Hero Worship

*Before I begin, I'd like to note, as with everything, these are just my opinions. I am not criticising individuals that encourage hero worship, I do it myself, rather I am criticising our society that has encouraged it.*


I think we believe that in the twentieth century we are fairly good at celebrating individuality and single people as opposed to fictional characters, sports players and performers, that the latter is a thing of the past when times were harder and the average person had little of their own life to take pleasure from. Perhaps, one or two people even speculate this might be due to the increased wealth of the average person from 50-60 years ago. But I do not think hero worship has decreased, in fact I think the opposite, and I do not think increased wealth helps, if anything it hinders.

Recently, I worked at an event that was designed to enable the child-fans of a certain premier league football team meet the players. It was only a couple of hours of my time and the children themselves were there for about 1 & 1/2 hours, maybe a little less. There were about 300 children attending, all seated at tables of ten. At the beginning, they were excited to see the players, to have them sign shirts and autograph books and hopefully talk to them. By the end, many were in tears and all left looking dejected.

The players only dropped in for about 20-30 minutes and barely spoke to the children, automatically signing shirt and book after shirt and book. Many did not reach all the children and most of the children had missed out on meeting at least three players. One of the children I was helping look after, a boy of about 10, possibly older, was crying quite heavily and found little comfort from the words of one of the club's PR people. He wanted his favourite player to sign a football card of himself. The PR lady told him he could bring it back next year and try and get it signed then. Little comfort and as I repeated this I knew it wouldn't make him feel better.

I will admit now that I dislike football. I find it a boring and rather unintelligent sport. My father (an Oxford and Harvard graduate) disagrees so maybe I'm wrong, it's just my opinion. I also don't particularly warm to football players. I'll admit, I have a low opinion of them, or rather the profession and the type of character it encourages. To say I have a low opinion of all football players themselves would require me to meet and get to know all of them in the world and that's just impractical. But I do dislike the kind of lifestyle many lead (flash with their cash, the world's their playground, they're untouchable etc etc). Normally this isn't a reason for me to dislike somebody, the way they live their life. Let's face it, many do and if I had a lot of money, I'm sure I'd likely dabble in excess (hopefully not to those levels though). Football players are not the only ones that live like this and while I might disapprove of people doing this, I wouldn't write off the entire populace that does. 'Judge not lest ye be judged' (Matthew 7:1), and all that, I try (note try) to make my outlook.

What I do dislike, though, is how this kind of lifestyle the players lead is coupled with the hero worship they receive and the way this hero worship is encouraged. I also dislike the entitlement it encourages in players. At this event, I saw the degree to which worship of the players is encouraged. To begin with, on arrival (in groups, bit by bit), the children were seated at their tables and given packs of player cards to trade. While they waited for all the children to be brought in (it took a while as they didn't want to bring them all up at once), a man who worked for the club spoke to the kids via a microphone, discussing who was who's favourite player and helping the children trade cards across the room. Once all the children were seated, he continue this for a little bit. All throughout, the players were discussed as superheroes. They were ranked, analysed and certain cards with certain 'best' players were coveted after. It was almost like the organising gods and placing them in order whilst sitting inside The Pantheon. In a way, looking back on it now, it also elicits some pity for the players from me as they were ranked like horses at a racetrack. However, when I consider the following, my pity does lesson.

The man on the microphone then started to 'pump up' the crowd so to speak. He started getting them to sing songs, first the team's anthem but then others about certain top players. One of which called a player something along the lines of super/great/invincible. And then the players arrived, to this chorus of worship and praise, almost like Jesus walking down the aisle of a Church during a hymn. But I hope, were He to do that, He'd spend more time with the congregation and give them more care than the players did to the children.

Before the children had the chance to have each player come to their table, they were called up and asked if they wanted to say anything to the children. Each mumbled out a very reluctant 'Merry Christmas'. Only about two bothered to say any more. Most stood there, looking bored, clutching boxes of pre-autographed photos they'd brought along. One player ignored the call to the front and carried on signing things for the children. When he'd come to my table earlier, he made a little more effort to talk to the children and when he was about to leave he graciously thanked the children for their support. He looked like he meant it. The rest might as well have been ordering a pizza, they were that unenthusiastic. I think many resented being there and just expected the children's worship without feeling the need to thank them. And society encourages this.

And this is what bothers me.

Working at a primary school, I noticed that the children, boys mainly but girls too, would talk about footballers an awful lot. Not surprising as many spent all their time outside playing the game. But they talked about them in the same way the man on the microphone at the football club was talking about them, the way he was encouraging the children at the event to see them, the way I'm sure they have been encouraged to ever since they were old enough to watch football. And the children at the primary school I looked after did not just talk about football players an awful lot but money too. 'I've got this much money in my savings for when I'm older', 'my dad makes this much', 'my iPad cost this much'. I don't know if the children worship the football players because they make a lot of money or if they valued money greatly because football players openly make and openly spend a lot of it.

Just think how often the magazines and newspapers that grace our shops talk about how much a player made transferring to a new team, or how much their wedding cost or how much they spent on a night out. News programmes too now cover this. It seems as if hero worship and the desire to make millions are tied into one. There's nothing wrong with wanting a lot of money in the abstract sense, thinking every now and then it would be nice to have that security, especially since the credit crunch and recession, but to want it in the more concrete sense, that it will give you value and worth...is that a message we should be sending out to our impressionable children and teens? Is it a message we want them to believe?

