Exploiting a News Story

 

Child Stars Exploitation

Brief

According to Merriam-Webster Exploiting refers to “making use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage”. The film and television industry plays a major role in exploiting child stars that has a lifetime effect on them unless the matter is treated properly.

Exploitation happens everywhere, not just in the film and television industry, but the fact that people are paid to exploit their children for money is insane.

Film

In the movie "Pretty Baby", starring Brooke Shields, she is portrayed to be a little girl who in short, is actioned off by older men for their own guilty pleasures. In other terms, she is a child prostitute throughout the film. More prerogative accounts happen in the film, but that one is what made my stomach boil.

Since the movie was filmed in the 70s, matters pertaining to sexualizing children in all forms were seen as normal, but in the century that we live in today, our generation is not putting up with nonsense. There were even scenes in the film where the young girl was getting undressed in front of older men as well as nudity scenes.

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To add, Hulu has even joined in on the matter of her story by creating a documentary specifically about the film.

Overall, I feel as though her late mother should have felt disgusted for exploiting her 11-year-old child to such bad activities that she has to answer to being a 57-year-old adult.

 

Television

Actor, Jennette McCurdy is known throughout the television industry as a child star. She began to act in supporting roles, but her stardom was when she appeared as a main character in the show "iCarly'." Since the show, she has disappeared from acting until the release of her memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died”, in early August of last year. 

Her memoir is about the obsession that her mother had with her becoming a notable well-known actor. Throughout her story, she explains that one of the most enduring things that her mom did was cause to have her on a strict diet counting her calories at the age of 10, Buzzfeednews.com), to which caused her to form an eating disorder in the prime of her life when we were all gushing over her casting in the televised show ‘iCarly’. It is also said on Pagesix.com that her mother was so controlling to the point the she would make her (11-years old)  and brother (15-year-old) shower together and it made them both uncomfortable.

There is even a reboot of the show that premiered in 2021, of which Jennette declined to be partly due to her childhood trauma cast upon her by her mother as well as the well-known producer ‘Dan Schneider’ on the set of her debut appearance ‘iCarly’.

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To add, Jennette McCurdy is thriving and at peace since the passing of her mother, but she knows that if she were alive today, she would still be unhappy being an actor, having an eating disorder, and only used to pay the bills.

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Conclusion

It is sad to learn that many child stars that we grew up with admired and loving, didn’t feel the same way about themselves that we felt about them or the character that they portrayed. Ultimately, parents should consider that they are only children, and such young minds can not process such. Lastly, companies that are offering these roles to parents with the intent of making them money should think of other outcomes to get funded.