sooo what’s new? nothing much, this week has been a succession of computer games, movies, football, reading here and there, chores, etc but what i really want to talk about is a documentary i just finished watching.
True Stories: Babes in Hollywood and to put it mildly, it’s a pretty harrowing documentary. what started out as a boring afternoon turned into a reflection of our crumbling social norms. anyway, the premise of this documentary is to chart the few families living in oakwood, los angeles, a service apartment complex for aspiring actor kids age 3-12 who wish to break into hollywood. now, these children of similar aspirations and their families chose oakwood as the accommodation of choice is due to their free actors workshops, where people from the industry (actors, producers, agents) come in to meet the kids. sounds promising no?
so from the get go, we are introduced to these kids with industry folks who advise somewhere along the lines of “follow the dream, never give up” or up to advising the child in getting new photos done, and they apparently know somebody who can do it for them. after all, you need to promote yourself, show your range. yeah decent advice from adult figures don’t you think. it is after all harmless but also good for the child – to instil a bulldog, never-give-up mentality which will do the kids good well into the future.
of all the kids who follow the dream throughout this documentary, some would stay in oakwood for the pilot season, which is a short couple of months where the most auditions would take place while some went as long as living in oakwoods for 3 years. we got to see the day to day living of these families and the mums acting as chauffeurs to their kids to yet another audition or even a meeting with an agent.
these oakwood kids are under such demanding schedule (mind you some are toddlers) and are thus homeschooled or forced to attend specially tailored schools for child actors. this is where the paradox begins. the reason being most public schools in the area feel that taking off for auditions is seen as an obstacle to a child’s intellectual progress. this being hollywood where chances are lost when not seized upon, the parents are thus inclined to maximise their child’s prospect by withdrawing them from the public system.
the parents know it is a colossal dream to pursue and they definitely deserve the accolade of best parents on earth. the amount of energy invested in building their children’s career is shown through the screen, and none of them had the expected as a little girl, i wanted so badly to be an actress so i’m giving my child the headstart. they are driven to give their child the best possible childhood a kid could possibly have. imagine that’s like a younger, kiddier you saying, “i want to be a firefighter when i grow up,” and your dad simply gives you a lighter and hose to practice. that would have been really cool if not for stupid moral codes or legal issues.
but the qualm here is, will this take one all the way to stardom? what are the parents exactly teaching their kids to think? in one memorable scene (spoiler alert), late in the pilot season, we have a lady protesting she doesn’t want her daughter to try for a part where she will have to curse. “if she doesn’t do this we’ll have to go back” says the lady after discussions with her husband, a farmer, who works to pay for rent in oakwood. so the kid went to the auditions and no… she did not get the part. but! she did get encouragements for her sassy performance! the kid surprisingly, wasn’t dejected at all.
they say it all the time in hollywood, your chance is gonna come, just hang in there. but at the same time, one can die from such encouragements. remember the child stars from yesteryears? okay, i must admit most of them are still alive despite their substance abuse, but most of these abuses take place from their loss of identity. from appearing on covers of magazines at a young age to later on being shunned by studio executives is a big change for a child actor. he just isn’t used to a wholesale change of behaviour of those that surround him. heck none of us are!
i could go on and on about the ills of capitalism (heh heh) but parents should do something to protect their child. the my child is special will not cut the mustard in such circumstance. why? basically when the child isn’t cute any longer, no studio will hire him. and can these parents gamble and say well he’s cute now so he will be cute into the future? no, they can’t and i’m proof number 1. humour me here, i was a relatively cute boy although in a plump, bratty sort of way – imagine a kid with a fat face with a cap on feasting on ice-cream – and by stereotype i could play the school bully. as i grew older, if i were to be honest with you, i’m definitely no looker at this moment in time. why would anyone hire me? i won’t appeal to the masses, i’m not a money maker! as for childlike spontaneity goes, for most i theorize, the older one gets, the more calculated one is.
ahh, child stars. you have a whole list of them, jonathan brandis, corey feldman, corey haim, macaulay culkin, drew barrymore, lindsay lohan, the kids in full house, you know the lot. if u look at everyone of them, they at some point in time had mental health issues and still are fighting to fill that void – a childhood. so again, my question remains, are parents morally right to allow these kids to follow the dream? if so, at which point do we say stop? will money come in the way as it happened with macaulay culkin, corey feldman and many others. as corey feldman puts it succinctly about growing up in this industry, “what childhood?” and the track record of child stars is sufficient enough for me to be skeptical. not only that, the list i just mentioned, two are dead.
p.s: from what i gather oakwood is a month to month rent apartment. rent per month cost $5000.
