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Media
The media will try and make people believe things; that has always been the case and sadly always will be. There is no such thing as purely objective media, it’s true for any area but it’s very true when it involves young celebrities. With this whole role model thing I think that the media are the main ones to blame for it actually, trying to make people seem a certain way. When they have succeeded in building up this image; they make things look worse than they actually are, focusing on the bad rather than on the good. When a media outlet reports on something that isn’t actually bad but presents it in a way that it is, is it really the “role model” that is doing something bad?

The thing with the media is that it has changed, a lot; mainly because of the internet. The pressures on young stars and the scrutiny on them is so much higher than it has been for people even one generation earlier. More and more people have access to the internet and also access to faster internet. Even when you look at when the likes of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan had their career start, the internet for the most part was still dial up. Sites like TMZ.com and Perezhilton.com didn’t exist yet, they only started five years ago, let alone the million other clones that are out there by now.

When Britney broke through in 1998 it was still the tabloids that were in charge of celebrity reporting. Scandals existed yes but they were reported on once a week, maybe a couple of times a week. A celebrity was forgotten about fairly quickly, if a scandal even came to light that is. Today with who knows how many gossip sites there is a far greater call for material and modern technology helps them in that.

When we just look at private pictures that are being leaked of celebrities, whether they are scandalous or not they are still being leaked. That didn’t happen in the past. Why not? Because five years ago most phones didn’t have cameras, these days decent digital cameras cost next to nothing and every phone has a camera. A lot more pictures are taken, do you really think that in the past people didn’t do anything “scandalous”? Of course they did, there just weren’t any cameras recording it.

What also happens is that the media keeps the image alive even though it isn’t actually there. When you take Miley Cyrus as an example; her first “scandals” came along very early, when she was only fifteen years old. Be it hacked images or her topless shoot (let us forget for convenience that it was shot by a famous art portrait photographer), so she hasn’t been “perfect” for a long time, so why still pretend that she is?

The topless thing is just another way of treating her differently anyway. When Taylor Momsen does a topless photoshoot with pasties (17, so she can’t exactly show nipple) no one actually notices. Though that might be because the actual shoot isn’t out yet, it’s not even her first topless shoot as a minor, she’s done one before which no one paid attention to. So for something to be a scandal it also takes the media to make it one. If they’d report unbiased, there wouldn’t even be a problem in most cases.

Parents
The role parents play in the role model thing is that it seems like parents are trying to blame the problems of society on young celebrities. “My kid looks up to celebrity A, so if celebrity A does this, so will my kid.” Well no, that’s not how it works.

Having a kid admire a celebrity can be a good thing, it shows them what they can achieve if they set their mind to something. It also brings them joy in the form of music, TV shows and movies. There is nothing bad about it, however using celebrities as a moral guide for kids is wrong. Even worse than that is using them as a scapegoat for the troubles in society. Celebrities are a product of society, they don’t create it.

The unrealistic image
Celebrities are kept to an unrealistic standard, they aren’t allowed to make mistakes. When they do something that is considered “bad” they will be burned for it, doesn’t matter what it is and doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not. Though the problem is that certain celebrities and companies actually feed into this image; with the purpose of increasing their popularity. Using an artificial image as a marketing tool is only going to do one thing; bite you in the ass.

You can’t present a young teenager as a perfect human being, they don’t even know who they are yet. They still have so many experiences to go through and can’t possible know where their path in life will take them. Yet somehow they are seen by media and parents as perfect human beings, they aren’t allowed to make mistakes. Thing is, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t make mistakes. There are always “bad” things about a person, even if they aren’t really all that bad to begin with.

The “bad” influences
So what bad things are these young celebrities doing that are such a bad influence on our youth?

Smoking
An age old subject by now, the idea that when a young celebrity smokes that the youth will be doing the same. Let me first point out that about 1 out of 5 adults smoke, this is actually a fairly low number, for most countries it will actually be higher. I absolutely hate smoking, I have nothing nice to say about the subject but why hate on someone for smoking?

