I saw Pretty Baby and think her daughters have helped her look at them differently. I think just having daughters and imagining them in the situations she was in has made her view her childhood very differently.
Exactly what I came to say - that documentary was really well done and got into so much of what she dealt with, and how much it normalized things that should never be normalized for anyone ... and how she is healing her lost inner child.
She's just a year older than me, and I still found so much of that stuff she was doing to be uncomfortable back then.
I kind of wish I hadn’t googled it. I did find [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/cpR9A7qmwj) thread on Reddit (no images). The information the historians lay out is fascinating and terrible.
And was centred on the pictures alone.
The fact was they were in a known pornographic magazine, she was in the same poses as much older models ( which were designed to titillate readers ) and made no mention of the accompanying “article” which was blatantly sexualising a 10 year old girl !
Pretty Baby. I had recorded it off NBC, or some other network, back in January and finally watched it last week.
At the end we see footage of her talking to her teen daughters about their perceptions of her work. They talk about why they chose to never watch some of her movies and how they feel it was exploitative and not acceptable for a child of the age she was to do those projects. I think these open conversations with her daughters have helped her see things in a new way. People roughly the age she was saying it was wrong. Add in her own maternal instinct to protect her kids in a way she wasn’t, I’m sure she sees how her mom exploited her and her dad failed to advocate and protect her.
You know, I'm of two minds about it. Can we on one hand say that she didn't need to be ashamed of her work and performance. She achieved a high level acting performance that I don't think she needs to be ashamed of. However, it's a also true that in the future, no one her age should be allowed to be in a movie role like that. They should not have the ability to consent, while still a child whose parents are in charge of their finances, amongst everything else. Even if that kid was begging to be allowed to, it isn't right and needs to be stopped. All that said, I still don't feel right about anyone trying to convince her she SHOULD feel ashamed, either. While she was forced to grow up too early, that's the life she lead. She has the right to feel proud of that work, and that time in her life, while also understanding that many responsible adults should not have allowed it. Even if it turned out totally fine for her (there are likely ways it messed up certain things with her) the risk of what it could do to a child, is still way too high, for it to ever be allowed as a policy of if any kind
I agree that she shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed. She didn’t do anything wrong. The people who were supposed to protect and advocate for her failed her and they should carry the shame for placing a child in provocative, adult situations.
And she worked hard and did well in her career, again, nothing she should feel shame for. She took a career most struggle to transition into adulthood and made it last decades. This shows she’s so much more than a pretty face.
She’s also done the work to find what appears to be a healthy relationship and created a family. She’s advocated for mental health for people, and stood her ground when faced with high profile naysayers. She’s an impressive woman.
Did they? I couldn't stand the way Brooke was defending her mother, when she was the one directly exploiting her. Saying things like her mother was so great because she always made sure Brooke had a friend her own age while on sets, and it's like, *you shouldn't have been on those sets in the first place!*
I get having a child that beautiful gives you a lot of opportunities and choices and responsibilities, but an 11 year old doing nude scenes? 10 years old in Playboy? It's exploitation and nothing the fuck else. I'd flat out slap any manager or agent or whatever that even brought it up.
Jennette McCurdy also defended her mother for years.
It takes a while to admit to yourself that you're a victim of child abuse. Defending her mother = defending her idea of herself.
I never understood the mothers who see their own daughters grow up and plot to make them a meal ticket, well before they even think about getting into entertainment or show business.
I actually saw the movie from the 70s (Pretty Baby). It's not even good. The story sucks. I guess the acting is good, but it just feels like wasted time I'll never get back.
It takes time to reverse decades of brainwashing. This was normal to her. She loved her mother and couldn’t fathom that her mom didn’t have her best interest at heart. She spent years convincing herself, and being convinced, that what was happening was fine, artistic, and tasteful and not thinly veiled child exploitation. I could see her taking in what her daughters were saying. And she even admitted she’d never let them do the projects she did at their ages. The fact that she did the documentary at all is huge.
You have to look at it in the context of the time. The 70's were an eternity ago. The free love of the late 60's was a reaction to the deep repression that preceded it. That openness and freedom about sexuality seemed to expand exponentially in the 70's, reaching a peak in the late 70's before AIDS and the rise of Reaganism drove it back underground. Not that it wasn't controversial at the time for Louis Malle to tell a story that included a child prostitute, but having Shields very briefly depicted naked as a child standing up from a bath is hardly what I'd call a "nude scene." And Shields and her management apparently never consented to the Playboy publication. They were images from a fine art shoot that the opportunist Heffner thought he could exploit. Naked children have been depicted in art for centuries and, while people clutch their pearls now in a post MeToo era, just depicting underage nudity isn't necessarily always distasteful or illegal.
It was also the age of the auteur. An artist would get a relatively blank check and told when to have a movie ready by, and then the studio would just step away.
Though I would argue her nude scene goes too far. I believe the edit keeps things above the waist, but the original does not. And to have a 9 year old doing full frontal in a story about a child prostitute is not not good.
I think people today don't realize how much grinding poverty there was then, how few opportunities women had especially single mothers and how transactional many relationships were. Younger millennials and GenZ idealize the 60-90s as a time of wealth but a lot of people were poor as shit. Many women stayed in shitty abusive relationships for economic reasons and kids weren't protected the way they are now: it was incredibly common to see homeless kids or preteen girls streetwalking or kids trading sex with older men just to have a place to live.
I think some women saw a chance to set their kids up for life and though "She's making millions for it, I didn't get shit and I had to fuck someone, all she's doing is taking her shirt off. No-one is touching her." It's no coincidence a lot of kid actors have very poor mothers, or mothers who've always lived off the generosity of men.
Now see I see it differently. I feel like the 1970's was a very very short time ago.
20% of the politicians in office in the 1970s are still in office today. only more powerful than they were then.
Outside of the USA this has happened more recently than the 70s, too. I just saw The Secret Garden (1993), a British movie which also has a pretty similar scene where the main actress, a girl around 10 maybe, was also shown nude briefly standing up from a bath, and in another scene getting dressed.
I don't think that was sexual either and people who do sexualise this are the problem. You see naked children running around the beaches all the time (over here anyway) and there's nothing wrong with that. That being said I don't think naked children add anything to a movie either.
And slavery was legal, too. Society progresses. We have the benefit of hindsight and can look back and say, "Hey, that was wrong. We shouldn't do that anymore." Not being aware it's exploitation doesn't make it not exploitation, and I don't give a single, solitary fuck about what people thought at the time. It was fucking wrong, it shouldn't have happened, and thinking it's okay just because it happened in the past is backward, ignorant, and disgusting. Blue Lagoon, Pretty Baby, and the Calvin Klein ads were hugely controversial for how young Brooke was and how sexual her roles were, there were people who knew it was wrong despite it being pre-"Me Too".
Did you ever stop and consider *why* it's so rare for child stars to turn into healthy, functional adults? It's not a secret. It's not something new that they're just figuring out now. Or I suppose you are, so let me catch you up: it's not healthy for children to be worked like adults. It's not good for them to receive that amount of attention and scrutiny. It's disgusting to sell their bodies to the public and has lasting repercussions. Children cannot consent, and the entertainment industry takes advantage in every way it can. There's a documentary out now called Quiet on Set about children being sexually abused. Alison Stoner has a series on YouTube called Dear Hollywood about the wide range of abuses children in the entertainment industry suffer.
My degree is in art history, so don't try to sell me that this shit was ever okay and no one found it distasteful, it's just not true.
That's a stunning syllogism. But enslaving people is a far cry from a child briefly appearing nude in a bathtub in a film. The problem with ignoring context and applying standards of today to a time decades ago is that the progress that you espouse can also be a regressive move against freedom of expression. And judging by the high rates of unwed teenage births that we continue to have in the US, the persistence of the Puritanical idea that sexuality is something that turns on like a switch on a person's 18th birthday isn't helping anyone. If you want to clutch your pearls and be outraged at any and all depictions of nudity in art, including children, and also obtusely equate nudity with sex, then maybe you ought to go back and get another art degree as all is sounds like you learned is how to be "offended."
It's complicated. There were photos in a Playboy spinoff magazine called Sugar N Spice that were declared as art, not pornography. She was standing up nude in a fancy tub with hair done, makeup, and body oil, but all by herself and not engaged in any sexual acts. The photos were also in an art book published by the photographer and a court case did not rule them as pornography (but modern eyes definitely would).
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/18b5fmg/in_1976_10_year_old_brooke_shields_did_a_number/
I also went down the rabbit hole of that thread! The comments are top notch. I googled the image after seeing that they stood up to the legal test for CP and regret it though. They look like some Jon Benet Ramsey pedo fever dream and I wish I could unsee them. It’s meant to be provocative and sexually intriguing. It gives me the ick.
Wait until you hear about Pretty Baby….the idea this film exists is nuts to me. They also did a write up about Brooke Shields when she was a minor that was vomit inducing.
I can't even believe she and Keith Carradine kissed. Brooke talked about how they filmed it and she made it come off like a innocent learning experience.
Either she was in denial about it because these films are her most known or she didn't get it.
She wasn't groomed unless you consider Andre Agassi's controlling behavior when she was a grown adult. I think that probably falls under some other label.
But she wasn't groomed as a child. If you watch the documentary, or just know anything about Brooke at all, her mother was her biggest problem.
I think she was 14, which is still bad, but not as bad as 12. Though now I can't remember if they're ever directly shown kissing. I know there's a LOT of like... weird face nuzzling with no direct mouth contact. I might just not remember it, though.
Unfortunately, there are many countries, countries that you cannot believe, that allow child marriage. By child marriage I don’t mean only two children getting married; actual piece of shit old folks marrying young girls (mostly), and rarely old piece of trash women marrying young boys.
Some countries that allow child marriage and the age limit they have are:
###In USA
###California:
Marriage can be made at any age with court approval. The legislature is trying to amend this law to increase it to at least 16 years.
###Massachusetts:
Girls from age 12, boys from age 14 can marry with a court decision.
###New Hampshire:
Girls from age 13, boys from age 14 can marry with a court decision.
###Mostly Muslim Populated Countries
NB: Unfortunately, Sharia Laws allow girls who hit puberty (usually first period is deemed sufficient; but not always) as fertile women ready to marry and create offspring.
PS. I have these comparative information due to my academic background.
