Sooner or later someone has to ask this

[fpb]

Why is it that every teen-age starlet turned out by Walt Disney turns out, as soon as she turns 16 (or even sooner) to be a committed public tart?

Comments

[sartorias]

That surprises you? Look at Annette. (Though the dynmaics were different then.)

Basically, anything for money, and sex sells.

[fpb]

I know nothing about Annette Funicello except the name. But this was largely a rhetorical question. This is a big children's entertainment company whose employees are taken to project an image of wholesome youthful charm until they are of age, after which they promptly show they are sluts. Apparently, the whole paedophile theme of Britney's infamous debut video was her own decision, which she pushed on her producer. And that gives you a very strong idea of what goes on behind the scenes at Mars'Walt's plantation. Only nobody seems to be asking the obvious question. Perhaps the company itself is too big to touch (unlike, say, the Catholic Church). But why is it not common talk that our children's entertainment appears to be managed by paedophiles?

[sartorias]

Brittney's mother packaged her offspring to sell, and went about it quite systematically. Brittney seems to have been raised with two ideas in her head: she was perfect (forever young) and she was a "star." I remember my daughter (same age) watching an interview with her, when the person asked, "What do you read, or watch on TV?" "Ohhh," the 16 year old Brittney squeaked. "I watch my videos over and over, because I learn so much!"

Disney had the hots for Annette, who was a nice girl, not too bright, who was also modest and religious. Disney wanted to make her a Star, and being a star meant teenage heart throb, and teenage heart throb girl-style meant showing off one's figure. On the other hand he wanted her to be a Lady, and on the third hand, she herself was modest. So if you ever watch any of the beach movies she made with Frankie Avalon, you will see that the only one not in a bikini is Annette.

[fpb]

Yes, but Britney, as I pointed out, is hardly the only tart turned out by WDP. At the very least, one has to imagine collusion between her admittedly dreadful mother and the Disney people. And the way you tell it, at least old Walt was not cynical about Annette. I have no doubt that his successors select their starlets quite cynically for their future and present potential.

[bdunbar]

I can think of more than a few who aren't public tarts.

Brenda Song - 20.

Tia and Tamara Mowry - 29

Others whose name escapes me and I lack the time to google.

One doesn't think about them because they're not in the news for being tarts, I suspect.

[fpb]

Fair enough, and thanks for the correction.

[blue_sky_day]

What did the Mowry sisters do with Disney? Their TV show was on the WB.

[bdunbar]

I stand corrected, but note there is at least one Disney movie in their bio.

I think the larger point remains; tart-ism does not have to happen.

[super_pan]

One big part of the ones we see now has got to be bad parenting. I don't even think it's good parenting to want that kind of life for your child.

[fpb]

Yes. That ties in both with sartorias' account of Britney Spears' execrable mother and with my description of an Italian tv sex scandal upthread.

[eliskimo]

Because they are groomed to expect the attention and in modern American culture nothing get you attention like being a tart (OK, well maybe being discovered to be a serial killer with body parts in your fridge, but that's not exactly the key to *lasting* fame ... )

And they all wanna be Madonna.

[fpb]

Re-reading this years later, I have to say that apparently Larissa "Alex Mack" Olenyuk and her fellow teen-aged stars don't seem to have turned into so many Madge clones when they passed sixteen. So there may have been at least one program and at least one set of producers who did not damage their charges. So it is possible, and it is not necessary for all young girls in showbusiness to lust to be Beyonce or Shakira.