Role model interventions are often designed to foster students' pursuit of careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We hypothesize that role model interventions might also unintentionally shape students' beliefs concerning the broader social system--their ideologies--leading them to view the (inequitable) status quo in STEM as natural and acceptable. A systematic narrative review (35 articles, 42 studies) indicated that the ideological effects of role model interventions were rarely considered in the literature. Although limited, the few relevant findings revealed both desirable and undesirable side effects of role model interventions on students' ideologies. This review demonstrates that role models can be a double-edged sword and serves as a call to evaluate role model interventions on criteria beyond motivation.