Harry Potter....
It is up to the adults and educators to make young people (over certain age, 10? years of age) "relate" to people who go through educational process, life struggles and hard work to make true contributions to societies, instead of anime/fictional characters.
A place to start is to hang portraits of scientist, doctors, writers, etc... in the school corridors, instead of ball players for example.. Maybe a list of famous American writers is a good start... it's done in other places.
http://www.pavelin.ru/images/stories/obloskapisateli33.jpg