Everyone has to grow up eventually, so why is it that some young female celebrities can shift into adulthood seamlessly, including publicly embracing their sexuality, while others have their every move scrutinised?
Zendaya, Sabrina Carpenter, JoJo Siwa and Miley Cyrus are all former child stars who have tried to make the leap into adult stardom, shake off their image of youthful innocence, and project something sexier. It’s worked for some – think of the recent tennis-themed drama Challengers for Zendaya and pop mega-hit Espresso for Carpenter – but others don’t seem to have pulled off the transition. Siwa in particular has faced a fan backlash for her racier new image.
Some child stars leap into sexier adult roles with no problem. For others, it’s not as easy. Credit: Compiled by Monique Westermann.
When we think of modern child stars we generally think of the wave of Disney and Nickelodeon TV shows dominating children’s entertainment over the past couple of decades. But Dr Djoymi Baker, an RMIT lecturer who has researched child stars, says young celebrities have been around long before television.
In 1884, a four-year-old Elsie Leslie became the first child star in recorded history, making a name for himself for performing the role of Little Meenie in a stage production of Rip Van Winkle. Shirley Temple and Judy Garland are two of the 20th century’s most well-known child actors but the industry was so reliant on children that the Academy Awards introduced an honorary award for actors under 18 between 1934 and 1960.
Many of these actors, particularly girls, came to personify childhood innocence, Baker says. Take the wide-eyed 16-year-old Garland in The Wizard of Oz a role synonymous with naivety.
But even in contemporary culture young female celebrities are perceived with that kind of innocence. Zendaya as Rocky Blue on Disney’s Shake It Up was a smart, well-behaved dancer and Sabrina Carpenter as Maya Hart in Girl Meets World was a deeply loyal friend. In other words, they modelled very specific, “good girl” roles.
For most of these roles, sex and sexuality play no part. “Child stars are expected to be innocent and non-sexual, even though historically, they’ve often been cast or filmed in problematic ways,” Baker says.
As a result, when a child star ages and begins to assert their sexuality it can feel like they’re actively rejecting what we came to appreciate them for.
Sean Redmond, who researches stardom and celebrity at Deakin University, says Miley Cyrus epitomised the tension in that transition. “She was Hannah Montana, the personification of white female innocence connected to ideas of faith and family. So, when she transitioned into the sexually active woman who ‘couldn’t be tamed’ ... the mismatch between these child and woman star images were hugely significant,” Redmond says.
“She tested and transgressed ‘white girl’ boundaries and when one does that, there will be backlash because cultural norms have been taken on.”
This backlash can become even more apparent when the female star in question is anything other than white, able-bodied, cis-gendered and heteronormative.
Miley Cyrus went from tween idol Hannah Montana to sexualised twerker. It proved too much for some fans to handle.
“Stars like JoJo Siwa and Miley Cyrus, who have come out as part of the LGBTQ community as they’ve grown up, are frequently vilified as being too sexual,” Baker says. “This reveals not only that our culture is uncomfortable with sexual young women, but also with queer youth. In other words, child stars are expected to grow up in very specific and restrictive ways.”
Meanwhile, celebrities like Zendaya, who have not centred sexuality in their transition to adult stardom tend to appear more “culturally palatable”, Redmond says. Zendaya’s first adult films after Disney TV were Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Greatest Showman, both of which were still family-friendly while allowing the actress to test out more mature, romantic roles.
Zendaya, along with Carpenter and pop star Olivia Rodrigo (who was on Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series), made the leap into more adult roles after the #MeToo movement. Redmond says these socio-political developments have altered the public’s perception of young female celebrities, generally allowing them more agency and opportunity to be vocal.
Former Disney star Olivia Rodrigo has been able to build a mature and sexy adult identity without too many growing pains. Credit: Invision
Siwa, who is also part of the post-#MeToo landscape, is a stark exception. University of Adelaide media lecturer Jessica Ford says this could be because of the extent to which her new persona diverges from her previous tweeny-bopper brand. The difference between each identity, and the speed at which it changed, may have simply been too much for some fans to comprehend.
“These child stars become fixed at a certain point. It’s hard to see them as evolving human beings,” Ford says. “All young people experiment with identity, sexuality, persona performance, but most don’t do it with the scrutiny of public opinion.”
But even the former child stars who can make the transition to fully realised adulthood and embrace their sexuality can still face challenges. Britney Spears went from being a Disney Mouseketeer to global pop star, selling millions of records partly due to her sex appeal. Though the transition initially appeared successful, the pressure of being in show business from such a young age began to weigh on her mental health. Redmond refers to this as “fame damage”.
“When Britney Spears shaved her head, it was a cry for help, but also ... a signal of her shift from child to adult,” Redmond says. “The media and fan frenzy around this act, and then her conservatorship, was again because she had refused cultural norms and drew attention to the dark side of fame: how it objectifies women and teen girls and the control it exerts over their lives.”
Despite the obvious challenges, some child stars can emerge from the brutal crucible of fame with their careers, and health, seemingly intact. For example, Lindsay Lohan, who first appeared in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, entered rehab multiple times for drugs and alcohol-related issues between 2007 and 2012. She was picked apart by the tabloids over this period, but right now, she has a lucrative deal with Netflix and regularly stars in light, fluffy made-for-streaming movies.
“This type of celebrity meltdown and rebound is a recurring trope that’s embraced in our popular culture,” Baker says. “While the media took somewhat sadistic delight in reporting Lohan’s alcohol and drug abuse, upon her return they’ve praised her resilience in surviving difficult years of being hounded by the paparazzi. Hopefully, this indicates a greater awareness around media ethics and young celebrities, but may also reveal a degree of cynical expediency.”
It’s now been 140 years since Elsie Leslie took the stage. Since then, we’ve witnessed time and again the real-world consequences that fame can have on young women celebrities. By now there’s enough evidence of the damage society can inflict through judgment of the people we are asking to entertain us – particularly those who are already the most vulnerable.
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