As I previously reported, Chris Brown has been lobbying kids to vote for him in the upcoming Kids' Choice Awards on Nickelodeon. The TV channel has ignored some five thousand parent signatures on a petition asking for his removal from the process.
But someone's listening - Chris Brown says he'll skip the Kids' Choice Awards. Finally, one RIGHT choice for a guy who has made some pretty major mistakes recently - as you can see by the original post (BELOW).
I've always thought that celebrities are put on too high a pedestal where kids are concerned. They're human, just like the rest of us.
But the Kids' Choice Awards have put parents in a particularly tight spot this year - Chris Brown is up for an award, and he's lobbying hard for kids to cast their votes.
In a post put up on Brown's Myspace page on Thursday, Brown asks kids to vote for him as Favorite Male Singer and Favorite Song, providing direct links to the Kids' Choice voting site where they can do so.
Yes, this is the same Chris Brown accused of beating girlfriend Rihanna to a pulp before the Grammy's. What's more - he's up against her in the Kids' Choice Favorite Song category, which pits his "Kiss, Kiss" featuring T-Pain against Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" as well as Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" (which is a whole OTHER post right there) and "Single Ladies" by Beyonce.
In general, the Kids' Choice Awards, a Nickelodeon invention spun off of their 1986 Big Ballot vote, are pretty harmless. It lets kids feel involved. But let's face it, the kids are not always weighing in on kid-friendly fare (hello "I Kissed a Girl" - about sexual experimentation). And after years of trying to make celebrities who don't have the shiniest of pasts into child role models, the awards force the issue. You will be in front of kids, so you better shape up.
Chris Brown only highlights that it doesn't work that way, and it never has. He's hardly the first to fall down on the "role model job." Whitney Houston hosted twice in the 1990s, the first Kids' Choice host to take the job two separate times. Talented singer, no doubt. But would you want your kids looking up to a reported crack addict?
Musicians, actors, athletes are regular people. Regular people with talent. That doesn't make them good people. There are thousands of stars worthy of your kids' adulation, but it isn't because they've been catapulted to stardom. It's their hearts, their good deeds outside of the limelight as much as in.
Unfortunately, we've put these celebrities front and center for our kids. Chris Brown is there, and there's no escaping either the pull of his music or the disgusting example of domestic violence. What are parents going to do now?
Image: Mix Matters
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