I also would have to point out that I think that young celebrities might actually take up smoking easier than other groups of people. Why? There are smoking roles in movies, not just for adults but also for teenagers. They of course can’t actually smoke cigarettes because it would be illegal, they use herbal cigarettes. It removes the addictive nicotine factor, however when someone learns to smoke, even if they aren’t real cigarettes they get used to the sensation of inhaling smoke. Combine that with a lot of people in the business smoking I would say that it’s not a stretch that they try smoking real cigarettes at a later date. Also when you add in the stresses of Hollywood and know that nicotine has a calming effect.

Someone like Kirsten Dunst had smoking roles at a teenager but in that process also said that she’d never smoke because she hates it. Doesn’t stop her from smoking now, just like Abigail Breslin just did a role where she had to smoke herbal cigarettes. She also said that she wouldn’t do it, that she hates it but she’s 14, who knows what she will do two or more years from now. Even at an older age when they are legal to smoke it can have an influence.

Anne Hathaway admitted that she pretty much became a chain smoker by shooting her Oscar nominated role Rachel Getting Married (though she says she has quit now). Celebrities will also be hounded for saying that they’d never smoke, they make those statements at a young age. How many things have you done you once said you’d never do?

Note that this is just a form of explanation, some understanding, it’s in no way an excuse. They are influences from their environment, just like there are influences in the environment of other teenagers. A teenager won’t start smoking because a celebrity does; odds are that in most cases they will never see them smoking other than in a movie or two. I would actually have to refer to a quote by Taylor Momsen; she’s not telling kids to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes.

With 1 out of 5 adults smoking, I would also think that it’s far more likely that kids get confronted by the habit in their surroundings. If a teenager has a parent, grandparent, sibling or whoever that smokes, are you really going to blame a celebrity for it? The “cool” factor would be enforced more in school than any other celebrity ever could.

Drugs
Celebrities do drugs thus kids will start doing drugs. No they won’t; when a celebrity goes to rehab for a cocaine addiction, do you honestly think that a teenager goes “I want that too!!!!!” I think quite the opposite. If we’re talking about drugs like marihuana I think it would be wiser to look at the laws in place. It’s attractive because it’s illegal and in the scope of drugs not really all that bad.

I’m willing to bet that there are more pot smokers amongst teens in the USA than there are in the Netherlands. Sure, it’s illegal to do so for teenagers in both countries but when it’s not all that illegal, the danger factor gets removed. Even in the USA it seems to be becoming more and more normal these days, though still illegal.

The recent “trouble” around smoking drugs was of course Miley Cyrus smoking Salvia from a bong. Supposedly causing a dramatic increase in Salvia sales; sales tripled! According to some media. Sure, they might have tripled but how much was the actual increase in volume? We never heard anything about that, did a head shop sell 3 bags instead of 1 or did they sell 300 instead of 100? Statistics can be manipulated and be used to tell your own version of the truth. Besides, who does a sales analysis over a period of one day? Make a statement about it a year from now, not the day after.

Besides, the drug is legal. I might not approve of that sort of thing but no crimes were committed. Miley is deemed such a bad role model for smoking the Salvia, people are crying out that Hannah Montana should be pulled from the Disney channel and what not. So why would those same parents let their kid go see Twilight? Kristen Stewart is a known smoker and most of all a known pot smoker. No idea how often she does it but she has been caught in public doing it yet no one really cared.

Rather telling really, Miley smokes something legal and the world comes to an end, Kristen smokes something illegal and no one really gives a shit. Sure there was a short blip in the media when it happened but nothing more than that. In the end however neither Miley or Kristen is telling anyone to smoke anything.

That Miley smoked a bong once for some reason makes a lot of people think that she is a drug addict. For a drug addict you’d expect someone to know how to smoke a bong a whole lot better but do these people even know what they’re saying? They’re reducing a case where a teenager seemingly tries something for the first time to an addiction. You know what that is? It’s actually an insult to addicts. There is no way to judge based on one single video whether someone has a drug problem or not.

Now there is this supposed idea from Disney to start counseling their young stars, to avoid the pitfalls of the celebrity life. Who better to do it than Britney Spears right? She’s been through things, she knows what she’s talking about. Though the general feeling seems to be that it would mainly be a way for Disney to save their face after Demi Lovato heading to rehab and a lot of people believing that Miley will do the same in the future.

