Opinion | The cost of our joy was their trauma

In recent years, many child actors have spoken out on their experiences struggling with fame and everything it meant from a young age. If anything, this has shown the need for better laws to protect children in entertainment. Illustration by YANA SAMOYLOVA, Illustrator

Trigger warning: child abuse, sexual assault

We talk about child actors in our producing classes at Dodge. 

It’s part of a class lecture, so we sit and we listen as the professors tell us all the hoops we have to jump through and all the restrictions we have to abide by if we want to have a child actor in our films.

Mostly, we talk about child actors in the context of student films, since that’s what we are working on for the class. We mostly discuss that if we choose to hire a child actor, we are signing on for a lot of rules and restrictions that, as a student film, we might not be able to afford. 

We are warned against using minors in our films if possible because doing so would mean reduced hours of work, the need to get a studio teacher, having to deal with the parents and many more complications.

And sure, we touch on the role of child actors in bigger productions too, but in the classes I’ve taken, we are mostly interested in the student films we are working on at the moment. 

Emilia Cuevas Diaz, Opinions Editor

The reality is that for years, I don’t think we as a society really thought that much about child actors in general. Sure, they got a lot of attention because they were famous, but I don’t think we ever truly thought about what it meant for children to be put in that position. They were just sort of part of Hollywood. 

For years now, child actors have been an integral part of the media. From Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez to the Olsen twins and Lindsay Lohan, every generation has one or more child actors that they got to see grow up alongside them. And unfortunately, for most of them, we watched them struggle as they reached adulthood.

Miley Cyrus developed severe anxiety and body dysmorphia working on the set of “Hannah Montana.”

Lindsay Lohan’s struggles with addiction became a matter of public interest, making headlines multiple times. Lohan is known for her roles in “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls.”

Drake Bell of “Drake & Josh” was sexually abused by a crew member when he was a minor.

“iCarly” and “Sam & Cat” star Jennette McCurdy’s eating disorder was encouraged by her mother to keep her in the business.

Alyson Stoner of the “Cheaper by the Dozen” films published an op-ed for People Magazine, discussing sexual harassment, eating disorders and child labor law violations, as well as self-esteem issues and lack of bodily autonomy that was taught to her due to her fame.

Raven-Symoné, the star of the Disney Channel show “That’s So Raven,” was body-shamed and made to stay in the closet for fear of her image being impacted.

Mara Wilson, who is best known for her roles in “Matilda,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Miracle on 34th Street,” was heavily sexualized by adults and by the media since she was 6 years old.

This is not even scratching the surface. 

In recent years, the child stars I grew up with have started speaking out about their experience growing up in the industry, and most of them have tales of abuse, loss of childhood, lack of bodily autonomy and poor mental health directly related to the time they spent on sets and auditions as kids.

The former child actors are speaking out to try to enact some change in the industry. They want the new generations of child actors to be protected from what they went through.

From Jennette McCurdy’s memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” to Alyson Stoner’s YouTube channel, to the recent Max documentary “Quiet On Set,” there are many stories coming out of what was really going on behind the scenes of our favorite TV shows from when we were little. 

All those pieces of media discuss sexual abuse in one way or another, body shaming and expectations put on the children of how they should look, child labor laws being violated or bent, being exploited by the industry and/or family members, lack of privacy and bodily autonomy and financial struggles after fame. 

And now, we are seeing that same abuse and exploitation on a different level, as parents become family YouTubers and become rich off of recording and posting videos of their children's personal lives. 

Despite all the abuse and exploitation the child actors on television shows and movies went through, they still had some protections as part of the SAG-AFTRA actors union. These new brands of “kidfluencers” don’t share those protections.

Currently, there are little to no legal protections for kids on social media. They are not protected under child labor laws, they are exposed to fame from a very young age, and a lot of times, the videos are posted against the child’s wishes.

We already failed multiple generations of famous children. When they struggled, we looked the other way, or we criticized them for not having it together. We contributed to what they went through, and when they acted out or asked for help, we dismissed them. 

And this goes all the way back to the first child star of Hollywood, Jackie Coogan. He had to sue his mother and manager to get some of the money he earned, which turned into the Coogan Law. But even that victory had a lot of legal loopholes that made the law ineffective.

This has to change. We can’t let kids keep being thrust into the spotlight and be left to deal with mental health issues, financial struggles, trauma and addiction afterward. 

Clearly, the laws that are currently in place in Hollywood to protect kids are not enough. And now that we have a whole new set of child stars with social media, we need laws that protect them too. 

Every child deserves privacy and a chance to have a normal childhood. We need laws that ensure that child stars, who bring so much joy to our childhoods, get to enjoy theirs, too.