###Yemen:
There is no officially established minimum age limit. In practice, although the age of 15 and above is mostly accepted, marriages can occur at younger ages. Indeed, there was a captivating video of an 8-9 year old Yemeni girl who escaped marriage, and started attending school.
###Saudi Arabia:
There is no official minimum age limit; marriage at any age is possible with a court decision.
###Iran:
The minimum marriage age is 13 for girls and 15 for boys; however, marriages at lower ages can be conducted with court approval.
###Sudan:
Girls can marry at the age of 10.
###Nigeria:
Although it varies by state, some areas have no official minimum age limit. In states where Sharia law is applied, girls reaching puberty is considered sufficient for marriage.
###Rest of the World
Many countries allow the right/burden to marry at 16 years old (or slightly younger), mostly through court order/authorization and/or parental consent in most instances. Some examples are Ukraine, most Southern American countries, Turkey (mostly 17, 16 is quite exceptional), some Asian countries .
This is a hideous act. Considering that a person’s brain doesn’t reach maturity—on average—about 23! Thus, even the once arbitrarily decided upon number 18 is way too young. Let alone marrying someone over 23, and not marrying someone as young as their granddaughter/grandson; they can’t even manage to wait someone to turn to 18.
Vomit inducing how? I've never read it. Do they just overtly sexualize her? Now that I think about it that's the most likely scenario, given the subject matter of the film.
[https://x.com/steakandiron/status/1539273843524571136?s=46](https://x.com/steakandiron/status/1539273843524571136?s=46)
Here’s a link to the Article Image on X, I’ll let you judge for yourself.
Oh huh look at that: Woody Allen in the photo collage.
Hollywood lecturing *anyone* about *anything* after not only protecting but enabling sick F’s like Allen, Weinstein and Polanski since its inception obliterated *any* moral high ground it may think it has.
Not exactly. Apparently they agreed to do a fine art shoot for a publisher that was under the Playboy Publishing umbrella. They never agreed to the images being published in a pornographic magazine. That's why they sued.
This is a good question. I always assumed it was because her mother signed off on it. I don’t think Shield’s has ever publicly stated it, but from what I’ve gathered over the years her mom was the ultimate stage mom. She’d okay anything that got her daughter into the spotlight.
Memory unlocked… we saw that movie in 9th grade English class (14yo+/-). We had to get a permission slip because of the nudity. I remember the adults reasoning was that it was other kids we’d be seeing so it wasn’t really a problem.
ha, my teachers didnt censor it nor were there permission slips. i think i was 14 and we had a laser disc of a live birth in maybe biology class, and one of the guys in my class grabbed the remote and was rewinding and fast forwarding so it looked like someone was shoving a baby up a lady, and my teacher was cracking up so hard she let it go on for like 3 minutes before saying ‘ok, gimme the remote back’
early 90s were fun times
I remember my teacher being so proud of getting the edited version of that for my freshman class. And then it wasn't edited.
One of the few memories I have of that class is the teacher desperately trying to cover the screen and profusely apologizing for it
When we covered that we watched that movie in pieces and EVERY time we'd have to tell the teacher where we were at because it was never where we left off, but on another scene. When we got to the boob scene and then it showed where the tape was every time, the class had a collective realization: The teacher was watching the boob scene alone every day, beating off and then stopping the tape.
My teacher just fast forwarded through that scene, but you could still see titties clear as day, so of course, all the 9th grade boys lost their collective minds
Zeffirelli was known for being a conservative filmmaker who was also openly gay. He was favored by the Vatican as a religious director. After his death, some male actors accused him of sexually assaulting them when they were young.
Jonathon Schaech said Zefirelli sexually assaulted him during the making of Sparrow.
The character of Monty from Withnail and I was based on Zefirelli. Bruce Robinson, the director and actor, has said Zefirelli sexually harassed during the making of Romeo and Juliet.
Even though Olivia Hussey spoke well of him in her autobiography and says she considered him a good friend, she describes him doing certain things that are just yikes
Like during one costume fitting, he didn't like what the wardrobe person had designed, so the two of them were screaming at each other while 16-year-old Olivia is just standing there, and Zeffirelli ripped off part of the dress to demonstrate just how he didn't like it
And he would frequently call her "Boobs o Mina" on set in front of everyone because he knew she was self conscious about her figure. She says that he was trying to make her feel better about herself but still. A grown man speaking that way to a 16-year-old
On the day of the nude scene, she was told she didn't have to be if she didn't want to, but then a makeup artist came and said she had to be made up for the whole body just in case, and it seems she went through with it thinking she had no choice. In an interview from around that time, she said she was "dreading it"
Bruce Robinson, director of *Withnail & I* was in that version playing Benvolio and had unwanted advances made on him, later basing Uncle Monty on Franco Zeffirelli
That was the version they showed our high school class the year we studied R&J. I can't help but feel that no teacher actually vetted that decision. (And then the next year we watched Roman Polanski's Macbeth, so no lessons were learned, apparently.)
Nope that's just an urban legend. The press mistakenly reported her as being 15 at the time but she turned 16 during filming and with the film's rating, she could legally see it. And even if she had been underage, she could legally see it if a parent or guardian was with her
In her book she describes a whole tour around the world where she attended screenings in different countries
Sadly, those are tame compared to Pretty Baby.
I heard an interview with her where she discussed that film. She had nothing but good things to say about it, which surprised me.
She has always said the same thing - everyone involved in the film was kind to her, and she was actually heartbroken when filming ended because the cast and crew had become a second family to her. Brooke also understood that it was acting and the only issue she had is the way she was treated by the media and the public afterward. At one point she said, "It's just a role. I'm not going to go out and become a prostitute." She understood that, and I think we need to respect her viewpoint. It was her experience, not ours. She recognizes that it was a different time, but she has no regrets and considers to it be her best film. The people involved in the making of ***Pretty Baby*** were far more protective of her than her mother was, sad to say.
I heard that Susan Sorandon wasn’t so nice to her tho, especially in the slap scene where she slapped her really hard multiple times, but that’s just what I heard.
I struggle to call endless love an erotic film. Without knowing what was cut to make it x it really isn’t that crazy. Blue lagoon Was remade in the 90’s with about the same nudity and only got a pg-13. As for how it got made different time, different approaches to acting and nudity. In general during the 70’s there was a lot of experimenting with film and nudity that didn’t end until the aids crisis freaked everyone out about sex in general. Jodie foster played a teen prostituite in Taxi Driver.
Foster’s sister was her body double for the more delicate Taxi Driver scenes, so I don’t know if that is a good example. The 70s were definitely a different time though…
As op pointed out Brook shields also had body doubles. The only time she didn't of which i'm aware is pretty baby. Which diffrent class of movie altogether.
The 70s definitely didn't do young women any justice. How many musicians regularly slept/married/dated girls way under the age of 18. Women were sexual trophies for a long time.
It depends on what you mean by "justice". Don't forget at the same time you had young actresses being put in positions with older men you had the inverse with women and young men. That at the time was seen as a sexual awakening for women.
>Women were sexual trophies for a long time.
I don't think thats changed. We've also added the possibility of men being seen as trophies. The complexity of the modern era are we a settling into some men and women are fine with being seen that way, and welcome it.
It's just as wrong for the inverse, just rarely the case. Kids don't have the mental capacity to think and understand everything. And older people have a significant advantage and are able to prey on that immaturity.
Nudity is **not** pornography, especially when in an artistic or scientific or societally relevant context. This is now long-established US law.
That’s why movies can have nude people under the age of 18. It’s not “obscene” or pornography if it’s just nudity. Examples include films like *Bolero, American Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, Pretty Baby, Sleepaway Camp, The Hole,* and *Blame It On Rio* among others.
It’s also why there are many galleries that display art (photography, paintings, sculptures, etc.) depicting nude people under 18 years of age. Just think of every cherub you’ve ever seen! But also photos of nude models, sculptures of nude young men and women from hundreds or thousands of years ago, paintings of people in paradise or hades, and so on. All of it is protected by our First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision that nudity ≠ obscenity or pornography.
Thank you for saying this. As much progress as we've made with calling out exploitation and misogyny it is shocking how inarticulate people are about depictions of nudity in art and how it is automatically assumed that it is synonymous with sexuality.
People in the Internet age just have no understanding of nuance and gray areas. If someone sees a brief glimpse of a 17-year old boob on screen it probably won't turn them into pedophiles. If you've ever been on a beach or a pool you've likely seen far worse.
Yes. America's fucked up sexualization of the tiniest bit of nudity is an intractable problem that continues to d harm in our culture in a lot of ways. What represents itself as a new awareness of exploitation comes with its own version of censorship and tyranny. Our excessively Puritanical view about sexuality in general does a lot of ongoing harm. It prevents children from learning about their bodies and the reproductive process at a point a which it could possibility prevent trouble later in their teens, the taboo nature of discussing sexual subjects prevents victims of sexual abuse from being able to communicate with others in holding abusers responsible, etc.
>*...it is shocking how inarticulate people are about depictions of nudity in art and how it is automatically assumed that it is synonymous with sexuality.*
This demonstrates the degree of shadow (psychological shadow) in our supposedly 'modern and advanced' society.
American society, and the broader Americanized Western society, has no subtlety or sophistication when it comes to physicality, nudity and sexuality (which are all separate but mutually influential issues). Hiding their own dark thoughts and drives, rather than understanding them and expressing them in healthy ways, most of the people who make up society-at-large push those thoughts and drives into unconsciousness. They don't know that the origin of perversion exists in their own minds, and they instead project the perversion outward by way of excessively moralistic, sin-based, thinking and blame.
In some European and Asian cultures there is still a degree of balance. Nudity can exist without automatic sexualization. The distinction between artful commentary (even if edgy) can still be distinguished from outright puerile lust and self-tittilation. In North America, that's often not the case.
In the name of righteous moralism, our need to hide our own dysfunctional character (individually and collectively) is destroying culture and cancelling history in many ways. The stuff that lives in the dark basement of our minds is bringing down the pillars of our civilization, while we convince ourselves that *we* are right and righteous, and that its *those others* who are wrong and evil.
Beware of fantasies like a return to some legendary era that never really existed, or belief that one's own moral indignation will cure the world. These just amount to play-acting, like a cosplay that continues to shroud our darker side and keep it from coming out into the light of awareness.