It also makes me wonder about the media, why would you ask thirteen year old Bella Thorne on how she will avoid going the wrong way in the future? I’m pretty sure that if you’d have asked Britney or Lindsay the same question at that age they would have said the exact same thing. Make sure you stay close to your family etc, etc, etc. It doesn’t really matter. Bella doesn’t know what person she’s going to be five years from now and neither does the media. So presenting a thirteen year old as someone who has done nothing wrong is obvious. She hasn’t had the time to make “mistakes” yet.

Alcohol
Again focusing on the USA I have to say that I noticed one thing about people who turn 21. It’s all about the booze, even the ones that don’t really care for alcohol at least make it a plan to have their first drink on that night. There is this build up in culture where having your first drink is a big occasion, though for most it wouldn’t even be the first drink. Referring back to the illegal and dangerous factor as with drugs.

There was the story of Miley again, drinking a beer in a nightclub in Madrid (though the only picture that exists actually only shows her holding it). Outrage! It’s illegal for her to drink! The drinking age is 18 in Madrid? No media, it’s 16, not 18. You can pretty much drink beer and wine everywhere in Europe at that age, in some countries it’s even accepted younger than that. I’ve seen ten year old girls down a pint of Fosters without much trouble (though that isn’t exactly a positive example).

So why is it a problem that Miley drinks a Corona in a night club in Madrid where she is allowed to do so? Because she’s a role model! Yes, a role model that’s not breaking any law; stop the presses
!. Just because the drinking age is 21 in the USA it doesn’t mean she has to conform to that in countries where other laws apply. It’s just a problem because it’s Miley though, when Hayden Panettiere was celebrating New Year’s Eve in Italy with champagne (or the Italian equivalent) when she was just 18, no one cared. Though she wasn’t actually on the Disney Channel but she also didn’t do anything wrong.

Partying
People say that Miley is the next Lindsay or Britney because of her hard partying ways! What hard partying ways? Yes, she’s been to nightclubs and she’s bound to have had private parties (besides ones where some lowlife records her smoking a bong) but does this actually paint us a picture of Miley’s partying life? We don’t see her coming out of night clubs in the middle of the night each and every week. We also don’t know what she does when she is at a club like that.

Oh hang on, we actually do. So far anything I read about Miley being at a club was in the range of she was dancing and drinking Red Bulls. Now I find stuff like Red Bull disgusting but the only thing it is, is an energy drink. It’s not exactly anything bad. Though most gossip sites won’t mention it that way, there it only matters that she was at a night club, that it could possibly have been rented out for a private party doesn’t really matter. Not really interesting anyway; telling the truth would make it seem harmless.

For all we know she actually might have been partying too much, we don’t know. Like so many things we don’t know, however the story the media tells about it isn’t the real one. I would have to ask what teenager doesn’t go to parties though, seems like a very normal thing to do. The thing with Lindsay Lohan also was that her partying ways interfered with her work, showed up to set late or not at all because she was out until who knows how late the day before. Has there been any report about Miley or any other current teen star in that sense? No there hasn’t, none that I know of anyway.

There of course was a tabloid that recently reported that people were worried that Miley would get Kelly Osbourne on the wrong path again (the tabloid in question is as reliable as a broken clock though). Kelly sprung into defense mode and revealed that Miley is actually being a good influence and that she’s learning a lot from her. Now when we shortly go back to the counseling idea with Britney Spears. People feel that it’s a good idea because she’s been through things.

So has Kelly Osbourne but how do people react? She’s a drug addict and parties herself! Have you taken a look at Kelly Osbourne lately? She changed, a LOT, she’s put some work into herself. She’s even admitting that she can’t promise that she will never relapse. Does that sound like a person who hasn’t faced their mistakes from the past? I think not, so why wouldn’t someone like Kelly be able to help someone like Miley? Guide her through things that come with the celebrity life at that age? The only thing I can think of is the prejudice against Miley and that for some reason people just don’t like Kelly.

Doesn’t every teenager go to parties? Even the biggest couch potato does once in a while, the only thing they look at in regards to young celebrities there is music. Depending on the party there might be some Miley playing or the Pretty Reckless. People throw parties; that is being taught to kids from a very young age, starting with their first birthday.

Clothing
Oh yes, the clothes celebrities wear. What would the gossip press do without them? When you go judging dresses on a red carpet, go right ahead. That’s a public spectacle anyway so people are bound to be judging what people wear. There is also a sort of dress code for certain events so it’s natural that people would be required to follow that.

