Child Star is a documentary by Demi Lovato and Nicola Marsh that talks about the issues faced by idols in the coming-of-age contexts. It’s quite emotionally engaging as the very start begins with a stark confession.
Lovato is one of those celebrities who come out and share interesting stories and she says that around the age of 4 when she was living with her great grandparents she happened to watch a Shimmy Temple movie, which in her words is the reason she said: I want to become the youngest who does this the best.
That ambition rather common feeling that young actors and singers, and in fact any young person in any field, have of getting to the top and accomplishing their aims is hyphenated with the child curse of the Monkey’s Paw (the name of this film is a copy of the 2001 biopic named Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story). While the film already allows that explanation it is akin to providing a vent for those actors who are relatively famous in their sheer age for the reason that it actually alters what and how they are viewed.
For the most part, the Hulu film will be released on Sept. While interviewing the director and her Interviewees, the movie consists of tender interviews with both the Interviewees and the director, which offer a new perspective for every aspect of the show and movie world that formed an entire generation.
Drew Barrymore and Christina Ricci talk about idolizing the likes of Cher and Spielberg while struggling to find themselves at the beginning of their careers. Kenan Thompson on the other hand, refers to his teen years living off of the money from the Nickelodeon shows as a scam since he was left with nothing due to trusting a dodgy accountant. Disney has its share of troubled actresses with Raven being in the same group as Lovato who talks about periods of disassociation while being on family-friendly shows. Why Siwa made no career advancements or changes after coming out is due to her misfortune which could have been looked at as an opportunity. The one who made Home Alone and the 2 Harry Potter franchise is Chris Columbus so you can imagine how cruel he is to young stars who become superstars.
Similarly to Alyson Stoner who plays Lovato’s campmate in the movie, they both discuss how harsh the movie was, revealing some of the movie’s more controversial parts, that’s right they say ‘She’s So Good’ together, Yes. A term Disneyland stars used to describe the odd combination of real-life school and fake lessons on the set of the film where they had eating disorders and love triangles.
Amidst all these conversations, whether in dimly lit cafes or on the couch in someone’s house, the movie also focuses on a child star-ification trend in American entertainment that is said to be worse than before. In this particular case, she found herself very popular on the Disney channel at a time when many of the company’s shows and movies have been produced for target-age children.
The Cheetah Girls, Hannah Montana, and Lovato’s own about the showbiz Sonny with a Chance, all were released in the 2000s when they inspired their very young audiences on what being a teenage star lived in feeling like. Many of these actors suffered recurrent trauma as they first enjoyed uninterrupted flattery from the industry, and then were mistreated, excluded, and mocked by their colleagues, and the audience as well.
There are also children who shun all protection against exploitation measures, and all of them would miss the Hollywood protection that is offered owing to regulations that have been set to prevent the exploitation of child stars. (For instance, there has been a recent encouragement for child influencers to sue their parents for sharing in the influencer’s income as they go against the purpose of being the influencers’ guardians.) As Barrymore quipped, “child actors are in the most basic essence “‘commodities”; she also puts it rather well.
But the sustained, pervasive sense of unease that dominates the documentary from beginning to end can never be dispelled, and any concern about the lack of deep scholarship in their analyses seems quite realistically fully justified. Equally troubling, if the authors deal with such serious topics as bulimic, drug addiction, and self-harm disorders, (Hulu is, after all, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.) much more troubling is why there is always blame for bulimia, addiction to drugs or self-harm.
This is not the first time. In Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV which is similar to the documentary under discussion, the creators aimed at the nighties culture where mainstream movies and Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider were in full swing.
Child Star is not a children’s documentary so it does not intend to accuse any person or entity. However, the film does state that in the process of making a film child actors may get victimized through the Child Star.
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