Mara Wilson, former child performer and star of films like Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire, is probably an anomaly among her colleagues; despite her failure to fade into obscurity, she has survived being a child performer without becoming an object of public ridicule. Going by her piece for Cracked, Wilson’s not only an example of how to thrive after wrangling with the frequently grown-up expectations thrust on child stars; she’s one of the best advocates that peers struggling for footing as adults, recycled in the tabloids time and again, could hope for.
Writing in the wake of former Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes’s Twitter rampage and bong-throwing escapades, Wilson describes childhood in the spotlight and the often difficult transition into adolescence and beyond under public scrutiny from a point of personal experience. She notes that child stardom is fraught by nature if parents and legal guardians financially exploit children and treat them as cash cows (as they often do); more importantly, even the non-Momagers and ruthless dad-slash-“agent” types may be ill-equipped to exercise guidance or authority by the time studios or the press have their say. She recalls when an entertainment reporter asked a 6-year-old Wilson to comment on Hugh Grant’s recent arrest for solicitation at the premiere for Nine Months:
My father called the station the next day to suggest that they, you know, not talk to a child about soliciting sex. But he was rebuffed, and the complaint was ignored. Even then, as a kid, I knew that parental power was gone.
She also discusses the sexualization of young performers by their handlers, the prurient eye of the tabloid press, and the public. Wilson personally discovered pictures of herself on a foot fetish site at age 12. Performers that have successfully crossed over into adult roles have similarly commented on the threat of being exploited; the unwelcome attention Natalie Portman encountered after being cast as gamine teenage waifs in films like The Professional altered the course of her early career. Lots of simulated child porn using child actor’s faces and bodies, Photoshopped images, or “fetish” sites like the one Wilson discusses–possibly using neutral film stills for sleazy purposes–exist outside clear legal penalties in an age when privacy and the governance of what’s “obscene” or “illegal” on the internet remains muddled. To say that finding one’s image used for such purposes without consent might make anyone’s adolescence more difficult is a vast understatement, but the problem seems ubiquitous, an expected, unpleasant side effect of fame, even for minors. (Anyone that makes the mistake of Googling “Emma Watson” without SafeSearch on will discover this phenomenon immediately.)
After being pampered, spoiled, turned into family breadwinners before puberty, and expected to negotiate with an industry that tests of the sanity of its adult players, child performers have to dread rejection from the studios and the audience once they’ve left the “cute kid” stage and entered the awkward/rebellious teen phase; in Wilson’s words, “[h]aving to live up to your fan base is a little like having to deal with a million strict parents who don’t actually love you”. (Of course, thanks to social media and the celebrity gossipsphere, the public nature of that rebellion can regenerate itself with each court date, arrest, or rehab check-in.)
Media coverage of celebrity unraveling is rarely (if ever) this knowledgeable, self-aware, witty, or sympathetic. It’s easy to forget there’s anything amiss in the entertainment industry or the dynamics of fame when finger-wagging is mostly reserved for the “easy target“, an actor that’s outgrown their niche and remains just well-known enough that their lingering in the limelight is viewed with distaste and pity.
As noted, Wilson left film and eventually went on to NYU to hone her skills as a writer/theater actress. More of her work can be found at marawilsonwritesstuff.com and on Twitter.
