Brooke Shields’ story and the sexualisation of young girls

I could say I grew up with Brooke Shields as part of the running background reel of my teenage years. Her life was as far removed from mine as could possibly be, but like many other ordinary teenagers I looked at her from afar with awe and admiration. She was breathtakingly perfect in my eyes, slim and statuesque, with green eyes, those (natural) bold, prominent eyebrows and that long, thick luxurious hair. Watching the old footage and photos of her I can still recall how we all idolised her ethereal beauty, even though everything she was involved in seemed to be tinged with controversy.

I remember the shock and scandal surrounding Pretty Baby, by French director Louis Malle, which came out in 1978, in which she played a child prostitute and in which she appeared nude. It was rated R so at the age of 15, I was too young to watch it …of course, the cynical irony of that film rating is not lost on anyone because Brooke, who was only 11, was not considered too young to appear in it.

I also remember the public outrage over the daring Blue Lagoon which came out in 1980, which also contained nudity (although a body double was used for certain scenes). Two children stranded on an island who have a sexual awakening and fall in love as they hit puberty - we were all swooning at the sheer romance of the whole thing and flocked to watch it, even though it was panned as a terrible film by critics. Brooke was 14, while Christopher Atkins her co-star was 18.

And who can forget the overly suggestive TV advertising campaign for Calvin Klein jeans with the tagline “nothing comes between me and my Calvins?” The racy commercials which had Brooke twisting into all sorts of shapes in tight jeans as the camera lingered over her body, and wearing a barely buttoned shirt in the print ads, scandalised America and were banned by several TV stations. Klein himself was unperturbed by the criticism,  especially as it proved to be a successful marketing ploy and teenage girls rushed to buy the jeans because they all wanted to be wearing Calvins, just like the smouldering, sexy Brooke. She was only 15 at the time.

It is only now, in retrospect, and after I watched her documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields that I have realised just how very young she was to be thrust into such adult, provocative roles.  When it was all happening, I did not understand the implications of portraying a vulnerable, under age girl in such a very promiscuous way, perhaps because in my head, like most teenagers, I felt I was already grown up (or wanted desperately to be). But now, with the benefit of hindsight, it all looks so very, very wrong.  That she was exploited and taken advantage of is a fact - her exquisite, flawless beauty was mesmerising and seemed to have made grown men (and women) lose all sense of decency in the way they treated her. She was a valuable product, almost a brand, and her stunning looks were a cash cow as she became the family breadwinner. Her mother-manager was harshly criticised at the time for agreeing to these roles and was frequently lambasted by the press - but Brooke was completely under her thumb and went along with all her decisions, no matter how ill-advised.

Referring to the Calvin Klein ad she recently said: “I didn’t think it was about underwear or sexual in nature. What was shocking to me was to be berated by ‘Oh, you knew this was happening. This is what you thought. You were thinking these thoughts.'  I was a kid, and where I was, I was naive. I was a very protected, sequestered, young woman in a bubble. I think the assumption was that I was much more savvy than I ever really was."

When asked in the documentary by her now grown up daughters whether she would have let them do a film such as Pretty Baby at the age of 11, without hesitation she swiftly says, “never”.  Even though she tries to point out that (despite the shock value) it was meant to be an artistic film depicting real historic events, her daughters look at her askance - “that would never happen today, minors are now always played by actors who are over 18”. They are right, of course: take the highly sexualised, drug-fuelled teenage drama Euphoria - all the high school teenagers are actually in their 20s.  The problem with this, of course, is that to young viewers, these are still, ostensibly, high school girls taking their clothes off for the camera and engaging in random, casual sex.

Granted, on actual film sets, things have thankfully changed. Today, a director would no  longer be allowed to use an actual 11-year-old to make an art house film about prostitutes, let alone show an underage actress in the nude, or ask a 14-year-old girl to simulate sex playing opposite a male lead who is 18 and technically a adult.

The protection of child actors in the film industry is now also enshrined in the law:

“In California, the current child pornography laws apply and nude photos are not allowed to be taken or exhibited. It is not legal to photograph or share photos of nude minors. Nor is it legal for children to be exposed as nude or exposed to nudity on sets, even if no photos are taken. The parent is to be within sight and hearing distance of the minor, and the set teacher is the moral protector on set. Anyone even encouraging the violation of the child labor law is subject to fines of $10,000 and above and legal punishments.”

However, in almost every single TV series whose central theme is teenagers, the sexual content continues to be ramped up. The difference is that while, back in the day, a show like Beverly Hills 90210 simply alluded to a young high school couple having sex, now it seems directors are not happy until they show some (or a lot) of skin.  And while it is a given that teenage hormones are running amok during adolescence, a Netflix show like Sex Education, which says it all in the title, simply emphasises that all teenagers have sex on the brain.

In fact, what was fascinating about the documentary is how when it comes to the sexualisation of young girls, the message has really not changed that much.   When she asks her daughters what the difference is between what she did and what skimpily clad young girls are doing today when they post sexy selfies on Instagram or Tik Tok, they tell her:  the difference is that THEY have agency over their own bodies, because they are publishing the photos or videos themselves.  While I can see their point because Brooke was not given any proper maternal guidance by the person who should have been protecting her, and the concept of consent was not even in the public discourse, I am not sure whether the end result is very different.

We know that (despite age limits for having a social media account) there are under age girls posting photos which are blatantly sexual.  I have even seen photos of sexy mothers with their young daughters, both posing in a promiscuous way. The sexualisation is still there, but girls think it’s harmless because they are “owning it”.   Brooke Shields eloquently describes the dichotomy herself in an interview she gave to New York magazine:

“What’s terrifying to me is that they think that they have control of it because they dictate their TikToks and their social media and all that. And their argument is “But it’s on my terms, and I’m doing it,” but they don’t seem to understand how it’s feeding the monster.  You know, on the one hand, they’re all so righteous about, you know, “My body, my choice.” Yes. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But they think they’re being feminists, they think that because they’re controlling their image — or they think they are — that somehow they’re impervious to all of what’s really happening and what hasn’t changed.”

The truth is that despite decades of feminism, society still places too much importance on women’s looks, rather than their intelligence, and the desperate race to keep looking young and attractive has led to countless botched up cosmetic surgeries.

Meanwhile, the objectification of young girls and women has continued to explode - but rather than men exploiting them as they did with the young, naive Brooke Shields, it is the girls themselves who are now providing them with the material, neatly handed on a silver platter.