How many role modes do we need?
I don’t see celebrity personas as real and attainable any more than a role they play in a movie is real and attainable.
All the virtues I hope my children absorb are in the people in my real life community.
I guess it depends how you grew up. When I was a kid the only real people were my small family, teachers and classmates, none of whom I could relate to. So my role models were cartoon and novel characters (not so much celebrities, but similar fictions).
That works if you have a good commmunity! Not everyone has that chance, tho. The male role models available to me were majority abusive and/or hardcore Christian. The only one who wasn’t was our band teacher for a year who drove 1.5hrs to teach us 3 times a week and slept in his office.
i probably have hundreds of role models, ranging from people i know in real life to long-dead historical figures to fictional characters. regardless of whether we consciously identify a person as a role model, we emulate those we admire.
How many paths are there through life?
How many different roles do we fill and how many ways are there of doing so?
Every known person is a role model for at least what they are known for.