TMS Discussion: Where are the Modern Child Stars?
(Associated Press)
“I believe the children are the future,” Whitney Houston once sang on her 1985 classic single ‘The Greatest Love of All.’ Of course, she was singing about the future adults the children will turn into. But for the past few years I’ve noticed something interesting about celebrity culture in our current climate. There aren’t really any universally famous child stars who can sell movies, shows or songs with just their names. I’m talking about mini superstars like Shirley Temple, Hayley Mills, Macaulay Culkin, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Dakota Fanning, etc. Temple’s curls could make any movie, like David Butler’s Bright Eyes (1934), Butler’s The Little Colonel (1935) and William Seiter’s Dimples (1936), go to no. 1 with just audience appeal for a decade. Chris Columbus’ Home Alone (1990) and Howard Zieff’s My Girl (1991) proved Culkin could easily sell a movie by just being cute.
But who under 20 is doing that now? There are the Disney kids, but who over 13 can even name a modern kid actor from the family studio since Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez? Bobby Driscoll, Hayley Mills and Jodie Foster are some of the earliest and most famous names to come from Walt Disney Studios in the 1950s-‘70s, and later on Lindsay Lohan and Shia LaBeouf in the late 1990s to early 2000s. The closest contemporarily might be all of the child actors on the Netflix series “Stranger Things” (2016- ); particularly Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard, both of whom have been in demand for projects. Jacob Tremblay had the most praise and fame of any performing minor in 2015 for Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, and has been acting regularly since. As has Jaeden Martell after playing lead in the indie hits Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent (2014) and Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special (2016). But time will tell if they can make the leap from actor to star.
(Collier Schorr)
So why has the child star become nearly obsolete? Are adult viewers only interested in grown-up leads? Are writers and directors? In many ways, this could be a good thing. Many child stars do unfortunately grow up to have a lot of personal struggles. For every Margaret O’Brien and Ron Howard, there is a Tatum O’Neal and Edward Furlong. Teen idol Judy Garland dealt with pill addiction and an eating disorder. Drew Barrymore was totted out with a Lolita public image by the time she was 12. Culkin emancipated from his parents when he was 15 and already married by 18. Driscoll, Lohan and LaBeouf infamously have had their share of incidents with the law. Foster and Fanning? Attended college and are still working steadily in the business.
Movies and TV series will always feature children as main characters as much as adults. But another international superstar under 13 being a household name outside of reality TV, that’s up in the air.