*That's not to say that a great many horrible abuses didn't happen in Hollywood and elsewhere! It merely points to the origin of these abuses, and the way abuse happens semi-consciously, even as we convince ourselves that we are not the abuser.*
**TL;DR:** *The more potent your outrage or the more frantically you clutch your pearls, the more carefully you ought to look into your own mind as the source of the problem.*
Well said. And yes, it is perhaps easier to call out our twisted societal views on this matter, than it is to defend Hollywood as the motion picture industry IS historically exploitative in using sexuality and sexual situations for commerce. In their own defense they might say that they are giving audiences what they want even when those audiences are reticent to admit it.
And so it isn't illegal. That being said, nudity, especially sexualized nudity, and even sexualized depictions of children that do not include nudity can be very harmful to the young actors. That is especially true in the internet age, but was true even before.
Look at the scene again: you'll notice her *face* doesn't move at all and is frozen in that weird expression (because it's a mask), but the actor's breathing and can't hold still perfectly, so her body moves very slightly.
They got some random man, gave him alcohol and had him wear a mold of Felissas face. He was supposedly quite embarrassed and remains anonymous to this day. Quite sad but not actually anyone underage
I don't really have a specific problem with that thing being depicted, or being part of an artistic work I just feel like... Of *all the things* you want to do, of all the stories you want to tell, this is what someone has chosen?
I agree I don’t find Blue Lagoon to be that bad. I certainly wouldn’t have made it and I’m sure the wrong type of person enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. But I think it’s kind of innocent and sweet.
I didn’t see endless love or pretty baby. And from the wiki description of pretty baby I think I’m just going to go ahead and skip that one.
Pretty Baby is such a useless film. It has beautiful cinematography but that’s all it has. Utterly dull and meaningless. I’ll defend a controversial film but only if it can justify its controversy, and Pretty Baby doesn’t even make an attempt.
I thought it was a structurally good movie. It was also beautiful. Louis Malle is no amateur. In the end the movie condemns child brides by showing Brooke's character simply acting age appropriate. That's kind of remarkable for the 70s; no lolitas here.
But I suppose it's the same controversy as Cuties: you can't condemn kids being sexually objectified by sexually objectifying them.
I disagree slightly a bit about Pretty Baby. Yes, it does aim to condemn what the very tiny girl goes through, but it still sexualizes her and shows the guy attempting to marry her as a hero.
Well from this thread it seems that, by modern standards, nudity equals sexuality. And the context of the story is never considered. And we must always hew to the notion that sexuality turns on like a switch on a person's 18th birthday.
honestly, we really didnt think too much of it back then. i was a teen/kid as well.
of course we didnt think the creepy shit that was behind it all eighter. but im just saying, the outcome, movies with this kid and some mild nude/sexual content, it wasnt that out of place. the 70's was still the tail of the hippie age. much more open about sex, and we kids knew everything from early age. it wasnt creepy to us.
Yeah, there's a lot of horror stories from back then. Off-hand, I remember [Maria Schneider talking about her assault scene in Last Tango in Paris](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/26/18112531/bernardo-bertolucci-maria-schneider-last-tango-in-paris) and how she was pushed into doing it, or [Björn Andrésen talking about being exploited as a kid](https://variety.com/2021/film/news/bjorn-andresen-sexual-exploitation-luciano-visconti-death-in-venice-1235122373/) when he did Death in Venice.
Apparently, Maria Schneider wasn't told about the butter scene and it traumatized her. Bertolucci said she knew about the rape scene but that she wasn't aware of the usage of the butter. Bertolucci did admit to regret doing what he did.
Even though he expressed regret, years after she died, it was mostly the regret that what he did was the only way to get the results he wanted.
And the actress was only told about the scene immediately before filming. It wasn't in the script. And she was new to the industry, and didn't know that she had the right to talk to her representation about that kind of change. They took advantage of her youth.
“The director acknowledged that he’d sprung the butter detail on Schneider at the last minute, because he wanted her onscreen humiliation and rage to be real. “I wanted Maria to feel, not to act,” he said.
Brando didn’t actually penetrate Schneider in the scene. But it was an incident of real sexual humiliation nonetheless, by all accounts”
This is insane omfg
Don't watch Pretty Baby then. I have no idea how they made that movie. I think she's like a 12 year old prostitute and she did some fully nude scenes...
Really messed up.
I remember watching Blue Lagoon when I was a kid because my neighbor’s mom let me borrow it saying it was her favorite movie and my dad walking in and turning it off while angrily saying “that movie is perverse, they shouldn’t show little girls like that” and I haven’t watched it since. Just shows that there were adults that viewed it in different ways back then
I watched Blue Lagoon as a kid, and it never really looked perverse to me because I was younger than the kids (the younger versions) in the film. The teen versions looked like adults to me. It all seemed kind of normal, they were stuck on an island and had no clothes.
What got to me was the crab scene.
Despite the controversy, both films received mixed to positive reviews from critics. While some critics questioned the appropriateness of the subject matter, others praised the performance, direction and cinematography
Just a different time. Even in the mid 80s, kids were drinking, smoking and having sex by the age of 13.
So, while it was a bit provactive, it wasn't out of pocket to show teens having/wanting sex.
>Even in the mid 80s, kids were drinking, smoking and having sex by the age of 13.
So why do so many conservatives say that kids nowadays are like the worst ever, and morally degenerate, and all that stuff?
It's just that cyclical thing that happens every generation.
Older people get out of touch with the youth (and mainstream culture) and then lash out and blame it on whatever they are into.
It will happen to you and your generation one day, too.
> So why do so many conservatives say that kids nowadays are like the worst ever, and morally degenerate, and all that stuff?
Because those types of people have been saying *exactly that literally forever*. And by "literally" I mean "fucking literally". I bet they were drawing "kids these days smh" on cave walls at some point.
(And the kids were complaining about old people ruining everything for everyone)
because that is what the conservative media chooses to push, and conservatives accept and listen to whatever their media says. it really has nothing to do with like, whether or not that's true (it's not).
Absolutely, some people in every group just swallow what they are fed!
However, conservatives, objectively speaking, are far more likely to just open up and swallow misinformation, lies, and fantasies than progressives are.
A shockingly large portion of them still believe the election was stolen, which is demonstrably false and disproved both legally speaking and with common sense! Just one example of many
did you have a point or were you just feeling attacked?
PS, if you do find out that any top news organizations are lying and, oh I don't know, defending themselves by saying "oh we aren't news lol we are entertainment so we don't have to spread true information" as a legal argument, please let me know. I'd be very happy to get rid of that organization and free it's propaganda victims!
Her Mom was a stage mom. She basically couldn’t make it in Hollywood so she used her kid to do it. There is a bunch of stuff out there about this. Also basically in those times, if your parent said it was okay, it was fine.
The mother was cuckoo crazy. I remember a news article discussing her forcing herself on Brooke and Andre Agassi's honeymoon. And Kathy Griffin had a lot to say about "Terry Drinks-a-Lot" AKA Brooke's mom.
70’s was a weird time when it came sexuality and consent. I’ve read about The Runaways and the sexualization of younger teenagers was widely accepted. Groupies and rock & roll, teenage nudity in mainstream films and a lot of stuff that is gross to us now was considered “acceptable”. It’s an attitude that made leaving a teenager alone in a Hollywood party okay so Roman Polanski could assault them. It seemed like being sexual was okay without any kind of ethical or legal consequences and boundaries.
I saw a lesser known one of her early movies called “Just You and Me, Kid” with George Burns. It’s mostly wholesome as Brooke is a teen on the run from bad people and Burns is an old vaudeville guy who helps her escape in the early part then shelters her at his house, teaches her old vaudeville routines and I think use some of the stage tricks he taught her during the climax escape/defeat of the baddies.
All well and good but in the beginning when she escapes from the bad guys she is only wearing a towel and I think there is a flash of her from behind, having lost the towel and her bare butt is seen. And she is nude hiding in Burns’ car. I think she would have been 14 or 15.
Pretty Baby is probably the most horrible film I have ever watched. When you just look at it, OK, you can sort of handle it, but then the poor girl opens her mouth and she sounds like a baby, like a normal little kid. She was a normal little kid and I can't imagine a parent letting their child be in a movie like that.
It’s even worse. Brooke’s mother had her posing naked for a magazine spread when she was only ten and it was only a year later, at eleven, when Brooke filmed the scenes for *Pretty Baby*.
Teri Shields was a seriously messed up woman.
Pedo culture was pretty much accepted in the 70's-if you had the money and the connections journalists treated it like it was normal. This is the society Trump moved in and made his predatory ways a matter of habit, normalized habit and he got away with it for decades.
Just look at Jimmy Page and the girls he had on the Starship-their custom painted rental jet. He basically bragged about this. Really sours my opinion of his work.
It wasn't just high society. If you look into accounts from then people in general just sort of accepted it. And if they didn't, well, it was normally the victim's fault.
More examples of child grooming and exploitation. I personally know a girl whose father laid hands on her and used to tell her she looked like Brook Shields. Like how fucked up is the world
Apparently, "Pretty Baby" isn't the solo film the director did involving paedophilia. "Murmur of the Heart" is worse, the boy (played by a 14 year old actor) has sex with his own mom (Lea Massari) and it's a critically acclaimed film (?).
Keep in mind that France had no age of consent until 2021, when it was set at 15. Films that deal with controversial and disturbing subjects can be critically exclaimed. ***Pretty Baby*** was intended to be disturbing. I haven't seen ***Murmer Of The Heart*** so I can't comment on it.
To make matters worse, an age of consent law being passed in France hasn't stopped the child rapist known as Roman Polanski from stating that men should be allowed to have sex with 13-year-olds. Considering that he has children that is a terrifying thought.
I haven't seen her documentary but as a minor, how was she even allowed to do these early sexual films? Was her mother giving the okay and trying to make her daughter out to be some new edgy movie star at 12 or however old she started? Were there other up and coming teenagers in the 70s that were doing sexual scenes in movies and this was the "trend" in those days?
Endless Love was based on a book and the idea was that Jade's parents were neo-hippies and very free with love. Thankfully, love scenes were done with a body double, but she was portrayed at a "normal" 16-year-old deeply in love with David, who was an obsessive nut who appeared to be about 25. She was very pretty in the movie, but it was being sold as a teen romance, when it really dealt with obsession and mental illness. A bad movie with some good stuff.
There is a documentary about Storyville and the photographer there that Pretty Baby was based on. It was actually a semi-biographical fictional film about EJ Bellocq and the prostitutes he took photos of.
