do not have much spare time to read Illinois Review. But if you are out there, I would love to know what characters both real or fictional are popular with boys today, and are they thought of as positive role models? When I was a boy more than fifty years ago, our heroes were older kids in the neighborhood, older brothers or cousins, and our Dads. We also looked up to sports figures. On television (we had it back then only in black and white) we loved the cowboy heroes such as The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Hickock, and the Cisco Kid among others. For space characters we had reruns of movie serials such as Flash Gordon, made-for TV shows such as Captain Video, Rocky Jones Space Ranger and the all-purpose crime-fighting Superman. We had old movie cartoons for comedy and entertainment, but our role models were never cartoons, they were always human. Even the comic book heroes such as Superman came to life in human form with actors such as George Reeves.

But today the role models so often seem to be animated characters such as Ninja Turtles or the Power Rangers or other created beings that are not always human. When we had cowboys and assorted good guys on TV back then, there was usually some life lesson or moral of the story that was taught with a line at the end such as “Remeber kids, always follow the directions of your school patrol and drink your Ovaltine.” OK, it was sometimes combined with a commercial. So here is the question for young mothers or observant grandmothers, are they any role models on TV today for young boys and if so, what moral lessons do they teach? I would like to know how kids now learn their value system if they learn outside the home from popular culture?

Obama tape

We cannot go back to the good old days and should not try. But since TV was once an ally rather than an enemy of values at home, I am wondering what if anything is being done to counteract its bad effects or if it is a problem. Does the substitution of animated characters for human actors mean that values are no longer taught on popular shows?

Related posts: Www.eduplace.com, Julian king, Official xbox magazine, India moon mission ready for launch