Yo…
I’ve been loafing in the 90s.
Just finished reading The Fresh Prince Project: How the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Remixed America by Chris Palmer. A love letter that revisits the beloved sitcom. (Chris does excellent work noting the various Jordans Will Smith rocks on the show.)
On Wednesday Netflix released Waco: American Apocalypse. A 3-part docuseries about the 1993 Waco, Texas combat when cult leader David Koresh faced off against the federal government in a 51-day siege. I wrote about it in late February in Don’t Let The F-U-N in Fundamentalism Fool You!
And we’re gonna kick off today’s proceedings with Charles Barkley’s classic I Am Not A Role Model commercial which came out in 1993. Same year as Waco.
The past is a candy-sticky 4 year old that persistently (and annoyingly) asks “why?”
Rollin With Role Models?
The entire text of this short Nike ad is: “I am not a role model. I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”
Yo…yes! Even as a high school punk in 93 I was like high fives; this makes so much sense. I don’t "need" you to be a nice guy and like help the kids or whatever. You’re here to win basketball games and I’m here to enjoy that. Winning is the only value we agree on. We good! Proceed.
Barely 30 seconds and yet it was an elegant revolution: a rousing rejection of many of our culture’s core values. We’re shrines and shills for famous folks. We have always worship celebrity. Sometimes envied the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous especially when we see their Cribs.
Lamentably this warped worship leads to betrayal. As much as they’re known for being rich and good looking and enjoying the perks of fame…celebrities mess up. A lot.
Barkley said “I am not a role model” in 1993, 2 years after his dreadful spitting incident.
During an NBA game in 1991, Barkley spit in a fan’s general direction. Only he missed hitting a young girl, a second grader, sitting in the crowd. Fans turned on Barkley and for a while this hot mess refused to go away.
(You know how many dull variations of Spit Happens headlines we hadda endure back then? Barkley was Public Enemy No. 1 but many lazy newspaper copywriters weren’t far behind.)
Later Barkley confessed: “When the spitting incident happened…I remember sitting in a hotel room and I was like dude what the hell is wrong with you? What are you so angry about?”
So he changed how he played and he worked at addressing his untamed anger. An easy line for me to write that doesn’t truly convey the amount of work that takes. And he did change…and thankfully…he kept failing too. Whew.
In late October 1997, Charles Barkley at a bar in Orlando threw a dude through a window. Even more “I am not a role model!” proof.
Apparently and according to the police he told the guy he tossed: “You got what you deserve. You don’t respect me. I hope you’re hurt.” The guy who went through the window was charged but not arrested for misdemeanor battery. He threw a glass of ice at Barkley and the three women he was sitting with; hitting one of the ladies in the head.
I’m not excusing or justifying any of his distressing actions. Throwing a dude through a window breaks the law and there are obvious consequences for that.
When Barkley informs you he is a not role model this isn’t humility. He’s simply speaking the truth.
Barkley sucks. It was something he’s always known but now it’s something we also know. It’s on the record. As a human Barkley sucks. Pass it on.
But as the spitting incident prompted reflection; he figured it out. He changed and along the way kept failing.
It’s super encouraging for all of us because we all suck too. We try, we make changes, sometimes we reflect, we journal or go to therapy and we still keep messing up. Like Barkley we suck. Pass it on.
#MeToo Is #YouToo
Decades after the Role Model commercial—and shortly before we would ease into a global pandemic—several media institutions were jolted by heinous revelations and gross misconduct. Particularly Hollywood as a catchall corporation.
Media organizations issued high-profile terminations to notable men now unmasked for their mostly sexual transgressions. The common experience became a branded movement called #MeToo.
#MeToo was a profitable public debate that neatly mirrored the loud reverberations Barkley’s I’m Not a Role Model prompted in 93. This time though the public talk established careers, launched podcasts and generated profitable clicks. Same exact news cycle: Spit Happens 2.0.
As a movement there was lots to applaud such as the sexual-abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. And yet, as a movement, it was also muddled and confusing.
At times #MeToo lapsed into an unsatisfying mirage of accountability and shallow not-quite justice.
Kat Rosenfield writes about the tarnished comic Louis C.K. in UnHerd:
“Meanwhile, not only did those who’d cancelled the comedian continue to act as if his redemption request was theirs to reject or approve, they also adamantly refused to sketch out a framework for how a #MeToo’d man might return to normal life. When pressed — if not now, when? if not like this, then how? — the answer was a shrug. Who knows? And more importantly, who cares? Eventually, this question would be turned back on the asker: how could you even ask about redemption for cancelled men when their victims were still reeling from the trauma? “How do you come back from having your mentor destroy your career? How to you come back from having your boss ask for sexual favours?” scolded an NPR interviewee. “Those are the questions I think we should be taking up, not how guys get to come back and have the next stage of their careers.”
Kat’s right. Her piece goes on to explain the “squandered momentum of #MeToo, and the now-defunct fantasy of letting the bad men rot.”
Louis C.K. has a solid comedy bit based on his ugly experiences which underscores the twisted mind of a comic.
