Stephen Fry is a well-known cultural character and perhaps one of the most outspoken and eloquent social commentators. He was born in London, England in the 1950’s where he lived with his Jewish mother. Not only is Fry quite the popular mind, but I dare call him an unrivaled actor. He is my role model. The reason why I am talking about Fry today is because a lot of his thoughts and ideas are important for humanity to hear. Perhaps his most pedestaled arguments are the ones against homophobia and mono-theistic religions. According to («Stephen Fry», 2011, hollowverse.com/stephen-fry), Stephen Fry is sympathetic towards polytheistic religions like the beliefs of ancient Greece. Apparently he reckons that they make a more realistic painting of humanity and our world because most gods show malice and are simply unpleasant. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why he is so anti-theistic is because of his past with the Catholic Church. He said in one of his most famous debates against Catholicism (with also famous social commentator Christopher Hitchens) that the Catholic Church had shut him out due to Fry’s homosexuality. His will-sprung fire to demolish homophobia and build equality around homosexuals really is no more than expected.

Furthermore, he is a political commentator. He was very critical when Tony Blair involved Great Britain in the Iraq War. As a conclusion he did not vote in the British general elections 2005. I have not been as involved with his political views as I have been on his moral and ethical thoughts, but I truly find his rebellious behavior both admirable and remarkable. Every time Fry does something drastic or makes an epiphany of a comment, I feel inspired and intrigued to make a difference in the world. He is perhaps the person who has influenced my anti-homophobic thoughts the most. I feel both astonished and dumfounded at society’s continuous failure at disregarding old religious (what I dare call) nonsense. Although I am heterosexual I feel strongly about inequality. Excuse my perhaps exaggerating thought, but I believe Stephen Fry is a human guidebook to making the world a better place.

Flattery aside, mankind is fallible and thus is Fry. He does admit he is only human and he does make a lot of mistakes, which we can see in this quote: “Firstly, I don’t want to be [a politician]. I would rather suck turds for a living. Secondly I can’t make my mind up on Big Issues” («Stephen Fry», 2011, hollowverse.com/stephen-fry ). But although he makes just as many mistakes as any other man, he makes up for it in his seemingly genius contributions to society. Fry understands well enough that today’s youth are the future of our world and I believe what he is doing will make a big change to future’s society. Modern teenagers are, in my opinion, more accepting whilst full of great ideas, opinions and thoughts. That is why we must not falter and never let our minds be underestimated. If we all contributed to society like Stephen Fry is we would most likely not have a problem with inequality.

To infer my thoughts on Fry’s influence, I would like to talk about the media. This is Fry’s biggest gateway to public speech. In the UK, he hosts a famous talk show called QI (Quite Interesting). Not only is this show popular in Britain, but also globally. The show consists of Sir Stephen Fry with a board of other public speakers and comedians. They debate politics, our society and just odd things one would never even think of. You might compare it to Norway’s “Nytt på nytt”, but it is indubitably more serious and interesting. The media makes it easier to influence others, and you could really say Stephen Fry takes advantage of this. Every week, thousands and thousands of teenagers watch his show. He teaches them to think for themselves and be critical about what society tells us. I, myself, watch this show as often as I can. Not only do I learn new things, I get to enjoy it with a tad of British humor.

So keeping in mind the media, anti-homophobia, inequality, political corruption and injustice, I think Stephen Fry makes a great difference to our world. It is due to his interesting and inspiring ideas that I admire him so much, and hopefully one day, our world will become a place where inequality is history and war is the past, a world where one is allowed to speak out when injustice is done.

Sources:

Stephen Fry. (2011).hollowverse. Article/Biography. Hentet fra http://hollowverse.com/stephen-fry/

Nedlastningdato: 08.10.12