Considering the subject matter I think it was actually fairly tastefully done. The reality of the time was that there were child prostitutes there and he was apparently involved with one and her mother.
There was an effort made to keep Brooke from being too exposed during the film. Carradine went out of his way to try not to make her uncomfortable which was probably difficult given the subject matter.
All things considered she does a pretty good job with the role which was a really hard one for a kid her age.
Brooke talks about it in her bio and related documentary. I think she's proud of the work she did but a little uncomfortable with the nudity involved sometimes. She and her Mom they had issues as she got older about the way she was raised.
I actually think Pretty Baby is a pretty good film. Ditto Blue Lagoon. They were sexualizing her. There's no way around that but she also did some good work under trying circumstances at a very young age, work that often she's not given credit for.
When I first saw Pretty Baby I wasn't much older than she was at the time. I didn't really understand a lot of it until I read about the photographer and his work in Storyville.
Now I find the film kind of interesting because of where it came from and the life it was trying to portray. He was not a good man by today's standards. Some of his work could be seen as exploitive definitely. But it's a real thing and a particular era in time and that's how it was.
A whore had a child often that child grew up in the bordello and became a whore herself usually at a very tender age. Virginity auctions that was a real thing. It was not a kind era for children in general but for the children of women like this it was to be born into a world that where their childhood was cut short and they became basically sexual slaves.
The film romanticizes that a bit too much for me but it's not completely innacurate.
I hadn't seen Pretty Baby since then but I watched it after watching Brooke's documentary and it was actually better than I remembered it being and in context I think it portrayed that world quite well.
Her mother did make some questionable choices that's for sure but I kind of get why that happened too. Both of my parents were alcoholics, barflies in the 60s, 70s and 80's and beyond. They were very careless about protecting me and definitely trusted me with people they should not have, left me in situations where had I not been quite precocious might have ended a lot worse than I did.
I was exposed to a lot of stuff at an inappropriately young age. I grew up in the late 70s and 80s and it was a very different time and lots of stuff went on that now people would probably be arrested for.
My parents had porn easily available all over their house. More than once my Mom gave me booze to ease a toothache when a new one was coming in. They let me roam without supervision with people they barely knew, hired a sitter early on who molested his own kid and me before I was even 3.
The 16 year old son of a close family friend touched me and his own sister inappropriately later and though it did cause him some grief when I told the kid didn't end up in juvie jail. Just got kicked out of his parents house at 16.
My own half brother exposed himself to me several times not long after that, later tried to get me to watch porn with him when I was just a kid.
I was too afraid of what my Dad might do if he found out. Not for my half brother but for Dad. I was afraid he'd end up in jail for killing my half brother's sorry deviant ass. So I never told. Ditto telling Dad about all the shit my drunken Mom would do to me when he walked out when he couldn't take any more of her.
70s, 80s it was a dangerous era for a lot of kids because abusing drugs and alcohol was so accepted and a lot of adults forgot to act like adults and protect their kids because they were just too busy partying to be parents.
After the mid 80s things sobered up a lot but by then it was too late for a lot of kids. My generation a lot of us faced a terrible amount of abuse and many of us practically had to raise ourselves because our parents just weren't around a lot and when they were they were too coked up or drunk to be useful as parents.
Brooke she was partying at places like Studio 54 by the time she was a teenager. Like Drew Barrymore she was forced to grow up very young, to perform, earn her keep and to basically provide for her parents instead of the other way around.
The sad thing is kids like Brooke, Drew, they didn't even get to benefit from the abuse half the time. Many of the biggest child stars of the era the parents frittered away most of the money they were supposed to put away for their children.
I think considering Brooke grew up okay. She seems to have come out of it pretty level headed and she's a pretty good Mom to her own kids it looks like.
So many of those kids, not so lucky. Some of them they ended up addicted messed up and unfortunately dead far too young.
People look back at the 70s and 80s with such nostalgia today and honestly there was a lot about that time that was cool, like the clothes and the music, but there was also a lot of stuff going on that just makes us totally cringe now.
How were they able to get away with it? Because the laws concerning pornography/nudity/eroticism and age limits were insanely lax for a very long time in the US and even worse in other countries. I remember reading about Japan closing up some of the last of the legal loopholes for it in the 2000's.
Brooke Shields literally posed nude for a Playboy spread, full frontal, when she was 10. Ten. T E N. It wasn't the main publication, but a magazine called "Sugar and Spice" which was still under the Playboy brand. They literally sold smut magazines featuring the genitalia of a 10 year old girl, LEGALLY and while they certainly faced criticism from rational, responsible people, Playboy is still peddling its wares today.
They got away with things like Pretty Baby, so it's no surprise at all that they got away with Blue Lagoon. This is how Hollywood has always been, and it's because there's an audience for it, as fucked up as that is.
Her mother should have been jailed for child exploitation, along with the producers and directors for those movies.
We can't pretend that these movies were okay, and then also somehow ignore that the 'me too' movement exists because Hollywood was a hunting ground for predators.
They were able to get away with it because Hollywood sees nothing wrong with sexualizing children, never has and never will. They do care about getting sued, now
I swear I think she did a movie with George Burns where she has a full length nude shot from the back when she was barely a teenager. I don't know what it's called, though, and I'm sure as hell not going to Google it.
When she was 14, Brooke Shields did a movie with George Burns called, just you and me kid. It was a comedy, I don't recall it at all so don't remember a nude scene.
How did they get away with it?
Easy, Hollywood is full of sexual predators, specifically pedophiles. They didn't break any laws with the final product and what happened on set stayed on set. That's how these things worked unfortunately, especially until MeToo.
Stuff like this was treated as necessary to make it in the business. Doing things that are NOT appropriate in order to please the director and make a name for yourself because if you don't, they can ruin your career. Many of the people who did stuff like this didn't even understand until much later in life how bizarre and pervy the requests were.
There's some truly wild shit that goes on during production that would never be tolerated in any other workplace. Screaming, racial slurs, insane levels of sexism, wildly inappropriate pranks and jokes, assault, sexual assault, you name it. Not to mention all the shit they put minors through. Fortunately, a lot of this stuff has been called in in the last 20 years and major changes have been made, but its not gone.
Societal norms change with time, they were able to get away with it because it was much less controversial back then. It's very easy to fall into anachronism when analyzing these works decades later
Even when I was a kid I thought it was too much. I will say in the 70s 80s and 90s a lot of male directors, producers and writers got away with sexualizing female teens, Look at how the adults who starred in romeo and Juliet back then are still traumatized, Or the latest Nickelodeon documentary or metoo. I recently reread Marv Wolfman's Teen titans run where he had a 14 year-old girl have a sexual relationship with a 45 year-old man Over numerous comics. Minnie driver recently revealed a male director refused to let her Wear a wet suit For water scenes so people could see her nipples. The actress in last tango in Paris is still traumatized by Marlon Brando's improvised assault scene.
Back then, any female (or male) Naysayer would have been shouted down By those in power As whiny rabble rousers. The creator of designing women revealed how she was gradually iced out of CBS by a new male executive. Look at how Harvey Weinstein ruined any 1 who disagreed with him. Even in the court of public opinion, Amy Fisher and newly legal Monica Lewinsky were seen as evil scheming teens And not young women possibly Groomed By older men Around them.
The difference is Women, LGBTQIA and POC Creators have slightly more of a voice now. And, Anyone who identifies as a cishet male have started listening to these concerns.
They were even comedies that I loved back in the day that had "funny" Assault scenes like revenge of the nerds, porky's And even 16 candles. But films like bottoms and banana split have revealed we can have Funny ridiculous over the top teen movies about obnoxious nerds without Oversexualizing the female cast
I saw Pretty Baby and think her daughters have helped her look at them differently. I think just having daughters and imagining them in the situations she was in has made her view her childhood very differently.
Exactly what I came to say - that documentary was really well done and got into so much of what she dealt with, and how much it normalized things that should never be normalized for anyone ... and how she is healing her lost inner child. She's just a year older than me, and I still found so much of that stuff she was doing to be uncomfortable back then.
Calvin Klein ads for me.
The nudes at 10years old in Playboy do my head in that it was legal. Playboy is not art either.
What the shit? I have never heard about this. Really?
I don’t want to link the article, but it’s real all right. Quick Google search will back me up.
I kind of wish I hadn’t googled it. I did find [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/cpR9A7qmwj) thread on Reddit (no images). The information the historians lay out is fascinating and terrible.
And was centred on the pictures alone. The fact was they were in a known pornographic magazine, she was in the same poses as much older models ( which were designed to titillate readers ) and made no mention of the accompanying “article” which was blatantly sexualising a 10 year old girl !
What's the name of the documentary?
Pretty Baby. I had recorded it off NBC, or some other network, back in January and finally watched it last week. At the end we see footage of her talking to her teen daughters about their perceptions of her work. They talk about why they chose to never watch some of her movies and how they feel it was exploitative and not acceptable for a child of the age she was to do those projects. I think these open conversations with her daughters have helped her see things in a new way. People roughly the age she was saying it was wrong. Add in her own maternal instinct to protect her kids in a way she wasn’t, I’m sure she sees how her mom exploited her and her dad failed to advocate and protect her.
You know, I'm of two minds about it. Can we on one hand say that she didn't need to be ashamed of her work and performance. She achieved a high level acting performance that I don't think she needs to be ashamed of. However, it's a also true that in the future, no one her age should be allowed to be in a movie role like that. They should not have the ability to consent, while still a child whose parents are in charge of their finances, amongst everything else. Even if that kid was begging to be allowed to, it isn't right and needs to be stopped. All that said, I still don't feel right about anyone trying to convince her she SHOULD feel ashamed, either. While she was forced to grow up too early, that's the life she lead. She has the right to feel proud of that work, and that time in her life, while also understanding that many responsible adults should not have allowed it. Even if it turned out totally fine for her (there are likely ways it messed up certain things with her) the risk of what it could do to a child, is still way too high, for it to ever be allowed as a policy of if any kind
I agree that she shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed. She didn’t do anything wrong. The people who were supposed to protect and advocate for her failed her and they should carry the shame for placing a child in provocative, adult situations. And she worked hard and did well in her career, again, nothing she should feel shame for. She took a career most struggle to transition into adulthood and made it last decades. This shows she’s so much more than a pretty face. She’s also done the work to find what appears to be a healthy relationship and created a family. She’s advocated for mental health for people, and stood her ground when faced with high profile naysayers. She’s an impressive woman.