What about their day to day clothing though? Does it really matter? People seem to think so and the number of paparazzi sort of prove that. Though what I don’t get, a couple of years ago there was this trend where you could see celebrities wearing three or four outfits on the same day. People complained that they were treating the streets as a red carpet and yes, it did make things look very fake. That seems to have changed though, when I look at paparazzi pics things seem to have gotten way more casual. So what do people do? They complain, that celebrities should try harder. You truly can’t please everyone.

If we look at Miley Cyrus again; she has this tendency to wear things more than once. Even days in a row when she could afford to wear something new every day! Why would she? If she likes a pair of shoes or if she likes a T-shirt why not wear it frequently? I actually commend her for that. Whether people like the things she wears is a personal matter.

The same goes for her stage outfits, too sexy a lot of people say. Sure, the outfits she wears aren’t exactly shy and there is bound to be some sex sells factor involved. That they fit with what she does and that they might be comfortable is of less importance obviously. If Miley wears a leotard on stage, does it cause an increase of leotard sales all of a sudden? No of course not, it’s a stage outfit, it’s for a performance, it’s not what she wears out in public on her off day.

It’s the same old story anyway. I remember that my high school made the national news because of our new anti-Britney Spears dress code, a ban on stomach revealing tops. You know, because it was a Catholic school and one or two students actually wore one to school. Were they inspired by Britney? Possibly, was it a fashion trend? No. If Miley was trying to start a fashion trend; wouldn’t her clothing line feature more leotards and less normal teenage clothes?

Same goes for any clothing range presented by a teen celebrity really. I would say that Selena Gomez’ clothing line is very conservative compared to what she wears. Yes, people tend to ignore Selena a bit but if they would actually take notice, her casual clothing style isn’t exactly all that shy either. Very casual yes but casual to the point of no bras being present. Even Dakota Fanning can be seen out and about revealing a whole lot of bra, there’s just no one that cares.

Tattoos
I honestly believed that tattoos were getting more and more widely accepted. That they were becoming normal, where in the past there was still a stigma on tattoos we even have tattooing celebrities these days. I mean someone like Kat Von D. is doing well for herself and she’s a tattoo artist who managed to become famous.

You’ll also have a hard time finding a young celebrity who doesn’t have any ink, sure they exist but in a way I believe that the tattoo has truly become mainstream. Until Miley Cyrus decided to get inked up that is. The girl likes tattoos, that much has already become evident now. Getting three within a year when you’re only 17 is quite a lot, though none of them are actually really big and you actually need parental consent for it, so they would have been signed off on.

So why is it scandalous that she gets them? It seems that just because it’s Miley, it’s a bad thing that she gets tattoos. That she’s getting them because she’s rebelling, trying to get rid of her Disney image and what not. I really need to find a new definition of the word rebel when it means that someone gets a tattoo in memory of a dead friend, designed by her own mother no less. The word LOVE in her ear, as a symbol to keep the negativity out or a heart on her pinky finger because everyone in her family has a heart tattooed on their hand. Here I was thinking that things like skulls and cross bones or upside down pentagrams were signs of that. It’s also odd to rebel by getting tattoos when your parents both have who knows how many tattoos.

If it’s a way of getting rid of a Disney image; why has no one ever written about the many tattoos of Hilary Duff? She was a Disney star a big one and can be seen sporting something like half a dozen tattoos. When someone like Hayden Panettiere gets a tattoo it’s funny because there is a spelling error in it, otherwise it doesn’t matter. Those girls aren’t exactly old either and teenagers also look up to them, so why is them having tattoos fine but not for Miley?

I’ve also never really heard anyone make a statement about Demi Lovato rebelling with her tattoos, while she has one in pretty much the same place as Miley (just on the other side of her chest) and one behind her ear. Because no one cares really, though maybe now they will more seeing she was in rehab. Which in itself is quite wrong, putting more pressure on someone right after they have dealt with underlying issues.

Why are tattoos bad? There are many forms of body modification. A lot of people are saying that Miley should get her front teeth fixed because she has a crooked tooth. Getting this fixed would be a form for body modification, just like a tattoo or piercing. If she’s fine with her crooked tooth why would she get it fixed? Just because other people think she should? People also wouldn’t be bitching as much if she had gotten breast implants, sure they’d bitch about it somewhat but tattoos? Oh yeah, those are way worse. You know, a little ink added as body art is far worse than being put to sleep and two small silicone bags shoved into a chest.

