Joyce Fegan: The sobering reality of the Brooke Shields documentary in 2023
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There are post MeToo documentaries and then there is the Brooke Shields one, — its title is a play on the name of the infamous 1978 movie she starred in at 11 years of age, playing the role of a child prostitute. The lines specifically written for her are equally as stomach-turning as the scene in which she kisses an adult man, Brooke's actual first-ever kiss. And when her face, of its own accord, naturally scrunches as she pulls away in the various takes, she is admonished by the men on set.
All of this and so much more is depicted in the newly released documentary featuring plenty of interviews from the now 57-year-old New Yorker and mother of two.
We could all sit back and watch in shock and horror at the global sexual objectification and commodification of this child 40-odd years ago, were so much of the sentiment that drove her stardom not still around in our air and culture today.
Before this Brooke Shields documentary we've had the revisionism of Monica Lewinsky, from 21-year-old conniving temptress of a US President to convenient fall guy and victim of a global shaming, Britney Spears from teen seductress ridiculed for "losing the plot" to a human being filleted and photographed for our entertainment, Pamela Anderson from air-headed beach babe with boobs to a woman who surmounted vast terrains of adversity on the public stage, Taylor Swift, J-Lo and Lady Gaga.
The only difference between all of those names and Brooke's is that Brooke's public objectification came at a much younger age, and started back in the 1970s.
There is one stand-out framing of this Brooke story in the documentary worth mentioning — it comes from the mouth of someone who takes the long, and empirically-verified, view on things. A sociologist nails her flag to the mast and says that the rise of Brooke was in direct response to the advances of second-wave feminism in America. She elaborates by saying that women were slowly being released from their stereotypical role of silent, submissive, and ultra-domesticated background actors, with the passing of the US Supreme Court Roe v Wade in 1973 giving them reproductive control, and yet there was this collective sexual objectification of a prepubescent girl just five years later.
There's a lot of footage of TV interviews of Brooke from the 1970s peppered throughout — and what is not said to her by the major male chat show hosts of the day, and so freely.
"It'll be hard for me to think of you as a kid after this [interview]," says one man.
"You are an exquisitely attractive young girl," says another host.
They are almost the carbon copy comments fielded at Britney about her virginity years later. Both in the 1970s and the early 2000s, it was totally fair game to comment publicly on the sexual attractiveness of young girls.
The comments themselves aren't actually the most notable takeaways from the interviews, but the questions asked of a child in an adult's world.
"Do you not think you are normalising pornography for children?" is the sentiment of a question constantly fielded towards an 11-year-old Brooke.
She answers it deftly and professionally, if that word should ever be applied to a child, but why was it not the adult director, or scriptwriter, being held to account? It's easier to hold an innocent child to account I suppose.
You might now be wondering well if not Brooke, then surely her guardians might also be accountable alongside the industry executives with their big box office takings.
Brooke's late mother Teri comes in for heavy questioning, and scrutiny, too. She, after all, signed on the dotted line and cashed the cheques received after every photoshoot and film appearance.
The reflection, years later, from Brooke Shields is that the pair were simply navigating an unfairly rigged system where single mothers were up against a society that shamed them, and in an economy where you could only work as if you didn't have children.
Just a few short years after , Brooke becomes the face of Calvin Klein jeans. The tagline from the young teenager's mouth is "nothing comes between me and my Calvins". Brooke is filmed pulling them onto her body as she wraps her legs around her neck. Having spent hours upon hours in theatres with her mother, watching arthouse movies and dreaming of working on those kinds of projects, she was sold the Calvin Klein gig by being told that it would be "cinematic".
As the ad campaign became a global talking point and the jeans walked off the shelves with tills chiming, Brooke once again is held to account for selling sex to young impressionable girls.
It was similar to the reaction to four years previously, where we have an 11-year-old in the hot seat, but are lauding the film's director for his artistic vision.
Britney, Brooke, Pam, Monica, and whoever else aside, what's uncomfortably familiar today is the blame we continue to place on the shoulders of babes "who dress a certain way".
Any teenage girl who has ever worn a short skirt or short shorts will tell you that the reason for doing so has everything to do with fitting in, avoiding sartorial ridicule, winning the approval of their female peers, enjoying the latest trend, and nothing to do with anything else.
When we give out about their phone use and screen time and their poses and performances, we fail to recognise who placed the devices in their hands in the first place, and we are blind to the billion-dollar industries harvesting their data to then target them with ads about buying this, that and the other to look a certain way.
We might watch of 2023 and think it's only something they'd have gotten away with in 1978, but every time we tut-tut at a 12-year-old gesticulating into her phone or wearing the latest in teen fashion, we need to remind ourselves who runs the boardrooms and businesses and ask ourselves why aren't we holding them to account.