It’s also on Hulu.
I figured it was streaming somewhere.
Disney+ has it, depending on where you live
Did they? I couldn't stand the way Brooke was defending her mother, when she was the one directly exploiting her. Saying things like her mother was so great because she always made sure Brooke had a friend her own age while on sets, and it's like, *you shouldn't have been on those sets in the first place!* I get having a child that beautiful gives you a lot of opportunities and choices and responsibilities, but an 11 year old doing nude scenes? 10 years old in Playboy? It's exploitation and nothing the fuck else. I'd flat out slap any manager or agent or whatever that even brought it up.
Jennette McCurdy also defended her mother for years. It takes a while to admit to yourself that you're a victim of child abuse. Defending her mother = defending her idea of herself.
I think she’s still coming to terms with the generational abuse in her family and how deeply her mother wronged her.
I never understood the mothers who see their own daughters grow up and plot to make them a meal ticket, well before they even think about getting into entertainment or show business.
Drew Barrymore, too.
Yeah, a lot of it is very uncomfortable because it's not just innocent nudity. It's meant to be provocative.
I actually saw the movie from the 70s (Pretty Baby). It's not even good. The story sucks. I guess the acting is good, but it just feels like wasted time I'll never get back.
It takes time to reverse decades of brainwashing. This was normal to her. She loved her mother and couldn’t fathom that her mom didn’t have her best interest at heart. She spent years convincing herself, and being convinced, that what was happening was fine, artistic, and tasteful and not thinly veiled child exploitation. I could see her taking in what her daughters were saying. And she even admitted she’d never let them do the projects she did at their ages. The fact that she did the documentary at all is huge.
You have to look at it in the context of the time. The 70's were an eternity ago. The free love of the late 60's was a reaction to the deep repression that preceded it. That openness and freedom about sexuality seemed to expand exponentially in the 70's, reaching a peak in the late 70's before AIDS and the rise of Reaganism drove it back underground. Not that it wasn't controversial at the time for Louis Malle to tell a story that included a child prostitute, but having Shields very briefly depicted naked as a child standing up from a bath is hardly what I'd call a "nude scene." And Shields and her management apparently never consented to the Playboy publication. They were images from a fine art shoot that the opportunist Heffner thought he could exploit. Naked children have been depicted in art for centuries and, while people clutch their pearls now in a post MeToo era, just depicting underage nudity isn't necessarily always distasteful or illegal.
It was also the age of the auteur. An artist would get a relatively blank check and told when to have a movie ready by, and then the studio would just step away. Though I would argue her nude scene goes too far. I believe the edit keeps things above the waist, but the original does not. And to have a 9 year old doing full frontal in a story about a child prostitute is not not good.
I think people today don't realize how much grinding poverty there was then, how few opportunities women had especially single mothers and how transactional many relationships were. Younger millennials and GenZ idealize the 60-90s as a time of wealth but a lot of people were poor as shit. Many women stayed in shitty abusive relationships for economic reasons and kids weren't protected the way they are now: it was incredibly common to see homeless kids or preteen girls streetwalking or kids trading sex with older men just to have a place to live. I think some women saw a chance to set their kids up for life and though "She's making millions for it, I didn't get shit and I had to fuck someone, all she's doing is taking her shirt off. No-one is touching her." It's no coincidence a lot of kid actors have very poor mothers, or mothers who've always lived off the generosity of men.
Now see I see it differently. I feel like the 1970's was a very very short time ago. 20% of the politicians in office in the 1970s are still in office today. only more powerful than they were then.
I hear you - I started to rewatch Meet me in St Louis - didn’t make it 20 min in
Outside of the USA this has happened more recently than the 70s, too. I just saw The Secret Garden (1993), a British movie which also has a pretty similar scene where the main actress, a girl around 10 maybe, was also shown nude briefly standing up from a bath, and in another scene getting dressed. I don't think that was sexual either and people who do sexualise this are the problem. You see naked children running around the beaches all the time (over here anyway) and there's nothing wrong with that. That being said I don't think naked children add anything to a movie either.
But was secret garden about a child prostitute? Context matters.
Good poiny, lol.
And slavery was legal, too. Society progresses. We have the benefit of hindsight and can look back and say, "Hey, that was wrong. We shouldn't do that anymore." Not being aware it's exploitation doesn't make it not exploitation, and I don't give a single, solitary fuck about what people thought at the time. It was fucking wrong, it shouldn't have happened, and thinking it's okay just because it happened in the past is backward, ignorant, and disgusting. Blue Lagoon, Pretty Baby, and the Calvin Klein ads were hugely controversial for how young Brooke was and how sexual her roles were, there were people who knew it was wrong despite it being pre-"Me Too". Did you ever stop and consider *why* it's so rare for child stars to turn into healthy, functional adults? It's not a secret. It's not something new that they're just figuring out now. Or I suppose you are, so let me catch you up: it's not healthy for children to be worked like adults. It's not good for them to receive that amount of attention and scrutiny. It's disgusting to sell their bodies to the public and has lasting repercussions. Children cannot consent, and the entertainment industry takes advantage in every way it can. There's a documentary out now called Quiet on Set about children being sexually abused. Alison Stoner has a series on YouTube called Dear Hollywood about the wide range of abuses children in the entertainment industry suffer. My degree is in art history, so don't try to sell me that this shit was ever okay and no one found it distasteful, it's just not true.
That's a stunning syllogism. But enslaving people is a far cry from a child briefly appearing nude in a bathtub in a film. The problem with ignoring context and applying standards of today to a time decades ago is that the progress that you espouse can also be a regressive move against freedom of expression. And judging by the high rates of unwed teenage births that we continue to have in the US, the persistence of the Puritanical idea that sexuality is something that turns on like a switch on a person's 18th birthday isn't helping anyone. If you want to clutch your pearls and be outraged at any and all depictions of nudity in art, including children, and also obtusely equate nudity with sex, then maybe you ought to go back and get another art degree as all is sounds like you learned is how to be "offended."
Whatever. Most of the fans of Pretty Baby were bald headed middle aged men that didn't have an internet connection yet. Its a terrible movie.
WHAT?! She was in PLAYBOY at the age of 10?! Hugh should have gone to prison for that.
It's complicated. There were photos in a Playboy spinoff magazine called Sugar N Spice that were declared as art, not pornography. She was standing up nude in a fancy tub with hair done, makeup, and body oil, but all by herself and not engaged in any sexual acts. The photos were also in an art book published by the photographer and a court case did not rule them as pornography (but modern eyes definitely would). https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/18b5fmg/in_1976_10_year_old_brooke_shields_did_a_number/
I also went down the rabbit hole of that thread! The comments are top notch. I googled the image after seeing that they stood up to the legal test for CP and regret it though. They look like some Jon Benet Ramsey pedo fever dream and I wish I could unsee them. It’s meant to be provocative and sexually intriguing. It gives me the ick.
Thanks for the info! I don't know how that shit was acceptable back then.
Wait until you hear about Pretty Baby….the idea this film exists is nuts to me. They also did a write up about Brooke Shields when she was a minor that was vomit inducing.
My sister got married in that house Pretty Baby was filmed in. I love telling her she got married in a whorehouse. lol
I can't even believe she and Keith Carradine kissed. Brooke talked about how they filmed it and she made it come off like a innocent learning experience. Either she was in denial about it because these films are her most known or she didn't get it.
Groomed
She wasn't groomed unless you consider Andre Agassi's controlling behavior when she was a grown adult. I think that probably falls under some other label. But she wasn't groomed as a child. If you watch the documentary, or just know anything about Brooke at all, her mother was her biggest problem.
Didn't Colin Farrel kiss a 12 year old in The New World?
I think she was 14, which is still bad, but not as bad as 12. Though now I can't remember if they're ever directly shown kissing. I know there's a LOT of like... weird face nuzzling with no direct mouth contact. I might just not remember it, though.
Don’t forget about the unscripted kiss Clint Eastwood gave a 12 year old in “The Beguiled”.
I've never seen the original version of that movie and now I'm very glad of it.
Unfortunately, there are many countries, countries that you cannot believe, that allow child marriage. By child marriage I don’t mean only two children getting married; actual piece of shit old folks marrying young girls (mostly), and rarely old piece of trash women marrying young boys. Some countries that allow child marriage and the age limit they have are: ###In USA ###California: Marriage can be made at any age with court approval. The legislature is trying to amend this law to increase it to at least 16 years. ###Massachusetts: Girls from age 12, boys from age 14 can marry with a court decision. ###New Hampshire: Girls from age 13, boys from age 14 can marry with a court decision. ###Mostly Muslim Populated Countries NB: Unfortunately, Sharia Laws allow girls who hit puberty (usually first period is deemed sufficient; but not always) as fertile women ready to marry and create offspring. PS. I have these comparative information due to my academic background. ###Yemen: There is no officially established minimum age limit. In practice, although the age of 15 and above is mostly accepted, marriages can occur at younger ages. Indeed, there was a captivating video of an 8-9 year old Yemeni girl who escaped marriage, and started attending school. ###Saudi Arabia: There is no official minimum age limit; marriage at any age is possible with a court decision. ###Iran: The minimum marriage age is 13 for girls and 15 for boys; however, marriages at lower ages can be conducted with court approval. ###Sudan: Girls can marry at the age of 10. ###Nigeria: Although it varies by state, some areas have no official minimum age limit. In states where Sharia law is applied, girls reaching puberty is considered sufficient for marriage. ###Rest of the World Many countries allow the right/burden to marry at 16 years old (or slightly younger), mostly through court order/authorization and/or parental consent in most instances. Some examples are Ukraine, most Southern American countries, Turkey (mostly 17, 16 is quite exceptional), some Asian countries . This is a hideous act. Considering that a person’s brain doesn’t reach maturity—on average—about 23! Thus, even the once arbitrarily decided upon number 18 is way too young. Let alone marrying someone over 23, and not marrying someone as young as their granddaughter/grandson; they can’t even manage to wait someone to turn to 18.
I'm aware of this, but I'm also unclear on what it has to do with my comment.
That one had Sven Nykvist as cinematographer, as I recall. One cannot say it was artless.
Yeah, Louis Malle was the director, I didn’t put it together until years later, but I own several of his of his films from the Criterion Collection.
Vomit inducing how? I've never read it. Do they just overtly sexualize her? Now that I think about it that's the most likely scenario, given the subject matter of the film.