Plastic surgery isn’t a bad thing for people who it can help to improve their body image, just like a tattoo isn’t anything bad. People are free to do with their bodies what they want, I wouldn’t be surprised if some gossip blog writer goes to visit her botox clinic right after trashing Miley for getting a tattoo. No, you don’t have to approve of tattoos, you can hate them all you want. Does it mean they are a bad thing? Of course not, they’re a choice like so many things in life.

Sex
Oh yes, the sex subject. Are celebrities still virgins? Are they staying pure until marriage? Honestly, why do people want to know and why are they putting their noses into private matters?

Here is an example of where marketing ties in with the whole role model shit. The purity rings, rings that are shoved on teen stars swearing abstinence until they are married. These promises are made by young teens, when you ask someone in the age range 12-14 on whether they plan on having sex anytime soon, I think that the answer will most likely be no. It’s not a subject they would have thought about all that much yet.

The promise ring is just stating the obvious at that stage, something the media feeds into and blows up as something good. Don’t we live in a world where sex before marriage has become widely accepted? I’m not saying that abstinence is a bad idea, it’s something that is a feeling that someone can have, something they feel they have to do. I don’t think a ring is needed to enforce that. Teenagers change, when a teenager puts on a ring at 12 and at 16 realizes that they want to have sex, is the ring really going to stop them? I sincerely doubt it.

Now that Selena Gomez is rumored to be dating Justin Bieber it has actually become a subject of interest that she doesn’t wear a purity ring anymore. Somehow that means that she’s having sex now. What if she did? Who on earth cares, it’s her business and no one else’s. She doesn’t need a ring to show whether she is still a virgin or not. She also might simply not feel that way anymore and removed the ring for other reasons without giving up her virginity. The gossip sites want the juicy stuff though obviously.

In a way, I always felt a bit strange about people like Selena or Miley wearing them. It almost seems like they were told to put them on, seeing that in a way they are an insult to their parents. Why would you advocate something as wrong when you’re saying that you yourself are a mistake in that sense? Though it seems that Disney and the media have toned down on the whole purity ring thing, I haven’t seen it pointed out anywhere in a while. Except for the Selena thing that is.

Homophobia
Recently there were leaked pictures of Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, pictures in which they are close to other girls. Wildly inappropriate is what people are calling it, girl on girl action! First of of all, if you want girl on girl action go rent a good Lesbian porn movie. Second, has the world gone homophobic or something?

Since when is it wrong for a girl to kiss another girl? Whether people approve of it or not, being gay is a normal thing in our society these days. So what if Miley or Demi would be gay or bisexual? If that’s their nature, so be it; there would be nothing about it. Even suggesting it is a stretch, have the people who write that stuff ever gone to teenage parties when they were younger? Girls getting cozy with each other really isn’t anything rare and in a lot of cases there isn’t even anything gay involved. Miley and Demi goofing off in pictures isn’t anything different by the looks of it.

So what if her make up artist lifts up Miley’s dress a little or has her mouth close to Miley’s breast? Miley’s expression to me suggests that they’re goofing off. She’s doing it to keep up with Demi is what some people are even suggesting. Those pictures aren’t leaked by Miley herself, or Demi for that matter. The picture was taken back in June (which can be easily figured out but the media are just too lazy to do so), long before there was any Demi “picture scandal” so how was there any intent to spread it? If she wanted to start a scandal she’d take a new pic now and spread it, not use one from six months ago.

It’s a pretty well known fact by now that Miley has a serious picture leak somewhere and that is something she should take care of. The idea that anyone would leak pictures on purpose, to ask for bad press is just beyond weird. They really should take a look at how humans work, when you’re beyond hounded, beyond trashed in the media, no one is going to do anything on purpose to make it worse.

Then there are is the on stage move where Miley dips one of her dancers. Girl on girl kiss on stage; Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock did an on stage kiss this year and that was even acted but it was still more of a kiss than anything Miley did. I haven’t seen any lip locking on stage by Miley, it’s just a dance move, part of the choreography, deal with it. I really question what people are thinking when they write that sort of crap. Do they even realize that they’re being beyond homophobic, by calling something interpreted as gay, bad?

