Mara Wilson and Britney Spears in 2019
Former child star Mara Wilson wrote an essay expressing her solidarity with singer Britney Spears, describing how the public and media ‘sexualized’ her as a child years ago.
In the essay published in the New York Timesassures the actress of films like “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Matilda” that before the age of 12 they had already “incorporated it into child pornography with Photoshop”.
Wilson, now 33, says she and Spears have been used as an example of the ‘story’ about it the “dark roads” that some child stars have taken.
“Our culture builds these girls only to destroy them,” he writes.
Wilson quit acting when he entered his teens.
Her op-ed was published weeks after the documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” which explores the havoc wreaked by the American singer’s fame.
“My sexual harassment has always been in the hands of the media and the public,” wrote Wilson.
“I felt ashamed”
According to Wilson in the New York Times,decided not to go the way of teenage actresses who appeared on the covers of men’s magazines or in provocative music videos. “Anyway, I had already been sexualized and I hated it,” he says.
She explains that as a child she “never appeared in anything more revealing than in a knee-length summer dress in her films.”
This was all intentional: my parents thought I would be safer that wayBut it doesn’t work. People asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?” in interviews since he was 6 years old. Reporters asked me who I thought was the sexiest actor and about Hugh Grant’s arrest for looking for a prostitute. ‘
“It was beautiful when 10 year olds sent me letters saying they were in love with me. That wasn’t the case when 50 year old men did. Even before I was 12 there were pictures of me on foot fetish websites and I was photoshopped into child pornography. All those times I was ashamed, ‘writes the former child star.
“Hollywood has decided to tackle harassment in the industry, but I have never been sexually harassed on a movie set. My sexual harassment has always been in the hands of the media and the public.”
“Many moments in Spears’s life were familiar to me,” writes Wilson. “We had both made dolls together, we had good friends and boyfriends who shared our secrets, and grown men respond On our bodies
The documentary “Framing Britney Spears” has sparked a wave of criticism over the treatment the singer has received throughout her career and has prompted her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake and some media to apologize.
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