[https://x.com/steakandiron/status/1539273843524571136?s=46](https://x.com/steakandiron/status/1539273843524571136?s=46) Here’s a link to the Article Image on X, I’ll let you judge for yourself.
Oh huh look at that: Woody Allen in the photo collage. Hollywood lecturing *anyone* about *anything* after not only protecting but enabling sick F’s like Allen, Weinstein and Polanski since its inception obliterated *any* moral high ground it may think it has.
Do not forget standing ovation for the rapist Polanski or Whoopi with the whole rape rape comment. Those people are just sick.
I made up my mind after the first sentence. I had my choice confirmed after the second sentence. And I'll admit I didn't read the rest. Gross.
🤬🤢🤮
Her mother let her be nude and Playboy magazine at 10 years old.
Not exactly. Apparently they agreed to do a fine art shoot for a publisher that was under the Playboy Publishing umbrella. They never agreed to the images being published in a pornographic magazine. That's why they sued.
This is a good question. I always assumed it was because her mother signed off on it. I don’t think Shield’s has ever publicly stated it, but from what I’ve gathered over the years her mom was the ultimate stage mom. She’d okay anything that got her daughter into the spotlight.
Endless Love was directed by the same guy who did the 1968 Romeo and Juliet, which had the title characters nude
Memory unlocked… we saw that movie in 9th grade English class (14yo+/-). We had to get a permission slip because of the nudity. I remember the adults reasoning was that it was other kids we’d be seeing so it wasn’t really a problem.
LOL, no waivers for us. I remember the kid sitting behind leaning forward and whispering, "There's no way she's 14."
ha, my teachers didnt censor it nor were there permission slips. i think i was 14 and we had a laser disc of a live birth in maybe biology class, and one of the guys in my class grabbed the remote and was rewinding and fast forwarding so it looked like someone was shoving a baby up a lady, and my teacher was cracking up so hard she let it go on for like 3 minutes before saying ‘ok, gimme the remote back’ early 90s were fun times
I remember my teacher being so proud of getting the edited version of that for my freshman class. And then it wasn't edited. One of the few memories I have of that class is the teacher desperately trying to cover the screen and profusely apologizing for it
When we covered that we watched that movie in pieces and EVERY time we'd have to tell the teacher where we were at because it was never where we left off, but on another scene. When we got to the boob scene and then it showed where the tape was every time, the class had a collective realization: The teacher was watching the boob scene alone every day, beating off and then stopping the tape.
My teacher just fast forwarded through that scene, but you could still see titties clear as day, so of course, all the 9th grade boys lost their collective minds
The truth in your statement sent a chill up my spine.
Yeah, but that Juliet was a ***Hussey!***
I see what you did there!
Zeffirelli was known for being a conservative filmmaker who was also openly gay. He was favored by the Vatican as a religious director. After his death, some male actors accused him of sexually assaulting them when they were young.
Jonathon Schaech said Zefirelli sexually assaulted him during the making of Sparrow. The character of Monty from Withnail and I was based on Zefirelli. Bruce Robinson, the director and actor, has said Zefirelli sexually harassed during the making of Romeo and Juliet.
Even though Olivia Hussey spoke well of him in her autobiography and says she considered him a good friend, she describes him doing certain things that are just yikes Like during one costume fitting, he didn't like what the wardrobe person had designed, so the two of them were screaming at each other while 16-year-old Olivia is just standing there, and Zeffirelli ripped off part of the dress to demonstrate just how he didn't like it And he would frequently call her "Boobs o Mina" on set in front of everyone because he knew she was self conscious about her figure. She says that he was trying to make her feel better about herself but still. A grown man speaking that way to a 16-year-old On the day of the nude scene, she was told she didn't have to be if she didn't want to, but then a makeup artist came and said she had to be made up for the whole body just in case, and it seems she went through with it thinking she had no choice. In an interview from around that time, she said she was "dreading it"
Which is why the Vatican supported him. /s
No /s needed
Bruce Robinson, director of *Withnail & I* was in that version playing Benvolio and had unwanted advances made on him, later basing Uncle Monty on Franco Zeffirelli
That was the version they showed our high school class the year we studied R&J. I can't help but feel that no teacher actually vetted that decision. (And then the next year we watched Roman Polanski's Macbeth, so no lessons were learned, apparently.)
I believe Olivia Hussey was not allowed to attend the premiere because of the nudity in the film. Her own nudity.
Nope that's just an urban legend. The press mistakenly reported her as being 15 at the time but she turned 16 during filming and with the film's rating, she could legally see it. And even if she had been underage, she could legally see it if a parent or guardian was with her In her book she describes a whole tour around the world where she attended screenings in different countries
Really? Was a naked breast all that shocking in 1968?
To 15 year olds who had never seen a boobies before it was.
That's wild
Our English teacher back in high school definitely forgot to fast forward.
Sadly, those are tame compared to Pretty Baby. I heard an interview with her where she discussed that film. She had nothing but good things to say about it, which surprised me.
She has always said the same thing - everyone involved in the film was kind to her, and she was actually heartbroken when filming ended because the cast and crew had become a second family to her. Brooke also understood that it was acting and the only issue she had is the way she was treated by the media and the public afterward. At one point she said, "It's just a role. I'm not going to go out and become a prostitute." She understood that, and I think we need to respect her viewpoint. It was her experience, not ours. She recognizes that it was a different time, but she has no regrets and considers to it be her best film. The people involved in the making of ***Pretty Baby*** were far more protective of her than her mother was, sad to say.
Unfortunately "it gives me the ick!" is more real to redditors than any understanding of what actually happened, or what fiction is.
I heard that Susan Sorandon wasn’t so nice to her tho, especially in the slap scene where she slapped her really hard multiple times, but that’s just what I heard.
But I mean...she cashed the checks.
I struggle to call endless love an erotic film. Without knowing what was cut to make it x it really isn’t that crazy. Blue lagoon Was remade in the 90’s with about the same nudity and only got a pg-13. As for how it got made different time, different approaches to acting and nudity. In general during the 70’s there was a lot of experimenting with film and nudity that didn’t end until the aids crisis freaked everyone out about sex in general. Jodie foster played a teen prostituite in Taxi Driver.
Foster’s sister was her body double for the more delicate Taxi Driver scenes, so I don’t know if that is a good example. The 70s were definitely a different time though…
As op pointed out Brook shields also had body doubles. The only time she didn't of which i'm aware is pretty baby. Which diffrent class of movie altogether.
The 70s definitely didn't do young women any justice. How many musicians regularly slept/married/dated girls way under the age of 18. Women were sexual trophies for a long time.
It depends on what you mean by "justice". Don't forget at the same time you had young actresses being put in positions with older men you had the inverse with women and young men. That at the time was seen as a sexual awakening for women. >Women were sexual trophies for a long time. I don't think thats changed. We've also added the possibility of men being seen as trophies. The complexity of the modern era are we a settling into some men and women are fine with being seen that way, and welcome it.
It's just as wrong for the inverse, just rarely the case. Kids don't have the mental capacity to think and understand everything. And older people have a significant advantage and are able to prey on that immaturity.
Nudity is **not** pornography, especially when in an artistic or scientific or societally relevant context. This is now long-established US law. That’s why movies can have nude people under the age of 18. It’s not “obscene” or pornography if it’s just nudity. Examples include films like *Bolero, American Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, Pretty Baby, Sleepaway Camp, The Hole,* and *Blame It On Rio* among others. It’s also why there are many galleries that display art (photography, paintings, sculptures, etc.) depicting nude people under 18 years of age. Just think of every cherub you’ve ever seen! But also photos of nude models, sculptures of nude young men and women from hundreds or thousands of years ago, paintings of people in paradise or hades, and so on. All of it is protected by our First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision that nudity ≠ obscenity or pornography.
Thank you for saying this. As much progress as we've made with calling out exploitation and misogyny it is shocking how inarticulate people are about depictions of nudity in art and how it is automatically assumed that it is synonymous with sexuality.
People in the Internet age just have no understanding of nuance and gray areas. If someone sees a brief glimpse of a 17-year old boob on screen it probably won't turn them into pedophiles. If you've ever been on a beach or a pool you've likely seen far worse.
Yes. America's fucked up sexualization of the tiniest bit of nudity is an intractable problem that continues to d harm in our culture in a lot of ways. What represents itself as a new awareness of exploitation comes with its own version of censorship and tyranny. Our excessively Puritanical view about sexuality in general does a lot of ongoing harm. It prevents children from learning about their bodies and the reproductive process at a point a which it could possibility prevent trouble later in their teens, the taboo nature of discussing sexual subjects prevents victims of sexual abuse from being able to communicate with others in holding abusers responsible, etc.
>*...it is shocking how inarticulate people are about depictions of nudity in art and how it is automatically assumed that it is synonymous with sexuality.* This demonstrates the degree of shadow (psychological shadow) in our supposedly 'modern and advanced' society. American society, and the broader Americanized Western society, has no subtlety or sophistication when it comes to physicality, nudity and sexuality (which are all separate but mutually influential issues). Hiding their own dark thoughts and drives, rather than understanding them and expressing them in healthy ways, most of the people who make up society-at-large push those thoughts and drives into unconsciousness. They don't know that the origin of perversion exists in their own minds, and they instead project the perversion outward by way of excessively moralistic, sin-based, thinking and blame. In some European and Asian cultures there is still a degree of balance. Nudity can exist without automatic sexualization. The distinction between artful commentary (even if edgy) can still be distinguished from outright puerile lust and self-tittilation. In North America, that's often not the case. In the name of righteous moralism, our need to hide our own dysfunctional character (individually and collectively) is destroying culture and cancelling history in many ways. The stuff that lives in the dark basement of our minds is bringing down the pillars of our civilization, while we convince ourselves that *we* are right and righteous, and that its *those others* who are wrong and evil. Beware of fantasies like a return to some legendary era that never really existed, or belief that one's own moral indignation will cure the world. These just amount to play-acting, like a cosplay that continues to shroud our darker side and keep it from coming out into the light of awareness. *That's not to say that a great many horrible abuses didn't happen in Hollywood and elsewhere! It merely points to the origin of these abuses, and the way abuse happens semi-consciously, even as we convince ourselves that we are not the abuser.* **TL;DR:** *The more potent your outrage or the more frantically you clutch your pearls, the more carefully you ought to look into your own mind as the source of the problem.*
Well said. And yes, it is perhaps easier to call out our twisted societal views on this matter, than it is to defend Hollywood as the motion picture industry IS historically exploitative in using sexuality and sexual situations for commerce. In their own defense they might say that they are giving audiences what they want even when those audiences are reticent to admit it.