Morality
Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are apparently bad people for having personal issues. Yes, they have committed criminal acts in getting busted for things like DUI but I think it’s widely proven that they have underlying causes for their problems. They’re not bad people, they’re just people who have made mistakes and in some cases continue to make them. Do they have any bad intent in doing so? I sincerely doubt so and that is what makes a bad person stand out; intent!

The whole bad girl thing is beyond screwed up anyway. Like Miley and Demi are branded the new Disney bad girls now, sure, they could go the way of Britney or Lindsay but so could Selena. There is no way to predict the future and times have changed a lot since Britney and Lindsay started their downward spirals. Also just as I said, it doesn’t actually make them bad people. That’s however what people make them out to be. Give these people a chance before branding them a certain way, or would you like to be judged as someone you aren’t? When someone says Miley or Demi are just like Lindsay or Britney; it just shows that people aren’t even willing to actually look at a person.

What I really can’t stand is people proclaiming what bad Christians people like Miley are. To me religion is still something that is a personal choice and something that is interpreted by oneself. So what if Miley is a Christian? Just because she interprets it differently than someone else doesn’t make her way wrong. People even playing the religion card on the leaked pictures is beyond screwed up. Miley has always shown support for the gay community, like a lot of other Christians. She’s dedicated songs to them and has even publicly commented in support of gay marriage, through all of it she still calls herself Christian. Why would one picture make her a bad Christian all of a sudden?

Morality is something that is based on your own beliefs and guide lines you were taught in your life. Just because one person considers something bad, it doesn’t actually make something bad. That’s the key with using celebrities as a role model, they were raised with different morals. So why would anyone want their kids raised by someone who doesn’t meet their own beliefs and values? What should be admired are the talent and what they achieve and on whether they actually area a good person or not. Whether they agree on certain things and choices in celebrity’s lives shouldn’t matter.

Sometimes I do wonder when masses of parents and the media will break out their pitch forks and burn someone like Miley at the stake. Because that is what it’s starting to look like; a witch hunt.

Lessons learned
It’s easy for parents to blame problems in society on celebrities instead of using them. So what if Miley smoked drugs? You don’t want your kids to smoke drugs? Use it as an opportunity to talk about it. Make it a subject of conversation, don’t remove Miley from their lives just because you don’t want them exposed to something. When your kids like Miley, they will find a way to see or hear Miley. The internet makes sure of that.

The main lesson that should be learned from that bong video is that you should be more careful in picking the right friends and be less naive in certain respects; which is a valuable lesson. Also what Miley has done since then should be commended; rather than coming up with some weak public apology (if she even needs to apologize for anything, though sooner or later she sort of has to address it to avoid the media going all over her) she continues to live her life and continues to work. That now her Christmas (which she spent with her whole family) and New Year’s wishes for her fans are being dragged through the media is weak at best. Miley being mature about a situation like this isn’t exactly news; it’s how she usually reacts.

Yes, celebrities can be used to teach, use it as an opportunity to discuss the pitfalls in life. Be it sex, drugs, smoking, alcohol or whatever. There are even examples of parents who rather discuss or share experiences with their children rather than shutting them out of their lives. It is a fair question, would you rather that your kid takes their first drink at a shady party or in the safety of their own home under parental supervision?

When you tell your kids that they can’t admire a celebrity because they made a mistake in their eyes, aren’t you telling your kid that they aren’t allowed to make mistakes? Mistakes are learning experiences in life, what they’re also saying is that you should shut people who made mistakes out of your life. How is that a good lesson to teach your kids?

These people also call someone like Miley dumb because they make mistakes; which isn’t very moral to me either. Do people honestly believe that there are no smokers, alcoholics or drug addicts in Mensa? It doesn’t matter how smart you are, everyone makes “mistakes” if you even want to call them that. Intelligence isn’t the same as wisdom and I think there is little wisdom in shunning someone for making mistakes.  Everyone makes mistakes out of naivety, it doesn’t make someone dumb, it’s how we learn. I would also doubt that someone with no brains at all could achieve the level of their craft as most of the celebrities that are being called dumb.

