Child to Adult Celebrities

Brianna DellIsola
Sem 115- 0H
Dr. Deys

Brianna DellIsola

Sem-115-0H
Prof. Deys
4/1/15
Child to Adult Celebrities
Getting older is inevitable, and with that means growing up and taking
on the role of an adult also. Between puberty and the age of around 18, kids
transition and learn how to take on the responsibility of adulthood; everyone
does it. If everyone does this transitioning why is it so hard for child
celebrities to make a successful transition into adulthood? As a society, we
wait for the next headline to show that some adorable young star we once
loved has now gone crazy. We judge them for having a downfall; yet talk
about it to our amusement. There are hundreds of child celebrities, but only
a handful of them make it out of their youth without any harm done to
themselves or their reputation, and as everyone knows, reputation is
everything. There are common trends that go into the outcomes of these
child stars, none of which are the childs fault, but yet the fault of society for
turning them into objects rather than human beings.
The main role for most child actors is the cute child in shows or
movies. They provide the aw moments with their cute phrases, catching
the hearts of fans all around. They grow up learning that the cuteness they
present through their acting career has shaped them into who they are. As is

known however, there arent very many cute adult acting roles. What options
does this leave for these child actors? Well, for starters it leaves them the
option of changing who they are in order to fit what is wanted for these adult
roles. Instead of cute it needs to be sexy, smiling faces become serious
poses, polite language now become vulgar. It is a whole new atmosphere to
these child stars and they have no idea how to adapt. They are being asked
to change their whole identity, causing them to have a hard transition. Many
start to involve themselves with older actors and actresses to show them the
ropes, or with drugs to help them cope with the pressure of the change.
Jeremy Jackson, who started his career off at the age of 6 in the modelling
field, is a perfect example of this. To get into a more serious career, he
landed the role of Hobie Buchannon on the hit show Baywatch, were he was
surrounded by senior actors, such as David Hasselhoff. Although the senior
actors provided a good acting example to Jackson, they also provided bad
examples. Jackson stated his reason for leaving the show was because
drugs gave him a crazed sense of self-importance (United States Online
News). Being a child actor whose only job in life was to be cute, and knowing
he needs to grow up in order to be successful, it is obvious that he would
follow the example of adult actors. To him the drugs probably seemed like an
adult activity that made him feel as though he himself had finally reached
the adult level; the feeling of self-importance. By the time he was 20, Jackson
had to check himself into rehab. Jackson isnt a one-time case; there are
many child actors who have giving themselves over to drugs including big

names such as Lindsay Lohan and Macaulay Culkin, both cute adorable kids
who did not know how to grew up. They can almost be compared to puppies;
the cutest ones are the ones that get hovered over and showered with
attention and then once they grow older the playing with them stops. These
child stars that had a cute role were seen as objects in societys eye, an
object that could be molded and shaped into what they needed and then left
to fend for itself.
Many will argue that there are child actors who do not follow this
theory, actors who did not play cute roles as kids. With that point though,
comes the fact that those kids made successful transitions into adult acting
roles. Christina Ricci, who as a child played Wednesday Addams, in the
Addams Family movies, made a healthy, successful transition to adult roles.
She is one of the child actors who werent known for being cute; rather she
played a grim looking girl who was fascinated by death. Not being cute,
allowed her to easily fit into roles as adults in which she wasnt supposed to
have the cute factor. Instead her serious roles as a child eased her into the
serious roles she would go onto play as an adult. As a child outside of her
acting career, she probably was an adorable child, but not being so on
screened allowed her to shape her own personality, not influenced by her
acting career. Same goes for Elijah wood, which at young ages starred in
Radio Flyer, where his onset stepfather was an alcoholic and abusive
character, and in The Good Son, where he acted alongside an onset
sociopath character the same age as him. He was exposed to very real and

