When reflecting on her own experience as a child star in an essay for the New York Times, the ‘Matilda’ actress says she was ‘sexualized’ despite never ‘appeared in anything more revealing than a knee-length sundress.’
AceShowbiz –Mara Wilson has joined others in criticizing the public for their treatment of Britney Spears. More than three weeks after “Framing Britney Spears” made its debut, the “Matilda” actress revealed that how the media and Hollywood treated the “Toxic” hitmaker is still “terrifying” to her.
“The way people talked about Britney Spears was terrifying to me then, and it still is now,” the 33-year-old penned in an essay for the New York Times. “Her story is a striking example of a phenomenon I’ve witnessed for years: Our culture builds these girls up just to destroy them. Fortunately people are becoming aware of what we did to Ms. Spears and starting to apologize to her. But we’re still living with the scars.”
Wilson went on to share, “By 2000, Ms. Spears had been labeled a ‘Bad Girl.’ Bad Girls, I observed, were mostly girls who showed any sign of sexuality.” She then added, “I followed the uproar over her Rolling Stone magazine cover story, where the first line described her ‘honeyed thigh,’ and the furor on AOL message boards when her nipples showed through her shirt.”
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“I saw many teenage actresses and singers embracing sexuality as a rite of passage, appearing on the covers of lad mags or in provocative music videos,” the former child star further claimed. “That was never going to be me, I decided.”
Wilson admitted that she also had her fair share of the public’s mistreatment during her career. “I had already been sexualized anyway, and I hated it. I mostly acted in family movies – the remake of ‘Miracle on 34th Street‘, ‘Matilda‘, ‘Mrs. Doubtfire‘. I never appeared in anything more revealing than a knee-length sundress. This was all intentional: My parents thought I would be safer that way. But it didn’t work,” she explained.
“Hollywood has resolved to tackle harassment in the industry, but I was never sexually harassed on a film set,” she further divulged. “My sexual harassment always came at the hands of the media and the public.”
Wilson then addressed Spears’ public “breakdown,” noting that it “never needed to happen.” She argued, “When she split with her husband, shaved her head and furiously attacked a paparazzi car with an umbrella, the Narrative was forced upon her, but the reality was she was a new mother dealing with major life changes. People need space, time and care to deal with those things. She had none of that.”
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