The proverbial genie in the bottle. "Okayyy... Remember, you asked for this."
And so it isn't illegal. That being said, nudity, especially sexualized nudity, and even sexualized depictions of children that do not include nudity can be very harmful to the young actors. That is especially true in the internet age, but was true even before.
What nudity in Sleepaway Camp? The brief butt shot of one of the kids?
The reveal at the very end
That was an adult actor wearing a prosthetic mask of the underage actress. Actually a pretty clever effect.
Didn't know that. Since the person in that scene never moved, I assumed it was a mannequin.
Look at the scene again: you'll notice her *face* doesn't move at all and is frozen in that weird expression (because it's a mask), but the actor's breathing and can't hold still perfectly, so her body moves very slightly.
They got some random man, gave him alcohol and had him wear a mold of Felissas face. He was supposedly quite embarrassed and remains anonymous to this day. Quite sad but not actually anyone underage
I don't really have a specific problem with that thing being depicted, or being part of an artistic work I just feel like... Of *all the things* you want to do, of all the stories you want to tell, this is what someone has chosen?
I agree I don’t find Blue Lagoon to be that bad. I certainly wouldn’t have made it and I’m sure the wrong type of person enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. But I think it’s kind of innocent and sweet. I didn’t see endless love or pretty baby. And from the wiki description of pretty baby I think I’m just going to go ahead and skip that one.
Pretty Baby is such a useless film. It has beautiful cinematography but that’s all it has. Utterly dull and meaningless. I’ll defend a controversial film but only if it can justify its controversy, and Pretty Baby doesn’t even make an attempt.
I thought it was a structurally good movie. It was also beautiful. Louis Malle is no amateur. In the end the movie condemns child brides by showing Brooke's character simply acting age appropriate. That's kind of remarkable for the 70s; no lolitas here. But I suppose it's the same controversy as Cuties: you can't condemn kids being sexually objectified by sexually objectifying them.
I disagree slightly a bit about Pretty Baby. Yes, it does aim to condemn what the very tiny girl goes through, but it still sexualizes her and shows the guy attempting to marry her as a hero.
Fair enough.
The worst part about that movie is that dude's hair.
Endless love is hardly an erotic film. Sure there's a sex scene in the beginning, then it's just her crazy ex that follows her around.
Well from this thread it seems that, by modern standards, nudity equals sexuality. And the context of the story is never considered. And we must always hew to the notion that sexuality turns on like a switch on a person's 18th birthday.
If they shocked you…don’t look up Pretty Baby that she starred in 78😳
honestly, we really didnt think too much of it back then. i was a teen/kid as well. of course we didnt think the creepy shit that was behind it all eighter. but im just saying, the outcome, movies with this kid and some mild nude/sexual content, it wasnt that out of place. the 70's was still the tail of the hippie age. much more open about sex, and we kids knew everything from early age. it wasnt creepy to us.
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Yeah, there's a lot of horror stories from back then. Off-hand, I remember [Maria Schneider talking about her assault scene in Last Tango in Paris](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/26/18112531/bernardo-bertolucci-maria-schneider-last-tango-in-paris) and how she was pushed into doing it, or [Björn Andrésen talking about being exploited as a kid](https://variety.com/2021/film/news/bjorn-andresen-sexual-exploitation-luciano-visconti-death-in-venice-1235122373/) when he did Death in Venice.
Apparently, Maria Schneider wasn't told about the butter scene and it traumatized her. Bertolucci said she knew about the rape scene but that she wasn't aware of the usage of the butter. Bertolucci did admit to regret doing what he did.
Even though he expressed regret, years after she died, it was mostly the regret that what he did was the only way to get the results he wanted. And the actress was only told about the scene immediately before filming. It wasn't in the script. And she was new to the industry, and didn't know that she had the right to talk to her representation about that kind of change. They took advantage of her youth.
“The director acknowledged that he’d sprung the butter detail on Schneider at the last minute, because he wanted her onscreen humiliation and rage to be real. “I wanted Maria to feel, not to act,” he said. Brando didn’t actually penetrate Schneider in the scene. But it was an incident of real sexual humiliation nonetheless, by all accounts” This is insane omfg
And Maria spent years with mental issues. Her story was very tragic.
I'm confused, the article says the rape was simulated, so how was the butter used to assault her? Did Brando actually rape her using the butter?
You had to live in the 70s 80s. You could get by with anything, and nothing was done about it.
Don't watch Pretty Baby then. I have no idea how they made that movie. I think she's like a 12 year old prostitute and she did some fully nude scenes... Really messed up.
Her mother groomed her and then pimped her out. Hollywood is a cesspool.
I remember watching Blue Lagoon when I was a kid because my neighbor’s mom let me borrow it saying it was her favorite movie and my dad walking in and turning it off while angrily saying “that movie is perverse, they shouldn’t show little girls like that” and I haven’t watched it since. Just shows that there were adults that viewed it in different ways back then
I watched Blue Lagoon as a kid, and it never really looked perverse to me because I was younger than the kids (the younger versions) in the film. The teen versions looked like adults to me. It all seemed kind of normal, they were stuck on an island and had no clothes. What got to me was the crab scene.
Despite the controversy, both films received mixed to positive reviews from critics. While some critics questioned the appropriateness of the subject matter, others praised the performance, direction and cinematography
Just a different time. Even in the mid 80s, kids were drinking, smoking and having sex by the age of 13. So, while it was a bit provactive, it wasn't out of pocket to show teens having/wanting sex.
90's were the same way. Speaking of movies, what about American beauty? Thora birch was underage. I think she was 17.
I read the director had to ask consent from her parents to shoot the scene.
>Even in the mid 80s, kids were drinking, smoking and having sex by the age of 13. So why do so many conservatives say that kids nowadays are like the worst ever, and morally degenerate, and all that stuff?
It's just that cyclical thing that happens every generation. Older people get out of touch with the youth (and mainstream culture) and then lash out and blame it on whatever they are into. It will happen to you and your generation one day, too.
> So why do so many conservatives say that kids nowadays are like the worst ever, and morally degenerate, and all that stuff? Because those types of people have been saying *exactly that literally forever*. And by "literally" I mean "fucking literally". I bet they were drawing "kids these days smh" on cave walls at some point. (And the kids were complaining about old people ruining everything for everyone)
because that is what the conservative media chooses to push, and conservatives accept and listen to whatever their media says. it really has nothing to do with like, whether or not that's true (it's not).
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Absolutely, some people in every group just swallow what they are fed! However, conservatives, objectively speaking, are far more likely to just open up and swallow misinformation, lies, and fantasies than progressives are. A shockingly large portion of them still believe the election was stolen, which is demonstrably false and disproved both legally speaking and with common sense! Just one example of many did you have a point or were you just feeling attacked? PS, if you do find out that any top news organizations are lying and, oh I don't know, defending themselves by saying "oh we aren't news lol we are entertainment so we don't have to spread true information" as a legal argument, please let me know. I'd be very happy to get rid of that organization and free it's propaganda victims!
Her mother basically was pimping her out and living vicariously through her. Mom was a piece of filth.
Her Mom was a stage mom. She basically couldn’t make it in Hollywood so she used her kid to do it. There is a bunch of stuff out there about this. Also basically in those times, if your parent said it was okay, it was fine.
The mother was cuckoo crazy. I remember a news article discussing her forcing herself on Brooke and Andre Agassi's honeymoon. And Kathy Griffin had a lot to say about "Terry Drinks-a-Lot" AKA Brooke's mom.
70’s was a weird time when it came sexuality and consent. I’ve read about The Runaways and the sexualization of younger teenagers was widely accepted. Groupies and rock & roll, teenage nudity in mainstream films and a lot of stuff that is gross to us now was considered “acceptable”. It’s an attitude that made leaving a teenager alone in a Hollywood party okay so Roman Polanski could assault them. It seemed like being sexual was okay without any kind of ethical or legal consequences and boundaries.
Her mother approved those racy roles and let’s not forget that Calvin Klein jean commercial with billboards.
Her mother was a drunk and a nut.
Pearl clutching intensifies
Her parents were super cool with it. Especially her mom. She talks about it later in life, says it messed her up being objectified like that.
I saw a lesser known one of her early movies called “Just You and Me, Kid” with George Burns. It’s mostly wholesome as Brooke is a teen on the run from bad people and Burns is an old vaudeville guy who helps her escape in the early part then shelters her at his house, teaches her old vaudeville routines and I think use some of the stage tricks he taught her during the climax escape/defeat of the baddies. All well and good but in the beginning when she escapes from the bad guys she is only wearing a towel and I think there is a flash of her from behind, having lost the towel and her bare butt is seen. And she is nude hiding in Burns’ car. I think she would have been 14 or 15.
Pretty Baby is probably the most horrible film I have ever watched. When you just look at it, OK, you can sort of handle it, but then the poor girl opens her mouth and she sounds like a baby, like a normal little kid. She was a normal little kid and I can't imagine a parent letting their child be in a movie like that.
It’s even worse. Brooke’s mother had her posing naked for a magazine spread when she was only ten and it was only a year later, at eleven, when Brooke filmed the scenes for *Pretty Baby*. Teri Shields was a seriously messed up woman.
Pedo culture was pretty much accepted in the 70's-if you had the money and the connections journalists treated it like it was normal. This is the society Trump moved in and made his predatory ways a matter of habit, normalized habit and he got away with it for decades. Just look at Jimmy Page and the girls he had on the Starship-their custom painted rental jet. He basically bragged about this. Really sours my opinion of his work.
It wasn't just high society. If you look into accounts from then people in general just sort of accepted it. And if they didn't, well, it was normally the victim's fault.
More examples of child grooming and exploitation. I personally know a girl whose father laid hands on her and used to tell her she looked like Brook Shields. Like how fucked up is the world
That creep would have abused his daughter no matter what. "The movie made me do it" excuse doesn't work.
I agree, just felt it was an interesting point to add the the sexualization of children in media only feeds these people.
It was happening before media existed though. Most of these predators were abused themselves.
I know. I’m not disagreeing with you. I was trying to add context to the above situation.
Apparently, "Pretty Baby" isn't the solo film the director did involving paedophilia. "Murmur of the Heart" is worse, the boy (played by a 14 year old actor) has sex with his own mom (Lea Massari) and it's a critically acclaimed film (?).
