How'd They Get Away with THAT?

[sueli]

Feb 7, 2010 19:09:19 GMT -4 @dguzpy said:

Feb 7, 2010 15:53:53 GMT -4 Mouse said:

Here's my pet peeve: Parents who let their underage daughters be sexualized and generally marketed to pervs in raincoats. Like this photo of Brooke Shields (yes, it's work-safe). Hello--Brooke's mother made her pose nude at the age of 10, obviously dolled up like an adult. Where was DCFS? How did Teri Shields get away with this?

(No, this is not comparable to "Taxi Driver," a film that featured a child prostitute WITHOUT condoning it. In fact, I seem to remember Travis Bickle trying to rescue Jodie Foster's character from the streets.)

Not only that, but Tatum O'Neal and her brothers were badly abused by their father and nobody intervened on their behalf. Ryan O'Neal should've had his ass thrown in jail, and he should've lost custody of his kids.

I just find it revolting that parents are able to get away with abusing/exploiting their child-star offspring like this.

They were able, not are able. The 1970s and earlier were a totally different era as far as child welfare was concerned. Remember, this was a time when marital rape was still legal, child abuse hotlines did not exist, and Oprah and Phil Donahue had yet to convince people that sexual abuse victims weren't lying harlots. People weren't as aware of kiddie porn then and even if they were, they weren't sure how bad it was. Beaten kids were only taken away from parents who had no economic or political power; rich people like Ryan O'Neal practically had to horse whip their children in the town square before the cops would issue a warning.

Kids today are way safer than we were back then.

I don't know, Dina and Michael Lohan are and have been doing some pretty exploitive stuff throughout their kids careers [or what's left of them].

[soul]

The 1970s and earlier were a totally different era as far as child welfare was concerned.

Well, I don't know. I think Brooke Shield's mom was hiding under the umbrella of art, even though those photos were printed in Playboy's Sugar & Spice magazine.

Sick, beyond words.

However, with that said, the 70s were not a free for all, just as Roman Polanski, who thought he could drug and rape a child. The law came after him, but unfortunately he did flee the country.

[Deleted]

There was actually a lot of controversy even at the time about the way Teri Shields handled Brooke's early career. But generally people were more reluctant to come between a parent and a child than they are now. It wasn't until Drew Barrymore went into rehab that people really started talking seriously about Hollywood kids being exploited and abused by their parents.

[kanding]

Amuzing sidenote to the whole Teri Shields' handling of her child's career: A few years later when the cultural tides had changed somewhat and the public began to see Shields' actions as something much, much less than "art", she tried to backpeddle in order to promote Brooke as this sweet, virginal child (Not that Brooke wasn't a good child, but the image her mother had created of her made her into jailbait. Hardly the type who would promote abstinence until marriage a few years later.) She even went to court to prevent a photographer from publishing nude/semi-nude photos of Brooke from a few years earlier. The photos were the property of the photographer, but Shield's argued that he was exploiting her child.

The photographer won the case, and I wish so much that I could find the judge's comments to Shields. He basically ripped into her for being a hypocrite and the person chiefly responsible for peddling her child. And that she couldn't have it both ways.

It was a beautiful thing.

[tabby]

The photographer won the case, and I wish so much that I could find the judge's comments to Shields. He basically ripped into her for being a hypocrite and the person chiefly responsible for peddling her child. And that she couldn't have it both ways.

Yeah, he said something like, "You were the one who put her in movies like Pretty Baby."

[Deleted]

Feb 8, 2010 3:45:00 GMT -4 @winnifer said:

There was actually a lot of controversy even at the time about the way Teri Shields handled Brooke's early career. But generally people were more reluctant to come between a parent and a child than they are now. It wasn't until Drew Barrymore went into rehab that people really started talking seriously about Hollywood kids being exploited and abused by their parents.

Yeah, things definitely changed in the 1980s. My mother grew up in the 1940s and 50s and doesn't understand what the big deal was about child stars then being exploited. When I tell her about how Shirley Temple's parents spent almost all her money and Judy Garland was stuffed full of pills, her response is "So? They still had it better than most kids." And my mom's not a heart hearted woman otherwise. The difference today is that everyone thinks the Lohans are the Worst Parents Ever. Back in the 1970s, Danny Bonaduce's parents (who were much, much worse) weren't even discussed in the press. It was a non-issue.

[soul]

Well, I think we have to consider the fact that there was not much press written about these parents. Today, we have the internet, and the 80s they had the tell-all books, most notably Mommy Dearest.

I think Joan Crawford's daughter book is what set if off, even though she was not a child star. However, she was used to support Joan's image.

[millie77]

The treatment of child stars during the Golden Age was the topic of a pretty good, interesting book called Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star by Dick Moore (who had been a child star himself). He interviewed a lot of kids from the 1930s and 1940s who were working in Hollywood and recounts some of his own stories. Some of it is very depressing. Very few of those kids had decent parents. Most fell somewhere on the criminal scale.

[thneed]

To completely change the subject, I remember seeing this KFC ad during primetime TV, during the family hour, during shows like Jeopardy. And it was on for a long time. How did no one get all upset about the sexual content, even those professional whiny parents' associations?

[satellite]

Feb 12, 2010 20:59:28 GMT -4 thneed said:

To completely change the subject, I remember seeing this KFC ad during primetime TV, during the family hour, during shows like Jeopardy. And it was on for a long time. How did no one get all upset about the sexual content, even those professional whiny parents' associations?

Huh? I'm not seeing sexual content.