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Wednesday, November 29, 2017
A 13-Year-Old Girl Is Not “All Grown Up” - Mara Wilson on the Sexualization of Child Actresses and Millie Bobby Brown
www.elle.com: is name was Don, or maybe Doug. He was a grown man, one I’d never met, and he wanted me to answer his fan letter. His writing was hard to read, but I could make out just enough: “I love your legs,” and “Can I have your lip print on the enclosed index card?”
6 comments:
Cooper Nickels
said...
It is such a shame that along with the fame and notoriety that truly good actors like Millie Bobby Brown comes this kind of creepy and gross behavior towards them. It reminds me of when Jennifer Lawrence's nude photographs were leaked. She was not a child actress at the time, but a young woman in the industry none the less who had her privacy completely destroyed and distributed without abandon to all kinds of people. Things like this are just grotesque. This kind of sexualization and objectification that some people think is acceptable is just unacceptable. It is a systemic problem in our society, and quite frankly, I do not know if it can ever be truly corrected. As long as people put themselves on screen in front of millions like this, they subject themselves to all kinds of positive and negative attention, a fact that however gross it may be, seems to me to be something that will be hard if not impossible to change.
Children deserve to have a childhood. Even children who act in popular film and television shows. They are children. Mara Wilson was 13 and once she entered the entertainment industry she was to be sexualized. It’s awful. Women do not deserve to be objectified. We shouldn’t be categorized as cute or grown up or ugly. Wilson is so right in this article. A thirteen year old is not a grown up. Millie Bobby Brown is still a kid and she does not deserve older men hitting on her nor does she deserve to be judged for what she wears out in public. The entertainment industry is so superficial. Actors do not deserve to be dehumanized and just be seen as money mules rather than people. They are people and they deserve recognition as such. It’s so important for people to recognize the power of media especially in this day and age.
People like this are pedophiles. There is no way around it. If a grown man looks at a 13 year old in his own life and tells her he wants to have sex with her or that she is so grown up, we would expect someone to protect her. But because Millie Bobby Brown is not someone we know people seem to think it's okay to talk about how grown and "sexy" she is. One of the things I have to say more frequently than I want to have to say Is "we have to protect children". I have far to many loved ones who were sexualized and harassed at ages that are way too young. Millie Bobby Brown is not a product. She does not stop existing when we turn off Netflix. To the contrary, she is actually more real, more well rounded and full when she is not being used for our consumption. Because she is so real, we have to keep her safe from sexual predators as we must keep every other child safe from. The stats on child sexual abuse are too high. It's time we stop excusing men looking at little girls like sex objects and start holding them accountable.
I have seen more and more headlines that objectify and sexualize young actresses in hollywood such as Millie Bobby Brown, and it makes me absolutely furious and disgusted. We shouldn't be making comments on women's clothing choices constantly anyway, but to sexualize a 13-year-old with what she chooses to wear to an event is incomprehensible to me. I can imagine being a young actress already dealing with the trials and stresses of newfound fame and hollywood, but on top of that have to worry about being objectified by magazine tabloids. Interestingly enough, I have observed this problem as not only one concerning the girls of the Stranger Things cast, but some of the young male actors as well. I have read other articles of older actresses tempting the Stranger Things boys to "call me when you turn 18" or other such phrases. No matter what gender, objectification and sexualization of young actors in hollywood is disgusting and never ok.
Mara Wilson has been a very strong advocate for child actors for a long time now, so it is not surprising to me that she is speaking out to defend Millie Bobbie Brown. One of things she discussed that I find the most troubling are the countdown clocks that many people create for famous actress' eighteenth birthdays. This blatantly sexualizes a child and reduces her value to nothing but a man's ability to sleep with her and not get in trouble. As much as I hate to use the "what if it was your sister" argument because I think it devalues the importance of respecting all women, I really think it might help people think about what they are actually saying. I'm sure that if anyone tried to sexualize these men's own sisters and daughters they would be livid, but they easily objectify another thirteen year old. People need to see that just because someone is famous it does not give you the right to their body, and this is extremely important to understand in the case of minors.
I think it is really powerful reading from Mara Wilson’s own perspective and her argument for child actors. When I thought of child actors I just think how happy and spoiled they must be. Yes they work so hard and have to still go to school and be a kid but I never considered that they would have to deal with the same kind of harassment that an adult actor would, which makes sense it is just very sad to hear because they are so innocent. Like Mara Wilson’s encounter with a creepy older man’s letter to her, child actors must deal with these kinds of comments on their own bodies. Comments that bring on a whole train of thoughts they had probably never considered about their own bodies. Social media is making not only these child actors but all children grow up too fast as they are exposed to all of the comments.
