Poor little rich girls

While watching the trailer of the film “Mamma Mia!” on television a couple of nights ago, there ensued a discussion as to whether the lead star is one of the three witches in the now-defunct TV series “Charmed.” My older daughter Sam said that wasn’t her. Rather, she’s one of the girls in the supporting cast of the Lindsay Lohan starrer “Mean Girls.”

Later, I did a web search on the girl, using “Mamma Mia” as keywords because I didn’t even know her name. Sam was right. Amanda Seyfried was in the cast of “Mean Girls.” In the short write-up about her in the Internet Movie Data Base (www.imdb.com), her thoughts on Hollywood child stars stood out.

She said, “I’ve met some people who are just so freaking distraught and who don’t know how to handle it, and I’ve met some (kids) who have their head on straight and are really happy. You try to stick around them.

“I kind of don’t expect some of these girls, who’ve been working since they were two, to be sane. This business is just weird when you’re young.”

She admitted that Lindsay Lohan is “a perfect example of a young actress struggling to cope in the fame game.”

There’s no great mystery there. Children are supposed to enjoy being children and being deprived of the opportunity can damage the psyche. Even older children, including teenagers, hardly able to cope with the travails of growing up and the gauntlet called high school, are not exactly up to par with the wheedling and dealing that pervade showbusiness.

There is no lack of true-to-life examples. Drew Barrymore became a big star while still wearing pig tails and became an alcoholic at a young age. She’s lucky than most because she was able to turn her life around. Tatum O’Neal, an Oscar award winning actress at the age of ten, a record still unbroken, likewise became an alcoholic as well as a drug addict. Her recently published autobiography details what it’s like to grow up in Hollywood, under the spotlight and living in the fast lane. She married, became a mother, divorced, went back to drugs, lost custody of her children and, early last month, was arrested outside her New York apartment for allegedly buying crack.

And it isn’t just Hollywood that does strange things to the minds of young girls. Late last month, 20-year-old fashion model Ruslana Korshunova fell to her death from her New York City apartment. Whether it was suicide or murder (the web is awash with rumors that the Russian mafia was responsible), there is little doubt that Korshunova wanted to quit modeling despite the fame and fortune it brought her.

Discovered at the age of 15 when All Asia magazine did a story on a German language club in Kazakhstan that she was attending, Korshunova was plunged in the world of international modeling where she became the toast of both American and European fashion ramps and magazines. According to Vladislav Novgorodtsev, her life coach, she had admitted trying to kill herself five times since she was 15. The most quoted line from her Web log: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”

The list goes on and on.

The curious thing is how, despite all the documented information about what happens to a lot of young girls who experience fame and fortune while still too young to deal with the pressure, there are still dozens — maybe even hundreds or thousands — of mothers and fathers out there pushing their little girls to learn how to sing in front of a crowd, gyrate this way and that, perfect the art of putting on make-up and walk in heels while twirling and tossing their long silky tresses in front of a camera. It’s pimping, all right. Parents pimp their daughters so they can become rich and famous and bring wealth and comfort to the family.

That female sexuality is no longer a taboo subject has given this mentality more edge. The rise of feminism may have elevated the status of women in society but it has its dark side. Female sexuality is now openly being used by parents to pimp their daughters. Young girls are thrust into the entertainment industry even when talent is sorely wanting. So long as they look good, especially in skimpy attires, it is enough to bring in the dough. So they get pushed, and they get pushed hard.

The pimping isn’t even something peculiar to recent generations. It’s been going on for centuries albeit in different forms. In Europe all throughout the Middle Ages, perhaps even earlier, it was the practice of royal families to marry off their daughters to whoever could bring the best political alliances. There is no shortage in history books about how young girls were used as pawns in the royal court to win favors from the king or queen.

But probably the most surprising thing is how many do not seem to realize that so many of us observe the same practice, how many of us follow the same thinking about the role of young girls and what they are expected to do for their families. Think of seemingly inane remarks to girls to “look your best” and “behave properly” in order to “marry well”. Innocent? Harmless? No unspoken command? Hardly.

In the archive

• What is pikot?
• Coffee, dear?
• The agenda of the prejudiced
• The future (vice) president of the Philippines?
• The girl worth marrying
• The less than perfect child
• Emergency
• The Cinderella mentality in a democracy
• Choices mothers make
• Post Independence Day thoughts