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Last night I watched Adum from Your Movie Sucks's review of Michael, the recent biopic of Michael Jackson starring his nephew Jaafar. I was not surprised to find that he abhorred the film, taking it to task for its hagiographic approach (not only to its principal, but also to certain members of his inner circle, some of whom acted as producers); the way it seems to encourage an unhealthy parasocial relationship between the late Jackson and his most devoted fans, and how it completely avoids mentioning the child abuse allegations which dogged Jackson in his later years. Adum, for his part, remains agnostic on whether Jackson was guilty of sexually interfering with children: he concedes that it's certainly possible that certain of the complainants' parents coerced them into accusing Jackson of misconduct in hopes of securing a generous settlement agreement, but also points out that even some of the behaviour Jackson admitted to (e.g. sharing a bed with underage boys) was certainly questionable at the minimum.
Near the end of the review (timestamped link), Adum argues that, whatever the truth of the abuse allegations launched against Jackson, it's impossible to talk about these and his other strange behaviour (the cosmetic surgery, the Neverland ranch, the time he dangled his child out of a fourth-floor window) without acknowledging that he suffered a uniquely awful upbringing which can only be described as abusive and exploitative. If indeed he was guilty of child abuse, his own difficult childhood would not excuse his conduct, but the former is inseparable from the latter. Adum muses on how odd it is that essentially every Western nation outlawed child labour decades ago – except for child labour in the entertainment industry, where child actors and singers pass without comment. Adum argues that the existence of this loophole actively incentivises abusive, exploitative child-rearing of the kind Jackson suffered, and that this behaviour will continue as long as the loophole is permitted to remain open. He ends the video with a call for it to be closed. No more child stars. No more prepubescent musicians. Cut it off at the root.
I'm old enough to remember when "former child star" was a stock punchline, with tabloid magazines and edgy sitcoms making hay of the incongruity between adorable child actors later becoming burnt-out husks checking themselves into rehab for heroin addiction. After learning what a large proportion of these former child stars went through upbringings comparable to Jackson's in abusiveness and/or claimed to have been sexually exploited at the hands of adult producers, directors or co-stars, it's been many years since I found jokes at their expense funny. (Examples include Coreys Haim and Feldman, Drake Bell, Amanda Bynes, Jennette McCurdy and Joanna Levesque, among many others.) And that's not even getting into the rare instances of child actors being severely injured or even killed on film sets (e.g. the infamous Twilight Zone movie helicopter accident, which in fairness was in direct contravention of multiple child labour laws even at the time). Even leaving aside the most horrific cases of abuse and exploitation, many child actors and musicians cite their abnormal childhoods as underlying causes in their later mental health difficulties and problems with substance abuse. It's a bit unreasonable for, say, Chappell Roan to complain about the downsides of fame, given that she was an adult when she decided to pursue her career in music, and hence old enough to know that being famous is a package deal. I have a lot more sympathy when a child complains about never really having had a private life, often because of decisions made on their behalf by a domineering stage mom. I'm inclined to agree with Adum that I don't really understand why this loophole exists, and think closing it is a good idea.
What would a world without child actors look like? While child labour laws vary by jurisdiction, most allow sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to work part-time with the consent of their parents. If this law applied to film and TV sets, sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who look young enough to pass for thirteen or fourteen would be highly prized, but films with major characters who have not yet hit puberty would be the exclusive preserve of animation. We might allow under-16 actors to make brief appearances in films, but place strict limitations on how large their role can be to prevent the emergence of newly minted child stars e.g. specifying that they can only work a maximum of eight hours every calendar month, or only have X minutes of screentime, or X lines of dialogue. This means that, for example, a short scene in which the adult protagonist of the film says goodbye to his wife and kids before leaving to blow the lid off the Brodsky case is fine; a live-action film in which the protagonist is a prepubescent child (e.g. Home Alone, the Harry Potter films) is not. This is an obvious application of photorealistic generative AI: have the adult characters played by adult actors, and the children played by mo-capped adult stand-ins (perhaps standing on their knees, like Gary Oldman in Tiptoes) who will be replaced by CGI children in post-production.
Directors and producers might complain about their creative freedom being unduly curtailed by regulations of this type. But this objection reeks of status quo bias to me. The famous "no animals were harmed in the making of this film" disclaimer is barely fifty years old. I'm sure if the American Humane Society had existed at the time Ben-Hur was being made, the directors would have complained that their creative freedom was being compromised by the insistence that they not intentionally kill upwards of a hundred horses in order to produce suitably exciting cinema. Eventually, we collectively decided that no artistic statement justifies pointless animal cruelty on this scale: it's only a movie. Sufficiently talented directors managed to find creative solutions for how to film movies without being gratuitously cruel to our four-legged friends. In the future, the "no animals were harmed..." disclaimer might well be followed by another reading "no child labour was exploited...".
If outright banning child actors and musicians isn't yet a practical possibility, an interim solution might be to have all compensation they earn from their performances paid into a trust that they (and only they) can access, and only when they come of age. The only compensation their parents could receive directly would come in the form of reimbursements for e.g. travel expenses, acting classes, music classes, accommodation etc. Many film studios are understandably reluctant about paying children their acting fees directly, fearing that they might squander their earnings; on the other hand, there have been enough cases of parents financially exploiting their children (and the child consequently ending up empty-handed when they come of age) that I'm not convinced paying a child's fees into a bank account to which their parents have access is a viable solution. If parents were unable to directly financially profit from their children's labour, that would also work to disincentivise the most egregious forms of abuse and exploitation. (A Google informs me that similar legislation has been on the books in California since 1939.)
A sufficiently creative director could probably make a movie in which legal adults played the role of children and still have it be "believeable" within the confines of the world he is creating. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this type of stuff is not uncommon in theater. If the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief a man can play a woman, the guy wearing all white does not exist, and putting on a crown and speaking in an accent makes you a king. In a world where child actors were never normalized this does not seem unrealistic.
In our world however, modern movies go for maximum immersion. Everything must look as true to life as possible. So the more realistic scenario is that children's movies without child actors would make heavy use of animaton, puppets, or full-body costumes that make the features of the adult actors invisible.
Contrary to your suggested complaints, I believe this is the exact kind of restriction that breeds creativity. Using child actors is the easy way out. Forbid that, and now the directors and producers are forced to think outside the box, which will lead to more creative ideas.
Oh I agree, absolutely. I think the hypothetical directors who would complain about no longer being permitted to use child actors will eventually sound as ridiculous to us as directors from previous generations who would complain about not being allowed to endanger, maim or kill animals to get the shot. Photorealistic generative AI is one example of how a creative director could get around this restriction.
That being said
I'm not sure if I really agree with this. Modern Hollywood movies don't really look anything like real life. Even when they aren't primarily filmed on a green screen, they tend to use much more aggressive colour grading than the films of earlier decades did. Actors tend to be perfectly made up: it is rare to see a character in a tropical climate who is dripping with sweat (as was done in, for example, Sorcerer). Modern Hollywood films tend to be stylised to within an inch of their lives and drained of weight and tactility.
My point was that watchers of modern movies and TV-series don't expect the to suspense their disbelief to the same extent as people who go to the theater. Thus, the same tricks that work in a physical theater are unlikely to achieve the same effect on a screen. But thinking about my phrasing, yeah you are right that "true to life" does not hold up to scrutiny.
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