It is not just football players that are guilty of encouraging this and it is not just football players we are guilty of hero worshipping. Just think of the mania that surrounds One Direction and Justin Bieber, the merchandise each act churns out, mugs, calendars, duvet covers, t-shirts, (I'm guessing underwear too, I really wouldn't be surprised). And I remember in my teens, MTV had a myriad of shows about how was the richest actor in Hollywood, who had made the most money on what film, and showing off big, celebrity houses on Cribs. They probably still produce similar, if not the same, shows. Good for those who have worked to have nice things and nice homes. But this should not be the reason our children and teens look up to them. And we should not be encouraging such overwhelming worship.

I remember, as a teenager, standardly self-loathing, desperate to impress, be liked by my school mates and others, absolutely adoring a TV character. She was fantastic in my eyes, a great dress sense and pretty so she was quite often chased after by the boys in the show. She had a drinking problem but that didn't bother me. In fact, aged 15, I found it all the more reason to like her. Heavy drinking, after having lots of money, seems to be another thing our society encourages and, I won't lie, I like a drink or two now in my mid-twenties. But I'm well aware it should not be glorified.

I liked this TV character so much, I tried to dress like her, accessorize like her, be as much like her as I could manage. And why not? I was a miserable teenage and clearly being me wasn't working out. Why not try to be like somebody else? Years earlier, I remember reading in a magazine aged 10 an article telling girls how to style themselves after each of the female characters on Friends. Phoebe, Monica and even Rachel had enough of a tame dress sense for this to not really be an issue of age appropriate styling. But why should I and my peers have been encouraged to dress like somebody else?

Where is it that we celebrate our individuality in the media? Why is it that even in 2014, magazines and internet pages and reality television shows encourage a worship of what you, the reader, the viewer, the individual, is not?

Much of it is about PR. Back to the football club event, and just before the players left, the man on the microphone told the children (very clearly) 'Now, the players have got to go, they've got somewhere very important to be...make sure you tell your mums and dads...because they won't tell you this in the press, but the players are going to go to a children's wing of a hospital and visit all the sick children....isn't that nice?! So they've got to go now'. Football players, while worship and glorified in many press publications, are also vilified in others so I understand the PR team's fear-driven determination to try to turn around popular opinion. But, this to me, took the proverbial biscuit. Further encouragement of now an almost saint-like vision of the football players. Not only did they have super powers, but they were regular Mother Theresas too. Other celebrities, actors, singers, etc, are likewise praised the minute they deign to spend the time with somebody of ill health. But I now find it hard to respect somebody who openly and proudly declares 'I'M BEING CHARITABLE'. Children and teens, however, often are not so discerning in their opinions and once again the wheels of worship are set in motion.

Of course, PR is a huge part of any job that puts somebody in a position to receive regular attention. But I am increasingly finding the way it ties in with hero worship, in the same way that having money is tied into it, too much for me to not say something. Even if it is only on my little blog.

After the football club event, I made what I thought was a highly witty comment (being the highly witty person I am, of course) on my Facebook status about how my opinion of football players had not improved from meeting them but good for them for being tall. My friend called me out on it when I told him I disliked football players  'because I think they are over-paid, over-pampered & encouraged to believe they are almost demi-gods. For the most part, they then act this way.' I still stand by this. Except what I should have said was that I dislike the profession and the type of character it encourages. I also don't believe this is limited to football players entirely but I do think that it is more often expected of a footballer player than an actor. And of course, there are distinctions. I do not know how football players are treated elsewhere in the world and I know of course that actors from Hollywood are treated and behave differently (typically) than British actors. I think pop singers are treated fairly similarly across the world, that being worshipped also. And I do think both footballers, singers, and Hollywood actors are worshipped in a way beyond other professions. And they, or those of other professions giving them celebrity or money, should not be. Not to the degree they are, anyway.

A friend once told me that in your teens, studies have shown you are never more receptive to something, never more passionate about your loves and never more fervent in your adoration. That being the case, what should we be encouraging our teens to obsess over? No doubt they need something. I watched Channel 4's summer documentary about One Direction fans and one girl, who lived in a small flat with her disabled mother and young brother whom she had to care for, said that if you're sad and you think about One Direction, 'you're not sad anymore' and that was why she loved them. They need something. And even, we in our adult years, quite often need somebody to admire. But we need to stop letting it be the celebrities of our time. Nor the Disney princesses from fairy-tales from the past. I saw something online about a mother who'd dressed her five year old up as women from history who'd accomplished things like medical training when women could not or flying across the world solo instead of Disney characters. She sounds like she's got the right idea. To top it off, she then photographed her daughter as her daughter, the person she should want to be like the most. If our classrooms and magazines and TV shows began doing this instead, perhaps instead of rooms filled with miserable teenagers attempting to be more like a television character than themselves or hunt down their favourite baby-faced pop star and the streets next to football clubs filled with crying children who were unable to meet they favourite players would be a thing of the past. Perhaps, even, one might dare to hope, the One Direction fans might stop sending death-threats to the girlfriends of the group. But maybe that is a pipe dream.

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