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Pop culture betrays kids, too, not just athletes

Shaun Powell

February 17, 2008

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This is about the kids, they said, over and over, trying harder than Roger Clemens to sound convincing. The members of the House committee looking into steroid use in baseball pounded that theme into our brain last week at the hearing. Kids are getting bad messages about performance-enhancing drugs. Kids are being betrayed by ballplayers. Kids are being wrongly influenced by the superstars.

Well, sure, no problem there. Let's look out for all kids - yours, mine, everyone's.

But don't tell me kids are being suckered by star athletes on steroids and then condone, through silence, drug use by entertainers.

Don't send the media moral police chasing Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire, then release the Entertainment Tonight poodles on Sylvester Stallone.

Shaun Powell Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

Don't spend thousands of dollars examining steroid use in baseball, then feel it's not worth spending two cents checking out 50 Cent.

And please, don't suggest that kids admire pro athletes more than they do actors and singers and rappers. These entertainers impact the way our kids walk, talk, dress and behave. Yet marijuana and cocaine somehow give them credibility with a young audience bent on rebellion. And with regard to the drug of the moment, there was no outcry from Congress or the media when dozens of A-list entertainers recently were linked to getting steroids through a Long Island chiropractor.

Instead, in theaters near you, people cheered "Rambo" without jeering Stallone, obviously believing his 60-year-old body, suspiciously buffed, wasn't Ramboided-up.

What, these singers and rappers and actors and rasslers don't influence millions of kids?

What, their steroids don't give them an edge?

Nobody is saying steroid-using athletes shouldn't be held accountable by the watchdogs; of course they should. But the moral authorities in government and the media collectively shrug when entertainers are busted. Nobody seeks to punish or publicly embarrass those members of pop culture, which holds a significant spell on our impressionable youth.

Well, there's a logical reason when it comes to steroids. Entertainers aren't cheating the competition, unlike athletes. Still, kids want to grow up being like them. That's indisputable.

Also, physical appearance counts for a lot in the music world, in which image is everything. Therefore, it was no surprise that 50 Cent and several rappers and singers were accused of getting regular steroid shipments. They're not threatening home run records but they're selling plenty of records, partly because of their videos, enhanced partly by their looks.

In the steroid chemistry lab known as pro wrestling, organizers have looked the other way for years while their drug-boosted workers generated millions of dollars and just as many young followers. You can imagine the number of bedroom walls adorned by Chris Benoit posters before the wrestler committed a double murder/suicide and was diagnosed with high testosterone levels.

Stallone made a ton in Hollywood playing the action hero, only to cast doubt on his training regimen when authorities in Australia found human growth hormone during a random bag check last year.

The only action hero who made more bank than Stallone was Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former Mr. Universe who admitted using steroids during competition. If we're to make the assumption that muscles made the man, then his acting and subsequent political careers would've been Terminated a long time ago without the juice.

Sure, someone will say Hollywood is all about looks and cite botox and facelifts and ask, what's the difference? Well, steroids are illegal; implants aren't. That's the difference. Oh, and don't forget the kids, who want to look exactly like their precious pop heroes.

Singers and actors have always been held to a different moral standard than athletes. When Keith Richards filled himself with more drugs than Walgreen's, society brushed it off as a rock music thing. But when Steve Howe coked up, the sports world got bent out of shape. You tell me, who made a bigger impression on a young generation, the stoned guitarist for the Stones or the relief pitcher for the Yankees?

We should continue showing plenty of impatience and a low level of tolerance for athletes who keep looking for shortcuts and sending the wrong message to future athletes. Along with that, we shouldn't let everyone else off the hook. Because when you get right down to it, when we try to teach kids right from wrong, shouldn't we classify all dopers as dopes?