I dunno if you’d classify comics as healthy. Comics view the world through a warped prism; it’s what gives them their distinct voice and POV. Often they ain’t filtering their experiences like we do. (Like check out Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip and his hilarious description of setting himself on fire while freebasing cocaine! If you think nothing is funny about that; you’d be wrong.)
Anyways Louis C.K.’s witty bit is:
“All right, you want to talk about it? Should we talk about it? I don’t mind, I don’t mind talking about it. OK. Here’s what—I’ll give you some advice. Here’s some advice that really only I can give you. Here’s my advice. If you ever ask somebody, “Can I jerk off in front of you …” Let me finish—I mean, let me finish what I’m saying! If you ever ask somebody, “May I jerk off in front of you,” and they say yes, just say, “Are you sure?” That’s the first part. And then if they say yes, just don’t fuckin’ do it. Just don’t do it. ’Cause look, whatever you’re into, OK, ’cause everybody’s got their thing, whatever your thing is, I don’t know. You all have your thing. I don’t know what your thing is. You’re so fucking lucky that I don’t know what your thing is. Do you understand how lucky you are? That people don’t know your fucking thing? ’Cause everybody knows my thing. Everybody knows my fucking thing now. Obama knows my thing—do you understand how that feels? To know that Obama was like, “Good Lord.” Everybody in the world knows my thing.”
When he says “Everybody knows my fucking thing now. Obama knows my thing—do you understand how that feels? To know that Obama was like, “Good Lord.” Everybody in the world knows my thing.” That’s exactly like Barkley’s spitting incident: everybody knows his thing now.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” says Barkley. “I will truthfully admit that I thought I was gonna go crazy, because everyone in the world was against me and rightfully so.” Like you and me, Charles Barkley and now Louis C.K. we suck. We all got something in common.
Fortunately we suck isn’t a binding verdict. This is important. If you suck at math you can get a tutor and slowly figure it out. You ain’t gonna be Einstein but you can suck less. That’s the true battle of this modern life…figure out where you suck and then aim to suck less. We have a massive amount of books and therapists and resources to help everyone suck less.
As we full circled to #MeToo, we found ourselves rehashing many of the flawed principles that Barkley ignited in 93’s national discourse. From the clumsy power of fame to the evident limits of being a moral and upstanding celebrity.
Barkley already told us: don’t count on famous folks to be role models: “I’m not paid to be a role model.”
It’s always been an illusion to say we know these people because we’ve known them for years. Will Smith’s smash hit Parents Just Don’t Understand was released on February 17, 1988. We’ve been with Will Smith since 1988. That’s a long time. It feels like a long time. But truth is…we don’t know Will Smith. And that core truth is far more valuable than any Will Smith feelings or opinions we express publicly.
The decades since that Nike ad have proven Barkley was right.
Famous folks are not held to some sort of higher moral standard or anything like that. They’re held to the same ones we are. Which means they fail in the same ways we all do.
As it publicly unfolded there was a weird comfort to #MeToo because it confirmed oh you suck too. We all suck. It’s just we’re struggling in different ways. Just because alcohol isn’t a problem for you doesn’t mean no one else struggles with the bottle.
I know…we continue to fall in this trap of looking up to these famous people. It’s an element of pop culture that is probably never going away.
That’s why I’m grateful that we have these periodic reminders like Barkley to say yo this system we participate in is dumb. Famous folks are not paid to be role models.
And when we see em mess up may that naturally produce humility for us. As I said you figure out how to suck less. You will struggle and you will fall off the wagon because that’s the way it goes. To suck less isn’t linear.
Before these movements, there was a classic moment. You want to tell your friend about a famous person encounter. Maybe at the airport. Or you ran into them at a film festival bathroom. Whatever it may be. Typically your friend responds with: “So cool! Are they nice?”
The honest answer is…I don’t know. Or equally acceptable: they suck; just like me.
Quote and background for the Barkley sections comes from Timothy Bella’s outstanding Barkley: A Biography.
I’ve attached a My Summer Lair conversation with Timothy. I wish we had more time to unpack the I Am Not A Role Model commercial but there was so much to get to. Clearly I heart this ad so much and it’s resonated with me since 93.
And this conversation was so fun. This newsletter came out way more serious than I anticipated so the podcast will make up for that. Thank you for even reading to this point; see I was right. You suck less! Heh.
A final parallel with the past and the present. Released on July 10, 1988 N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton ushered in rap’s Gangsta era. Only when Ice Cube raps:
“When I’m called off, I got a sawed-off
Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off
You too, boy, if you fuck with me
The police are gonna have to come and get me
Off your ass, that's how I’m going out”That’s one of the most accurate John Wick descriptions I’ve ever heard. Well done, Cube. That’s up there with the classic he killed three men with a pencil line. The 4th John Wick opens today: Team Ruckus Reporting For Duty.
If you need to get caught up Keanu Reeves recaps the first 3 movies in 60 seconds: “Woah; now I know John Wick…”
Regrets Sending Out A Newsletter On A Friday With The Naughty Phrase: Suck Less…
Sammy Younan
-28-
Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
Share this post