The actress, who appeared in films such as’ Matilda ‘,’ Mrs. Doubtfire ‘and’ Miracle on 34th Street, ‘opens in an article about being sexually harassed “by the media and the public”, while drawing similarities to the history of the pop superstar.
The New York Times documentary Armando Britney Spears prompted audiences and legions of fans to reexamine all aspects of the pop star’s life and the explosive ups and downs of his global stardom. One issue, in particular, that remains a controversial issue is the way Spears has been treated and talked about by the media.
Former child star Mara Wilson knows how it is. On a Times Opinion article published on Tuesday, Wilson, now 33, details his rise to fame while pointing out the similarities in his stories, like two young women forced to navigate an often dangerous press cycle while defending themselves from sexual harassment and public scrutiny.
“The way people talked about Britney Spears was terrifying to me back then, and it still is now,” writes Wilson. “Her story is a remarkable example of a phenomenon that I have witnessed for years: our culture builds these girls just to destroy them. Fortunately, people are becoming aware of what we did with Mrs. Spears and starting to apologize to her. But we still live with the scars. “
Wilson opens the play – entitled “The Lies Hollywood Tells About Little Girls” – recalling how she spent her 13th birthday “locked up” in a hotel room in Toronto in July 2000. She was in Canada on a promotional tour of the film Thomas and the magic railroad, a film that followed the previous work in Mrs. Doubtfire, Melrose Place, Miracle on 34th Street, and the work for which she is perhaps best known as the title star of Matilda. The next day, Wilson sat down with a journalist and “told her the truth” when asked how she was feeling.
What followed was a printed article that dubbed Wilson a spoiled brat “who was now ‘in middle age'”, while describing the dark path that child stars like her used to take, she writes. “He embraced what I now call ‘The Narrative’, the idea that anyone who grew up in the public eye will have a tragic end,” continues Wilson. She writes that the reporter even asked what she thought of Spears and she apparently said that she hated her, although she admits, looking back, “I didn’t hate Britney Spears. But I never would have admitted that I liked her.”
She said she had already absorbed the “The Narrative” whirlwind around Spears, who then exploded on the scene with her debut album … baby again, which was released in 1999. Shortly afterwards, Wilson said he saw how Spears was labeled a “bad girl” and followed the controversy about her Rolling Stone to cover. Wilson resisted the path that his fellow teenage actors and singers followed in embracing his sexuality as a “rite of passage”.
“I had already been sexualized anyway and hated it,” she writes. “People asked me, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ in interviews since the age of 6. Reporters asked me who I thought was the sexiest actor and about Hugh Grant’s arrest for soliciting a prostitute. It was cute when 10 year olds sent me letters saying they were in love with me. It wasn’t when 50-year-old men did it. Even before I turned 12, there were pictures of me on foot fetish sites and pictures of me on child pornography. Every time, I felt ashamed. “
She said that although Hollywood decided to face harassment, what she experienced was never while at work, everything was “in the hands of the media and the public”, issues that came back to focus after Armando Britney Spears amid a broader dialogue on the treatment of women in culture in general.
“Many moments in Mrs. Spears’ life were familiar to me. We both had dolls made of us, close friends and boyfriends sharing our secrets and adult men commenting on our bodies. But my life was easier not only because I was never a tabloid. – famous level, but because unlike Mrs. Spears, I always had the support of my family “, continues Wilson. “I knew I had money saved for me and it was mine. If I needed to escape the public eye, I disappeared – safe at home or at school.”
Wilson closes her NY Times ask when asserting power over your story. “Sometimes people ask me, ‘How did you end up well?’ Once, someone I considered a friend asked, with a big smile: ‘How does it feel to know that you peaked?’ I didn’t know how to answer, but now I would say that is the wrong question. I didn’t reach the peak, because, for me, the narrative is no longer a story that someone else is writing. I can write it myself. “