serious roles as a young child, making it simple for him to be in those roles
as an adult. The careers and roles that child stars have taken on have a great
impact on what their lives will be like later on in life, due to the personality
they created and shaped throughout their young careers.
The fact of the matter is that the children do not pick the roles in which
they audition for. Parents and guardians tend to book and pick auditions for
their kids. Parents or other caregivers bring these young children into the
celebrity world, some of who do it with no guidance. There are parents who
get caught up in the riches and fame of their child without caring about the
childs wellbeing. Even if the parents are already wealthy on their own, the
child star still has a great possibility of slipping off the deep end. Studies
show that wealthy, are starting to commit crimes, and have increasing rates
of depression and anxiety (Luthar). On the opposite side some parents even
rely on their childs income to support them or give them extra spending
money. Jack Coogan, who is best known for his work as Uncle Fester in The
Addams Family, made his debut at a young age acting in many silent films.
From his early work he made approximately 4 million dollars, which is
equivalent to about 65 million today. However, he never saw this money he
made. His parents had spent it on diamonds and cars, and just about
everything else they wanted to shower themselves with. This later became a
legal issue, ending with the new Coogan Act, which stated that 15% of a
childs earning needs to be put aside by the employer (Today I found Out).
The still leaves a lot of money that parents can take from their children. To

this day we can still find many parents abusing their childs wealth. How
does this make the child feel? Their parents are basically using them, which
is bound to have long term self-esteem effects. Unfortunately, this is another
cause they leads into drug and alcohol abuse. Macaulay Culkin had his
fortune be the head of conversation in his parents divorce dispute; instead
of fighting over custody of him it was over custody of his money. After having
the family accountant be in charge of it until Culkin came of age to take
control of it, Culkin spiraled downhill with drug addictions including heroin.
He can attribute a portion of his downfall to the greediness of his parents.
Here again, they label of an object can be seen through the actions of
parents. The child isnt view as a child but rather as an income source, to be
used when convenient and tossed aside when not.
Other than having control of the money of child celebrities, parents do
not have much other control over their childs celebrity life. Agencies soon
take over and they do not put the childs best interest first but rather the
interest of success. Mara Wilson, of the movie Mrs. Doubtfire along with
many others, can attest to this firsthand. At the age of 7, she was asked at
the premier of the movie Nine Months about Hugh Grants arrest from
prostitution. Of course this is not something a child should be talking about,
or on the flipside she should even be shielded from. When her father
approached the station about it he was ignored, it proved to her that the
power her parents had over her was gone (Wilson). Parents are seen to only
have control over their childs assets, but not on the child themselves. With

the parents not having control over the childs life, rather just the assets,
agencies tend to have the most control over these children. The agency view
these child stars as money makers, objects rather, signing them up for
audition roles and commercials, without ever thinking about the childs wellbeing. If one child cant held the obligations that the agency puts on them,
theyll just find a new one. The child stars are just as disposable and easy to
come by as any other object.
Besides the roles these children land or the adults leading them in life,
they still have other problems to deal with, problems that lead them to crack
and have a downfall. One of these problems is pressure; pressure adults put
on them, pressure they put on themselves, and the pressure the fans and
society put on them. These young stars are looked up to as role models.
They have the pressure on them to act appropriately without any altercations
24/7, to look proper, and basically be perfect. As humans we love to compare
ourselves to others; to get ahead of others and be better is what we live for.
In a child actors case, there are hundreds of thousands of others who want
exactly what they are working for. To get the role you need to be the best of
the best and to keep getting roles, you need to maintain your skills to keep
you as the best. This causes these young actors to put pressure on
themselves and stress themselves out. Ways to cope with stress and
pressure? Drugs. Alcohol. You name it. Child actors need a way of coping and
substance abuse is one of the few ways they know of. After taking in and
consuming both alcohol and drugs, these child actors change. They begin to

lose their perfect look due to the affect the substances have on their bodies.
Personalities now also change. They no longer are a golden child in America,
instead are a simple headline that has disappointed society and have
become then punchline to some joke.
What does that say about our society? As a society we are so obsessed
with celebrities and their lives, that everything they do has an effect on us.
We have watched these kids grow and live, almost as if they were one of our
own. When they make a mistake, we feel disappointed as if we were their
parents. As much as it affects the child star it affects society too. The love
and admiration society gives to these stars is gone as soon as they slip up. If
attention is no longer given to these stars, society then does not know where
to give attention, ultimately leading up to not only a downfall of the star, but
the downfall of societys involvement in the celebrity world. If it disappoints
us so much, why do we, at the same time, find humor in it? We laugh and
mock former child stars that have gone off the rails. We call them trash but
just the other day we were calling them perfect. When Miley Cyrus let go of
her Hannah Montana image and tried to take on a more adult image, people
cried for her, wanting her to go back to being little Hannah Montana. She
started singing about drugs and making sexual music videos, and society
again just wanted her to go back to being a good girl. On the other hand
when former golden child Amanda Bynes got into drugs and started tweeting
a bunch of random, psychologically distorted tweets, society mocked her.
People follow her on social media to laugh at her, not with her. Why, as a

