Role model

I'm interested in father figures and father surrogates in television commercials. As narrative devices, teachers, coaches and older relatives are often deliverers of important life lessons to young boys ~ a common literary convention. I suspect that modern-day cynicism and Gerbner's "mean world syndrome," which contends that heavy consumers of broadcast news often believe society is more dangerous than it actually is, may cause some to view such depictions as naive, if not inappropriate ~ and not because the boy's kindly uncle fostered his smoking habit.