Millie Bobby Brown rose to stardom at the young age of 12 in her role as Eleven in the TV show Stranger Things. That was six years ago, and now, the little girl is officially a young woman as she celebrated her 18th birthday this past February. Now that she is “of age”, the way people talk about her on the internet has changed rapidly. Her 18th birthday has struck up an interesting conversation on the sexualization of female child stars.
Millie Bobby Brown’s Birthday Brings Up Discussion of The Sexualization of Female Child Stars
Millie Bobby Brown has been widely celebrated throughout her childhood career as an actress. She has received several awards and has acquired millions of fans and followers. As she approached her 18th birthday, she also approached a new era in her acting career. Unfortunately, there were many people who had a different view of her 18th birthday. For them, the day was permission to openly sexualize her as she would now be officially ‘of age’. The comments reflected the dark side of being a female child star – and just a woman in the spotlight, in general. (1)
The star’s birthday has actually now sparked a legal discussion about how female child stars are treated by the public. In the weeks and days leading up to Millie Bobby Brown’s 18th birthday, many gross and disturbing things began appearing online. These ranged from people talking about their countdown to the actress’s birthday to actual online forums counting down the days until she became of age. Many people began talking about how uncomfortable those forums and countdowns made them.
NSFW Warnings
One Reddit forum, in particular, struck up much debate. The forum, which was marked for 18+ content, said that it would be featuring NSFW content. This stands for Not Safe For Work. The description read: This forum will open when Millie turns 18, on February 19, 2022. One person described it as a space for people to post explicit content of the young actress. It already had 6000 subscribers, however, Reddit shut it down before it even opened.
“It’s a sub solely dedicated to sexual pictures of Millie, who is currently a minor, until next week but they have a sub prepared already with thousands of subscribers,” one person said.
Disgusting Comments
It wasn’t just Reddit forums and other online spaces that began to change. The comments she received on her Instagram posts as she turned 18 also took a gross turn. Now that she is 18, apparently people (primarily adult men) now feel comfortable saying lewd things and posting suggestive emojis on her photos.
Sadly, this is just highlighting the way that female child stars have been treated for many, many years. The sexualization of girls is a huge problem in our society that leads to violence against women as adults. Few places this is more prominent than in the way famous women and girls are treated.
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Former Female Child Star Speaks Out
Millie Bobby Brown is not the first female child star to be sexualized and treated in this way. In fact, ask any woman in Hollywood who grew up acting and she will tell you that she was treated the same way. Not just by the public, but often by the media, as well.
Mara Wilson, who became famous as a little girl for her role in Matilda, expressed her concern for Milly Bobby Brown five years ago in 2017. She wrote a letter in Elle magazine about her experience growing up as a child star.
“His name was Don, or maybe Doug. He was a grown man, one I’d never met, and he wanted me to answer his fan letter. His writing was hard to read, but I could make out just enough: “I love your legs,” and “Can I have your lip print on the enclosed index card?” she wrote in Elle. “I was fifteen. I had acted in movies since I was five, but hadn’t appeared on screen since I was twelve. And while Don-or-Doug’s letter gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, it didn’t give me a shock. Even before I was out of middle school, I had been featured on foot fetish websites, photoshopped into child porn, and received all kinds of letters and messages online from grown men.” (2)
She spoke about how while the boys at school weren’t interested in her, these older men were. As soon as she hit puberty, people began discussing her body.
“Every time I stumbled across an article about myself, every fear I had about my pubescent body was confirmed: I was “ugly,” which as a woman, made me useless, or I was “cute,” which made me an object. I was “grown up,” which made me vulnerable. Because I was a child actor, my body was public domain.” she wrote.
Her Concern For Brown
She brought up her concern for Brown after she read an article about the girl at an awards show. Then just 13-years-old, men were commenting that she had suddenly “grown-up” in front of their eyes. She noted that a 13-year-old is not, in fact, grown-up. She spoke about the way people discussed her body and what she was wearing and whether or not it is appropriate. Wilson also spoke about how there were countdowns to other famous young women’s 18th birthdays, such as the Olsen sisters or Emma Watson. Because all of the sudden when that girl turns 18, their fetishes become “okay”.
“What’s really at play here the creepy, inappropriate public inclination to sexualize young girls in the media. We do not need to perpetuate the culture of dehumanization Hollywood has enabled. But the media has become democratized; social media and user-generated content mean anyone can write about anyone, and there is a good chance anyone will see it. We are all part of the media, but I don’t know if we’ve realized that yet, nor understood what a tremendous responsibility that is.” she wrote.
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Millie Bobby Brown’s Response
Millie addressed how she has been dealing with the sexualization by the public and the media in The Guilty Feminist podcast.
“(I have) definitely been dealing with [being sexualized] more within the last two weeks of turning 18 — definitely seeing a difference between the way people act and the way that the press and social media have reacted to me coming of age.” (3)
She continued:
“I believe that shouldn’t change anything, but it’s gross and it’s true. It’s a very good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized. I have been dealing with that — but I have also been dealing with that forever.”
She went on to explain that growing up and transitioning to adulthood in the public eye is overwhelming and difficult. Brown, just like any 18-year-old, is trying to navigate regular young woman things, just in the spotlight. Things like friendships, relationships, having fun, trying to fit in, and becoming a woman.
Millie Bobby Brown referenced a time when she wore a slightly low-cut outfit to an awards show when she was 16. The media raked her over the coals for it. Meanwhile, Brown was wondering why they were even talking about it instead of the incredible people winning awards.
Read: Teens Walk Out To Protest School’s Sexist Dress Code: ‘Am I A Distraction?’
Male Former Child Stars Agree That The Girls Have It Worse
Cole Sprouse, who began acting alongside his twin brother before they were even a year old, has spoken out about the sexualization of his female co-stars. He said that while growing up in Hollywood was tough, he knows how much easier he had it than the girls.
“My brother and I used to get quite a bit of, ‘Oh, you made it out! Oh, you’re unscathed!’ No. The young women on the channel we were on [Disney Channel] were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences (to those of the girls).”
The Bottom Line
I could go on and on with examples from other former female child stars about how they suffered, especially leading up to their 18th birthdays. Natalie Portman and Emma Watson are just two others who have spoken out about the treatment they received and the sexualization they endured as girls.
This is something that needs to be addressed and it needs to be stopped. It is certainly a start to shut down forums like the one leading up to Millie Bobby Brown’s birthday. However, more needs to be done. The media will have a large part to play in the conversation around female child stars. They need to remember that these girls, though famous, are children. An 18-year-old is also still just a teenager. It is time we began treating them that way.
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Sources
- “Millie Bobby Brown Opened Up About The “Gross” Sexualization She Has Faced As A Child Star After The Public Reaction To Her 18th Birthday Sparked An Important Conversation.” Buzzfeed News. Stephanie Soteriou. April 13, 2022.
- “Matilda Actress Mara Wilson: A 13-Year-Old Girl Is Not “All Grown Up”.” Elle. Mara Wilson. November 14, 2017.
- Guilty Feminist