society, do we have two different approaches to two people who had the
same paths? As a society we are that twisted, in which we use child stars for
our own needs. We use them to follow as a parent if we dont have a child of
our own or one we are proud of, or we use them to entertain us and make
jokes about. The German term Schadenfreude fits well to this. Schadenfreude
is a term for receiving pleasure due to anothers misfortune (Ben-Zeev). It
makes since as to why society would gain pleasure from the failure of child
stars. All over the world are adults living in poverty, some with no homes,
food, or jobs. Seeing somebody younger living a rich and glamorous life is
one big slap in the face. Seeing the downfall of these child actors is a feel
good moment for those who arent doing so well. They feel better once these
stars are brought back down to their level or even a lower social and
economic standing. Weve turned the actors in objects to form in our own
beneficial way. The child stars have turned into objects that are there when
we need someone or something to love, a reminder of where we stand in life,
or a punchline; theyve turned into all of these things but not average
children.
What is next in the topic of child actors and stars? What it going to be
the reason that todays child stars are going to be prone to failure. Today,
child stars can google themselves and find out what everyone thinks about
them. Theyll see the glorious comments that will boost their self-esteem, but
also will see hateful comments that will point out their own faults to them.
Social media and the internet can be a leading problem to child celebrities in

the future, but will anyone do anything about it; probably not. Competition is
tougher now than ever before. The child actors in todays generation have
enormous amounts of pressure on them to succeed. They are now expected,
not only to act but to take on roles such as charity work and campaigning for
causes. While that is all for good causes, they now need to watch and be
aware of their actions now more than ever. If a child actor on Disney Channel
is supporting a campaign to end bullying, they must now make sure they do
not slip up and say anything that could be taken as hurtful. Any slip up could
end their career. The media will cover these slip ups as much as they can
which is why child stars today have such a harder time transitioning. The
media is there to follow their every move, which means every mistake. What
are these children in todays generation going to do when they try to
transition into adults? They might repeat what others have done, such as
turn to drugs, or shave their heads to change their appearance, or they
might take it to a whole new level. No one knows how they will cope, but as a
society that is what needs to be ready for and ready to help with.
Child stars are a complicated group to figure out. Theyre kids, yet
have to be mature like adults, and theyre celebrities, but are not top
celebrities like most adults. Something needs to be done to end the ongoing
cycle of child stars having epic downfalls. We can see what causes them to
and on the contrary what causes them to succeed. Maybe we should stop
giving those cute roles but rather more serious ones. Should agencies be
restricted in how much of a role they have on the children? Who will be the

judge of if a parent is fit to be a stage parent? Although we know what will

lead these children to have down falls, it is hard to prevent them. As a
society, we need to put aside how we feel towards these stars in order to do
whats best for them. We need to remember that no matter what that they
are still children, and children are our future.

Work Cited
Wilson, Mara. "7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective)."
Cracked.com. N.p., 28 May 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"The Top 10 Child Stars Destroyed By Fame." United States Online News.
N.p., 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
"Child Actors and Coogan's Bill." Today I Found Out. N.p., 29 Oct. 2014. Web.
16 Apr. 2015.
Harnick, Chris. "Successful Child Stars: Actors Who Avoided The Curse Of
Early Fame." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Nov. 2012.
Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
McCord, Shaietta. "15 Worst Transitions From Child Star To Adult Celebrity."
StyleBlazer. N.p., 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

Ben-Zeev, Aaron, Ph.D. "Why Are We Pleased With Others' Misfortunes."

Psychology Today. N.p., 30 Jan. 2009. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Luthar, Suniya S., Ph.D. "The Problem With Rich Kids." Psychology Today.
N.p., 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.