Do we need culture heroes? What is one, in any case?

The panel invited by the Department of Communication to debate the question could not agree, for the most part, on either an answer or a definition. But staring them and the audience beautifully in the face was one panelist who declared with self-assurance: “I am certainly a culture hero.”

The not immodest boast was made Pnina Rosenblum, a former super-model sometimes described as Israel’s Marilyn Monroe, now head of a successful cosmetics firm bearing her name on the label, and a would-be politician who may run for the Knesset in the next elections. If, as a sociologist on the panel insisted, one had to be a long-time media survivor to be recognized as a culture hero/communication star, Rosenblum easily qualifies. “They’ve been writing about me for 25 years,” she informed her listeners at one point.

The panel, held in January, was one in the regular series of current events forums produced and moderated entirely by students of the Communication Department.

Dr. Fania Oz-Salzberger, a historian of ideas and daughter of a famous Israeli novelist, sees a change in Israeli culture heroes over the years. The old style, she said, were those who did something meaningful for the State. This changed in the 1970s, when people began building themselves up to become culture/media heroes in Israeli society, she believes.

One of the arbiters of the pantheon of Israeli culture heroes was apparently on the panel, at least according to another panelist. Dr. Oz Almog, a sociologist, pointed to Ram Oren, a best-selling author and publisher, as one who chose the figures the writer wanted to become celebrities by featuring them in his books. This contention was challenged by Oz-Salzberger, who questioned whether there were really individuals who decided who was to be a culture hero. The media, she charged, now created culture heroes. But because of this, she continued, the situation was more democratic than in the past.

Dr. Maoz Azaryahu of the Department of Geography, who specializes in the geography of culture, ventured, however, that “TV gives figures their five minutes [of fame]….All cultural heroes disappear.”

Oren agreed there was a culture of ratings. He pointed, though, to Pnina Rosenblum as an example of a star who survives. The reason for that, he said, was that she changed and became a different symbol. “She knows what the press wants,” he stated. Earlier, one of the panelists had called her Israel’s Marilyn Monroe, “but now she was the model of a feminist capitalist.” Her hinting at a political career was also making headlines.

Rosenblum seemed little daunted in sparring with the academics, even though she herself is not a college graduate. There might have been a term or two with which the former beauty queen, who also appeared in several movies, was not familiar, but it did not fluster her. She was plainly trying to demonstrate her new image.

“I had difficulty with the media at first,” she complained, “as I was more serious than what I was made out to be. I had to fight the ‘dumb blond’ stigma. All along, I knew who I was. I had to prove myself by myself—to show everyone that I was not the dumb blond.”

The blond capitalist reminded the other panelists that she had been written up in the Wall Street Journal and had received the Naamat Prize for her entrepreneurship.

Oren had described Rosenblum as “exceptional” in her staying power as a media star. Would she continue to be a culture hero if she became a politician? Almog, the sociologist, suggested that Israeli politicians were no longer heroes as people got to know them more than they did in the past, the familiarization tearing away the hero veneer. He also faulted the media for over-dramatization and ignorance. Oz-Salzberger, however, summed up the role of the actor in history as once having served the king, then having killed the king, and more recently having become the king.