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Brooke Shields has just lately opened up concerning the sexualization she confronted in Hollywood from an especially younger age. She portrayed a baby prostitute in Pretty Baby at age 11, then starred in The Blue Lagoon, which depicted the sexual awakenings of two youngsters. Shields stated that “They wanted to make it a reality show. They wanted to sell my actual sexual awakening. The irony was, I wasn’t in touch with any of my own sexuality.”
In 1978, when Shields was nonetheless a preteen, journalist Ed Dwyer wrote: “She’s a sweet temptation to all but blind men and eunuchs. She’s sister, daughter, sex object, victim, lover, tramp.” Shields has additionally spoken concerning the Calvin Klein advert she shot at 15, when she stated, “You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
According to Shields, she was simply “a kid” and “naive” and did not perceive the diploma to which she’d be sexualized by the advert. “What was shocking to me was to be berated by ‘Oh, you knew this was happening,'” she told Vogue. “‘This is what you thought. You were thinking these thoughts.’”
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While talking to Shields about her experiences as a baby star on her daytime TV present, Drew Barrymore additionally opened up about being sexualized as a baby, however not feeling like she might converse up within the #metoo period. “I didn’t really feel like I might converse to it as a result of I skilled so many issues that have been so inappropriate at such a younger age that I used to be so confused about what was I accountable for, what did I put myself into, the place was I, was I part of issues. We have been youngsters,” she advised Shields.
Barrymore — who rose to fame as a younger child with movies like E.T. — had beforehand claimed to not have skilled sexual harassment in Hollywood, however her interview with Shields urged she was in denial. “I felt like I couldn’t speak to the movement, and I was so happy that it was happening, but I felt like I experienced too many things that were so gray and so awkward and I didn’t know were wrong at the time,” Barrymore stated.
Whether or not Barrymore felt mistreated by the business, it is no secret that she was closely sexualized as a teen following her position in Poison Ivy and posing nude (along with her 23-year-old fiancé) at 17.
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Christina Applegate handled a ton of sexualization when she began showing on Married… with Children at simply 16. “Looking back on it in hindsight, it’s pretty gross. Yeah, that part of it kind of sucked. Men had posters of this little 17-year-old, with me holding pearls. Like, who let me do that? I didn’t even know what the connotation was,” Applegate stated.
Applegate spoke, too, about how being sexualized and objectified at such a younger age has made it even tougher to look at her physique change after her current MS prognosis. “It’s really, really hard for me because so much of my life was my image, and then I see this person, and I’m like, Who is this person with 20 chins?” she advised Vanity Fair. Applegate acquired many unfavorable feedback about her look altering after her prognosis.
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Mara Wilson (greatest recognized for Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda) was hated by some for her “cuteness” as a baby actor. One journalist complained about her “tiresome” cute act, and stated that when she noticed Mara smile, she wished “to shake her by her tiny lovable shoulders till her little Chiclet enamel rattle.”
As she acquired older, she struggled with getting old out of being “cute” — like when she was requested to start out carrying a sports activities bra on the set of Thomas and the Magic Railroad. When she was 12, she stumbled upon an article that stated she was getting into “the awkward years, when she’ll be old enough to have breasts, but not old enough to show them legally.” Soon after, she began seeing commercials for (faux) photos of her nude, discovering she was listed on a foot fetish website, and receiving creepy letters from an grownup male fan.
“I never appeared in anything more revealing than a knee-length sundress. This was all intentional: My parents thought I would be safer that way,” Wilson wrote in one other op-ed. (*13*)
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Alyson Stoner is one other youngster star who later wrote an op-ed concerning the impact it had on her. Stoner first achieved widespread fame after starring in Missy Elliott’s “Work It” music video. She additionally co-starred in Mike’s Super Short Show on Disney Channel and as one of many youngsters in Cheaper by the Dozen. While her essay did not focus completely on sexualization in a baby, she, like Wilson, additionally touched on the results of hitting puberty within the public eye.
“The onset of puberty has turned my waist and bust into the main objects of attention and inspection,” she wrote. “This will also categorize my career trajectory. I’ve learned that it is safer to dissociate in order to survive what my mind and body are subjected to daily. I’ll be numb for another five years, but all you will see is the ever-highly-functioning, Smiling Girl #437.”
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Mary-Kate and Ashley shot to fame from an excellent younger age once they have been forged on Full House. They then grew to become preteen royalty as they appeared in various movies collectively that have been beloved by anybody rising up within the 2000s…and, apparently, grown males. Multiple web sites have been devoted to counting all the way down to the twins’ 18th birthday.
Just earlier than their birthday, NBC News wrote, “They contain the innocence of children and the sultriness of sexpots,” and “We are jealous of Mary-Kate and Ashley, of the way they seem always to be touching in photographs — Mary-Kate kisses Ashley’s shoulder; Ashley smushes her forehead against Mary-Kate’s cheek. … Their constant touching of each other seems seductive, but unintentionally so.” The article does point out the countdowns to their 18th birthday, and takes care to level out that in some states, the age of consent is youthful.