6 comments:
It is such a shame that along with the fame and notoriety that truly good actors like Millie Bobby Brown comes this kind of creepy and gross behavior towards them. It reminds me of when Jennifer Lawrence's nude photographs were leaked. She was not a child actress at the time, but a young woman in the industry none the less who had her privacy completely destroyed and distributed without abandon to all kinds of people. Things like this are just grotesque. This kind of sexualization and objectification that some people think is acceptable is just unacceptable. It is a systemic problem in our society, and quite frankly, I do not know if it can ever be truly corrected. As long as people put themselves on screen in front of millions like this, they subject themselves to all kinds of positive and negative attention, a fact that however gross it may be, seems to me to be something that will be hard if not impossible to change.
Children deserve to have a childhood. Even children who act in popular film and television shows. They are children. Mara Wilson was 13 and once she entered the entertainment industry she was to be sexualized. It’s awful. Women do not deserve to be objectified. We shouldn’t be categorized as cute or grown up or ugly. Wilson is so right in this article. A thirteen year old is not a grown up. Millie Bobby Brown is still a kid and she does not deserve older men hitting on her nor does she deserve to be judged for what she wears out in public. The entertainment industry is so superficial. Actors do not deserve to be dehumanized and just be seen as money mules rather than people. They are people and they deserve recognition as such. It’s so important for people to recognize the power of media especially in this day and age.
People like this are pedophiles. There is no way around it. If a grown man looks at a 13 year old in his own life and tells her he wants to have sex with her or that she is so grown up, we would expect someone to protect her. But because Millie Bobby Brown is not someone we know people seem to think it's okay to talk about how grown and "sexy" she is.
One of the things I have to say more frequently than I want to have to say Is "we have to protect children". I have far to many loved ones who were sexualized and harassed at ages that are way too young.
Millie Bobby Brown is not a product. She does not stop existing when we turn off Netflix. To the contrary, she is actually more real, more well rounded and full when she is not being used for our consumption. Because she is so real, we have to keep her safe from sexual predators as we must keep every other child safe from. The stats on child sexual abuse are too high. It's time we stop excusing men looking at little girls like sex objects and start holding them accountable.
I have seen more and more headlines that objectify and sexualize young actresses in hollywood such as Millie Bobby Brown, and it makes me absolutely furious and disgusted. We shouldn't be making comments on women's clothing choices constantly anyway, but to sexualize a 13-year-old with what she chooses to wear to an event is incomprehensible to me. I can imagine being a young actress already dealing with the trials and stresses of newfound fame and hollywood, but on top of that have to worry about being objectified by magazine tabloids. Interestingly enough, I have observed this problem as not only one concerning the girls of the Stranger Things cast, but some of the young male actors as well. I have read other articles of older actresses tempting the Stranger Things boys to "call me when you turn 18" or other such phrases. No matter what gender, objectification and sexualization of young actors in hollywood is disgusting and never ok.
Mara Wilson has been a very strong advocate for child actors for a long time now, so it is not surprising to me that she is speaking out to defend Millie Bobbie Brown. One of things she discussed that I find the most troubling are the countdown clocks that many people create for famous actress' eighteenth birthdays. This blatantly sexualizes a child and reduces her value to nothing but a man's ability to sleep with her and not get in trouble. As much as I hate to use the "what if it was your sister" argument because I think it devalues the importance of respecting all women, I really think it might help people think about what they are actually saying. I'm sure that if anyone tried to sexualize these men's own sisters and daughters they would be livid, but they easily objectify another thirteen year old. People need to see that just because someone is famous it does not give you the right to their body, and this is extremely important to understand in the case of minors.
I think it is really powerful reading from Mara Wilson’s own perspective and her argument for child actors. When I thought of child actors I just think how happy and spoiled they must be. Yes they work so hard and have to still go to school and be a kid but I never considered that they would have to deal with the same kind of harassment that an adult actor would, which makes sense it is just very sad to hear because they are so innocent. Like Mara Wilson’s encounter with a creepy older man’s letter to her, child actors must deal with these kinds of comments on their own bodies. Comments that bring on a whole train of thoughts they had probably never considered about their own bodies. Social media is making not only these child actors but all children grow up too fast as they are exposed to all of the comments.
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