Most of all these celebrities aren’t telling anyone to do the same thing as they do. They will all say that they are growing up and that they will make mistakes, does anyone listen? No, they are branded as a role model and have to fit some stereotypical straightjacket. It’s not fair and it’s just not right, you can’t ask someone to live a fake life because someone else looks up to them.

Would you want to live a life with that constant pressure on you? The idea that whatever you do, however harmless it may be that people will look into it and try to find something bad? It’s no pressure that should be put on anyone, let alone teenagers who are still in the process of finding themselves. Even when they say things like that they aren’t heard, people focus too much on the role model thing. So in that sense celebrities are being a good role model, listen to yourself and admit that you’re not perfect, you’re going to make mistakes. That’s the sort of thing people should listen to. They have their own message, not just the one the media wants you to hear.

What is my conclusion?
So what if a sixteen year old teen star is sharing an after sex cigarette with her girlfriend while studying their new matching crotch tattoos. They’re not telling other people to do the same.

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I have to make clear that I support the writers (I’m trying to be one myself so I have to really), though I also understand the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). The main point of argument is the compensation for online content, so when they’ve made a TV show or movie and it’s also streamed on the internet. Of course the writers want to be paid for this but no one knows how the internet market will develop.

It’s a time where developments go really quickly, you can’t actually know how much money the internet content will make over the years. So it’s understandable that the studios were very hesitant, though pretty much paying them nothing at all is a bad idea when going into talks. At some times the strike got a bit silly though, there were some AMPTP and WGA mud slinging matches.

The real victims right now aren’t the big actors though, they have plenty of money to live of, it’s the production crews that are suffering. Studios responded to the strike by firing the “common” man working in their studios. So in that regard it will take some time until the industry recovers, some people have left to get other job because they need to eat. That’s not really what this site is about though, so lets take a look at what consequence it has had on our featured actresses in particular.

The strike pretty much meant that production halted on movie projects and TV shows. The damage to movies is actually limited because it sometimes takes years before a movie gets from script to actually finished movie. Except for projects that have shorter production times, we’re talking popular projects that require a fast production time before it becomes unpopular again. In our case there’s only one clear victim: Disney.

Shooting for High School Musical 3 and the Hannah Montana Movie should almost have started already but they won’t. Simple reason is that their scripts aren’t done yet, they’re in the rough draft stage and they still need some work. It will probably mean that High School Musical 3 will be delayed until late 2008 while it’s very likely that the Hannah Montana Movie will be delayed until 2009. They don’t want both movies in theatres at the same time so even if they did rush them they’ll have a hard time fitting them into 2008 without them interfering with each other.

So in that regard it’s only a problem for people like Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and other High School Musical Stars. For other movie projects our actresses are featured in it’s not really a big problem. They’re more long term projects and the ones that are planned for this year are already done or are already in the shooting stage so those should be released on time.

For TV it’s a bigger problem, the production time on TV shows is a lot shorter. Several TV shows have already run out of episodes, some even weeks after the strike started. Main victim of that was probably Kaley Cuoco when The Big Bang Theory stopped production just weeks into the strike (Not that it’s a show that would be missed on TV, I’m not too fond of it but that’s beside the point). Who knows when that will go back into production, it will be one very short season that much is certain.

Again Disney has to deal with it, production on a lot of their Disney Channel shows stopped. They seem to be trying to stretch their seasons until they have new episodes, new episodes of Hannah Montana have slowed to under one new episode per month. They’re done shooting season two but they probably want to stretch it until they can start production on season three (and the movie). Not that Miley Cyrus has had much trouble with it, she simply extended her concert tour by a month. Co-star Emily Osment has been keeping busy shooting a TV movie for Disney, so they’ve been doing fine. Though Hannah Montana fans are upset with the lack of new episodes.

For some shows I don’t actually know how many shows they have on reserve, for example Medium. It didn’t start its season until 2008, they probably produced most of the shows in advance but not all. Sofia Vassilieva has once stated that they get their scripts about two weeks before shooting so the time between writing ans production is very short. That also means that once the strike is over they can go back into production quite quickly again, depending on whether they can get all their support staff back.

One of the other most notable victims is Heroes, they’ve only put out eleven episodes this season. They planned to do the season in two halves which probably will save them, seeing they can go into a third season without real continuity problems. It does mean that people like Hayden Panettiere haven’t been really busy so far, even though she signed on to a new movie project, that just hasn’t started shooting yet.