At 17, they appeared on the quilt of Rolling Stone, captioned “America’s Favorite Fantasy.” Their personal publicist identified, “They’re a fantasy if you’re a 6-year-old girl, and perhaps they’re a fantasy if you’re a 50-year-old man.”
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There was additionally a countdown for Natalie Portman: “A countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday — euphemistically, the date that I would be legal to sleep with,” Portman stated through the 2019 Women’s March. “Movie reviewers talked about my budding breasts in reviews. I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort.”
She additionally later talked concerning the expertise of being sexualized at a younger age, particularly after showing in Beautiful Girls at age 12, wherein she portrayed a 13-year-old who was with an older man. “Being sexualized as a child, I think, took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid, and it made me, like, the way I could be safe was to be like, ‘I’m conservative,’ and ‘I’m serious and you should respect me,’ and ‘I’m smart,’ and ‘Don’t look at me that way,'” Portman advised Dax Shepard on his podcast.
“At that age, you do have your own sexuality, and you do have your own desire, and you do want to explore things, and you do want to be open. But you don’t feel safe, necessarily, when there’s, like, older men that are interested, and you’re like, ‘No, no, no, no,’” she continued.
8.
Millie Bobby Brown was equally sexualized instantly after turning 18, noting that she’d seen a distinction in the way in which folks and the media handled her after her birthday, calling it “gross.” She continued, “I think it’s just a very good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized. And so I have been dealing with that, but also have been dealing with that for forever.”
She had previously spoken out about being sexualized when she was simply 16, writing on Instagram, “The last few years haven’t been easy, I’ll admit that. There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualization, and unnecessary insults that ultimately have resulted in pain and insecurity for me.”
Brown, who had been well-known since she first started starring in Stranger Things at age 11, was additionally solely 13 when she confirmed up on W Magazine’s listing about why TV was “sexier than ever.”
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Britney Spears has probably confronted the worst remedy within the media of any fashionable feminine star, particularly contemplating she was so younger when she skyrocketed to fame. Interviewers requested her various inappropriate questions, together with about her virginity and her breasts. She was relentlessly criticized for sexual lyrics and her vogue sense.
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A couple of years again, Chloë Grace Moretz (maybe greatest recognized for her position in Kick-Ass at age 12) talked about feeling sexualized when she was requested to put on a push-up bra with rooster cutlets on a film set at age 16. The expertise additionally made her insecure about her physique. “It was the first time I really felt insecure, I would say. It was the first time I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, ‘Well, is it not right?'” she advised the Inclusive.
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This yr, former Disney Channel star Bella Thorne advised the story of being sexualized by male followers, who pushed her “sexy” journal covers from when she was a minor in entrance of her and requested her to signal them. She additionally stated she would not have posed for these photos if she might return, and touched on the pressures she was beneath as she matured within the limelight. “I also think when you’re growing up, now you have boobs all of a sudden, and everything’s growing and become more and more intense. You start liking people, and everything changes.”
She’s additionally spoken about how she was sexualized after a photograph of her in a bikini at age 14 went viral, and the way Disney Channel was even apparently beneath stress to fireside her from her present Shake It Up as a result of folks’s reactions have been “How dare this little girl do this. This is so disgusting.” She stated Disney advised her that she wanted to put on boy shorts and a unfastened T-shirt the following time she went to the seaside.
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Scarlett Johansson stated she was “hyper-sexualized” early in her profession (regardless of intercourse by no means being “a huge part of her actual personality”) as a result of folks thought she was older than she was. She additionally stated she “definitely was in different situations that were not age-appropriate,” and was fortunate to have her mother to guard her, “but she can’t do that for everything.”
In truth, she was afraid she’d been pigeonholed into sexual and mature roles and can be forged out of Hollywood when she hit a sure age. For context, Johansson was solely 17 when she performed a dissatisfied younger spouse in Lost in Translation — although at that time, she’d been in Hollywood for a few years.
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Finally, Mischa Barton wrote about her expertise as a baby actor for Harper’s Bazaar in 2021, saying, “The truth is that sexuality has always been a component of my career. Even from a young age, I was sexualized.” She spoke about turning into a “strange sex symbol” in Asia after the discharge of her coming-of-age movie Pups when she was simply 13.
As she handed 18 and started starring on The O.C., she says she was “pursued by older men in their 30s” and felt stress to lose her virginity that she says she finally gave into. Her courting ended up resulting in a complete new onslaught of undesirable media consideration.
Barton ends her essay on a constructive be aware: “From the teenage girl who did a lot of her sexual firsts in front of the world, her first kiss, her first period, her first sexual experience, I have finally learnt what it means to be in control of my own sexuality,” Baton completed. “I’m not just a headline, I am a woman, a human being, and I have a story to tell. I can’t stay quiet anymore, because these things are still happening — the exploitation of young girls, to people of color, to all women, sexualized while being picked apart and shamed for being alive in their own bodies. If my story can help even one young girl stand up for herself and not let the world tear them down, then all of this will be worth it.”
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