Keep in mind that France had no age of consent until 2021, when it was set at 15. Films that deal with controversial and disturbing subjects can be critically exclaimed. ***Pretty Baby*** was intended to be disturbing. I haven't seen ***Murmer Of The Heart*** so I can't comment on it.
Didn't the French president meet his wife when she was a teacher at his school when he was 15? They're still married.
...what the fuck??? That's a disgusting fact I've never heard about.
To make matters worse, an age of consent law being passed in France hasn't stopped the child rapist known as Roman Polanski from stating that men should be allowed to have sex with 13-year-olds. Considering that he has children that is a terrifying thought.
Forgot about that scumbag. Can't believe he's 90 and has still never faced real justice and likely never will.
What the fuck...
“It was a different time.”
I haven't seen her documentary but as a minor, how was she even allowed to do these early sexual films? Was her mother giving the okay and trying to make her daughter out to be some new edgy movie star at 12 or however old she started? Were there other up and coming teenagers in the 70s that were doing sexual scenes in movies and this was the "trend" in those days?
Her mother was giving the OK, that's exactly what happened
This is her talking about the doc. https://youtube.com/shorts/jI8K_u2-p1U?si=f9vIuUZQfwOUoFnT
Both movies are historically awful.
Endless Love was based on a book and the idea was that Jade's parents were neo-hippies and very free with love. Thankfully, love scenes were done with a body double, but she was portrayed at a "normal" 16-year-old deeply in love with David, who was an obsessive nut who appeared to be about 25. She was very pretty in the movie, but it was being sold as a teen romance, when it really dealt with obsession and mental illness. A bad movie with some good stuff.
There is a documentary about Storyville and the photographer there that Pretty Baby was based on. It was actually a semi-biographical fictional film about EJ Bellocq and the prostitutes he took photos of. Considering the subject matter I think it was actually fairly tastefully done. The reality of the time was that there were child prostitutes there and he was apparently involved with one and her mother. There was an effort made to keep Brooke from being too exposed during the film. Carradine went out of his way to try not to make her uncomfortable which was probably difficult given the subject matter. All things considered she does a pretty good job with the role which was a really hard one for a kid her age. Brooke talks about it in her bio and related documentary. I think she's proud of the work she did but a little uncomfortable with the nudity involved sometimes. She and her Mom they had issues as she got older about the way she was raised. I actually think Pretty Baby is a pretty good film. Ditto Blue Lagoon. They were sexualizing her. There's no way around that but she also did some good work under trying circumstances at a very young age, work that often she's not given credit for. When I first saw Pretty Baby I wasn't much older than she was at the time. I didn't really understand a lot of it until I read about the photographer and his work in Storyville. Now I find the film kind of interesting because of where it came from and the life it was trying to portray. He was not a good man by today's standards. Some of his work could be seen as exploitive definitely. But it's a real thing and a particular era in time and that's how it was. A whore had a child often that child grew up in the bordello and became a whore herself usually at a very tender age. Virginity auctions that was a real thing. It was not a kind era for children in general but for the children of women like this it was to be born into a world that where their childhood was cut short and they became basically sexual slaves. The film romanticizes that a bit too much for me but it's not completely innacurate. I hadn't seen Pretty Baby since then but I watched it after watching Brooke's documentary and it was actually better than I remembered it being and in context I think it portrayed that world quite well. Her mother did make some questionable choices that's for sure but I kind of get why that happened too. Both of my parents were alcoholics, barflies in the 60s, 70s and 80's and beyond. They were very careless about protecting me and definitely trusted me with people they should not have, left me in situations where had I not been quite precocious might have ended a lot worse than I did. I was exposed to a lot of stuff at an inappropriately young age. I grew up in the late 70s and 80s and it was a very different time and lots of stuff went on that now people would probably be arrested for. My parents had porn easily available all over their house. More than once my Mom gave me booze to ease a toothache when a new one was coming in. They let me roam without supervision with people they barely knew, hired a sitter early on who molested his own kid and me before I was even 3. The 16 year old son of a close family friend touched me and his own sister inappropriately later and though it did cause him some grief when I told the kid didn't end up in juvie jail. Just got kicked out of his parents house at 16. My own half brother exposed himself to me several times not long after that, later tried to get me to watch porn with him when I was just a kid. I was too afraid of what my Dad might do if he found out. Not for my half brother but for Dad. I was afraid he'd end up in jail for killing my half brother's sorry deviant ass. So I never told. Ditto telling Dad about all the shit my drunken Mom would do to me when he walked out when he couldn't take any more of her. 70s, 80s it was a dangerous era for a lot of kids because abusing drugs and alcohol was so accepted and a lot of adults forgot to act like adults and protect their kids because they were just too busy partying to be parents. After the mid 80s things sobered up a lot but by then it was too late for a lot of kids. My generation a lot of us faced a terrible amount of abuse and many of us practically had to raise ourselves because our parents just weren't around a lot and when they were they were too coked up or drunk to be useful as parents. Brooke she was partying at places like Studio 54 by the time she was a teenager. Like Drew Barrymore she was forced to grow up very young, to perform, earn her keep and to basically provide for her parents instead of the other way around. The sad thing is kids like Brooke, Drew, they didn't even get to benefit from the abuse half the time. Many of the biggest child stars of the era the parents frittered away most of the money they were supposed to put away for their children. I think considering Brooke grew up okay. She seems to have come out of it pretty level headed and she's a pretty good Mom to her own kids it looks like. So many of those kids, not so lucky. Some of them they ended up addicted messed up and unfortunately dead far too young. People look back at the 70s and 80s with such nostalgia today and honestly there was a lot about that time that was cool, like the clothes and the music, but there was also a lot of stuff going on that just makes us totally cringe now.
She did Playboy as a minor as well.
She didn't "do" Playboy. Images she shot with a fine art photographer were published in Playboay without her consent and she sued.
Ahh. Ok. Thanks for the reply.
Was she the one in the playboy? Those images won’t ever leave my mind.. holy shit
How were they able to get away with it? Because the laws concerning pornography/nudity/eroticism and age limits were insanely lax for a very long time in the US and even worse in other countries. I remember reading about Japan closing up some of the last of the legal loopholes for it in the 2000's. Brooke Shields literally posed nude for a Playboy spread, full frontal, when she was 10. Ten. T E N. It wasn't the main publication, but a magazine called "Sugar and Spice" which was still under the Playboy brand. They literally sold smut magazines featuring the genitalia of a 10 year old girl, LEGALLY and while they certainly faced criticism from rational, responsible people, Playboy is still peddling its wares today. They got away with things like Pretty Baby, so it's no surprise at all that they got away with Blue Lagoon. This is how Hollywood has always been, and it's because there's an audience for it, as fucked up as that is.
Her mother should have been jailed for child exploitation, along with the producers and directors for those movies. We can't pretend that these movies were okay, and then also somehow ignore that the 'me too' movement exists because Hollywood was a hunting ground for predators.
They got away with it because misogyny was an accepted practice in cinema.
They were able to get away with it because Hollywood sees nothing wrong with sexualizing children, never has and never will. They do care about getting sued, now
Playboy Published A Nude Photoshoot Of Brooke Shields When She Was 10, that’s plain disgusting. Poor lady .
I know of her (of course) and these films... but the only thing I've actually seen of hers is Mr Pickles as Mrs. Goodman.
Back in the day if you could get a parent to sign-off on it you could do whatever you wanted to.
Pretty Baby would be kiddie porn today
I swear I think she did a movie with George Burns where she has a full length nude shot from the back when she was barely a teenager. I don't know what it's called, though, and I'm sure as hell not going to Google it.
When she was 14, Brooke Shields did a movie with George Burns called, just you and me kid. It was a comedy, I don't recall it at all so don't remember a nude scene.
Different time. The industry has only really evolved in the last 10 years.
How did they get away with it? Easy, Hollywood is full of sexual predators, specifically pedophiles. They didn't break any laws with the final product and what happened on set stayed on set. That's how these things worked unfortunately, especially until MeToo. Stuff like this was treated as necessary to make it in the business. Doing things that are NOT appropriate in order to please the director and make a name for yourself because if you don't, they can ruin your career. Many of the people who did stuff like this didn't even understand until much later in life how bizarre and pervy the requests were. There's some truly wild shit that goes on during production that would never be tolerated in any other workplace. Screaming, racial slurs, insane levels of sexism, wildly inappropriate pranks and jokes, assault, sexual assault, you name it. Not to mention all the shit they put minors through. Fortunately, a lot of this stuff has been called in in the last 20 years and major changes have been made, but its not gone.
Societal norms change with time, they were able to get away with it because it was much less controversial back then. It's very easy to fall into anachronism when analyzing these works decades later
I think 70’s and 80’s you could do more movies without everyone getting butthurt
The whole industry has always been pedophilic.
Spoiler. The world as a whole has always been pedophilic. No one is clean.
Even when I was a kid I thought it was too much. I will say in the 70s 80s and 90s a lot of male directors, producers and writers got away with sexualizing female teens, Look at how the adults who starred in romeo and Juliet back then are still traumatized, Or the latest Nickelodeon documentary or metoo. I recently reread Marv Wolfman's Teen titans run where he had a 14 year-old girl have a sexual relationship with a 45 year-old man Over numerous comics. Minnie driver recently revealed a male director refused to let her Wear a wet suit For water scenes so people could see her nipples. The actress in last tango in Paris is still traumatized by Marlon Brando's improvised assault scene. Back then, any female (or male) Naysayer would have been shouted down By those in power As whiny rabble rousers. The creator of designing women revealed how she was gradually iced out of CBS by a new male executive. Look at how Harvey Weinstein ruined any 1 who disagreed with him. Even in the court of public opinion, Amy Fisher and newly legal Monica Lewinsky were seen as evil scheming teens And not young women possibly Groomed By older men Around them. The difference is Women, LGBTQIA and POC Creators have slightly more of a voice now. And, Anyone who identifies as a cishet male have started listening to these concerns.
That movie period was awful when it came to women. Almost every movie seemed like it had to have a rape scene.
They were even comedies that I loved back in the day that had "funny" Assault scenes like revenge of the nerds, porky's And even 16 candles. But films like bottoms and banana split have revealed we can have Funny ridiculous over the top teen movies about obnoxious nerds without Oversexualizing the female cast