That’s another thing with the strike, pilot season is coming up as they call it. It’s when production companies make pilot episodes of new shows, based on those episodes they decide whether to take a show into their programming or not. The main problem right now is; there are no pilot scripts so there’s nothing to shoot. It might very well mean that there will be no to very few new TV shows for the 2008-2009 season. It’s also good news for people that fear their favourite show might be cancelled though, the studios will be more likely to renew existing shows.

So that’s good news for people that enjoy shows like Medium (Sofia Vassilieva) and One Tree Hill (Sophia Bush and others); they’ve been renewed on a season to season bases in recent years. The strike might have improved their chances of renewal considerably. It also means that a lot of the crappy new shows (somehow all new sitcoms that came along this TV season were horrible to complete crap) might get renewed as well. So it might very well be a very boring 2008-2009 TV season, just a good thing that the movies coming out this and next year haven’t been influenced a lot.

I just hope that something like this doesn’t happen again, a lot of behind the scenes people have suffered from the strike and will probably need some time to recover from it. Three months without income is a disaster for any family with a normal income. Good thing the DGA (Directors Guild of America) has already agreed on a deal so they won’t be striking. However the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) is coming to an end and they have similar issues with the AMPTP as the WGA had, so lets just hope it doesn’t lead to another strike.

There are two possible ways we can see people growing up on screen, there are the actresses that start out on TV and there are the ones that start in movies. With movies you see them growing up in steps, you see them once in a while. With TV you can literally see them growing up, they can even change over the course of a TV season.

One of the most famous examples probably are the Olsen twins, you could literally see Mary-Kate and Ashley start out as babies on Full House. After that they kept exploiting their cute twin factor in straight to DVD movies from their own production company Dual Star. But what everyone knew would happen really did happen; their cuteness factor wore off and now we just see two close to being anorexic fashion disasters in the tabloids. They’re now trying to get into acting again but solo; the twin thing isn’t that useful for adult actors.

Someone who grew up in a completely different way on screen is Scarlett Johansson. She started out in movies and stayed there, so we saw her developing in intervals. We could see her as an average little girl and an average teenager in all sorts of movies, in bigger roles and smaller roles. Suddenly one day we’re suddenly confronted with a Hollywood bombshell who’s a big favourite with both critics and the more hormonally driven crowd.

Amanda Bynes is pretty much an example of someone who grew up like everyone expected. From 1997 to 2006 she was basically continuously on TV shows so we could really see her grow up, first on Nickelodeon with All That and The Amanda Show (making her the youngest ever to host a cable show) and later on the WB with What I Like About You. She started out as the little cute funny girl and now she’s more or less the big cute funny girl. Now the media are trying to turn her into a babe since her success on Hairspray now she completely crossed over to movies.

There is also the kind of people we could see growing up on screen but we didn’t really realise it. Take Hayden Panettiere, she has been in the business for years already but she never really got roles that got her noticed. Then all of a sudden she gets cast in Heroes and voila she’s an audience favourite, I’m pretty sure that the people who like her didn’t realise that they’ve probably have seen her in other movies before.

Then there’s the case of someone you wouldn’t expect to grow up in a certain way. When Lindsay Lohan did The Parent Trap she was this cute freckle faced girl, she took a little break for a while with only a couple of Disney TV movies. When she returned to the big screen she had grown in a certain department and got popular with the hormonal crowd. Turning into a sex symbol isn’t a bad thing but nobody expected her to turn into a train wreck. She’s in rehab for the third time and who knows if she’ll ever be her old self again, though we don’t really know if she ever was the old self everyone believed her to be.

Some people just don’t grow up on screen. Hilary Duff almost seemed unchanged throughout her entire career, both in looks and role selection. After she turned eighteen it seems that she’s trying to catch up, a more sexy look at concerts and public appearances. And now with other movies coming out she also tries to grow up in that department.

There are a lot of ways people can develop, makes you wonder about the current generation of girls growing up on screen. It’s impossible to tell who the eighteen year old sex symbol will be in 2011; some of the fourteen year olds are already trying hard. We also don’t know whose lives will fall apart once they are adults, it’s just impossible to tell. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds for the current generation of girls growing up on screen.