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What Do Donna Reed and Nadya Suleman Have in Common?
Reality TV as Child Abuse by Proxy
Posted July 30, 2009
The answer to the question raised by this post is 'Paul Petersen'. Who is Paul Petersen you may ask? In order to answer this latter question, we have to venture into the WABAC (pronounced WayBack) machine.
On September 28, 1958, the Donna Reed Show debuted. The 'family show', like its contemporaries Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best and Make Room for Daddy depicted seemingly idyllic, white, middle class, nuclear and intact suburban families.While these shows may have indeed reflected 'reality' for a particular demographic of mid-fifties America, they were in no way representative of the American family. Nevertheless, we watched with rapt attention, week after week wondering how the 'Beave' would work his way out of a spat with 'Whitey', what wisdom 'Dr. Alex Stone' would offer his children Mary and Jeff, and what kind of trouble Danny Thomas's kooky Uncle Tonoose would rain down on the 'Williams Family. Ah, the good old days!
This was Reality TV, mid-century American style-whitewashed perhaps, provincial to say the least, non-representative for sure. But we loved them. On the surface, the children actors in those shows weren't faced with the implausible, sexually charged, psychologically hazardous and potentially exploitative on-screen situations as they are today. They didn't model in the nude for magazines (Miley Cyrus on the cover of Vanity Fair), portray rape victims (twelve year old Dakota Fanning in the movie 'Hounddog) or live their lives in front of a camera (The Baby Borrowers 'reality' television show). They were not imperiled on the screen.
However, the children who acted in those shows were in many ways just like you and me! The went to school, struggled to make and keep friends, wrestled with bullies and unsavory teachers, attempted to grow up and even have families of their own. But unlike you and me, they also had to balance 'real life' with celebrity. These were neither real children nor pure television fantasy figures-they were an odd admixture-child celebrities. They had to find a way to re-enter 'real life', which included having mature relationships, avoiding the siren call of drugs and alcohol, and they had to make a living so that they could support themselves and their families. While many of them did quite nicely both on stage and off, several did not fare so well in real life. These include Danny Bonaduce of the Partridge Family, Tracey Gold of Growing Pains, Mary-Kate Olsen of Full House and Todd Bridges of Diff'rent Strokes...and that is where Paul Petersen and the Nadya Suleyman (pejoratively referred to as the OctoMom) come into this picture.
That cute little guy in the picture above depicting the Stone Family of the Donna Reed Show is Paul Petersen, child star of the 50's and 60's, adult singer, actor and adventure novelist, and more recently zealous advocate against the exploitation of child and teen actors and performers. In 1990, after the suicide of child actor Rusty Hamer,of Make Room for Daddy fame, Petersen founded AMC, 'A Minor Consideration.' which in his words is a "non-profit, tax-deductible foundation formed to give guidance and support to young performers, Past, Present and Future." Petersen advocates for the protection of child actors and performers of all types against financial, psychological, physical and moral exploitation by parents, agents, television networks and even us, the viewing audience. He has battled against the commodification of childhood that he sees evident in shows like Kid Nation, The Baby Borrowers and the upcoming show featuring Nadya Suleman and her brood; argued against the use of children in sexually charged movie and television roles and print media representations, and most recently through attorney Gloria Allred, successfully petitioned the Orange County Superior Court to appoint a financial guardian to Nadya Suleman in order to protect her childrens' welfare.
This legal action flows from a historic concern for the emotional welfare of chilld performers, particularly those who attain a level of celebrity. While there has been some movement in the direction of protection of child performers, such as that provided by the New York State Department of Labor's 'Child Performer Education and Trust Act of 2003', some question of whether children on reality television shows are actually perfromers, and as such, entitled to the same protections. These are not children in scripted roles; the very appeal of these shows come from watching so-called 'regular people' live their daily lives...under the constant scrutiny of cameras, producers, directors, consultants, and of course, us, the multitudes who intrude on and judge their every move. For Petersen, this comparison is "a distinction without a difference."
In my interview with him on July 30,Petersen spoke first-hand about the perils of being a child performer trying to carve an adult identity. He insightfully noted that children grow by observing rather than being observed and require a considerable degree of privacy, 'secrets and silences' in order to forge a personal identity. Additionally, they need the security and stability that comes from the lived knowledge that they are being cared for and protected by their parents rather than by a 'professional 'crew. Sadly, he has observed through his association with child actors dating back to the era of silent movies, that "these kids have been slowly unfolding trainwrecks" who well exceed the national average for addictions, have serial marriages, and who learn to change themselves chamelion-like in order to please their admiring fans as well as most vocal critics. Growing up in fishbowls, these children and teens learn to look everywhere for betrayal, worry when their fame and its fruits will whither, and come to view themselves as disposeable. He added that "AA doesn't work with us because we're not anonymous." He has; nevertheless provided resources, including psychotherapy to these 'recovering' child performers. In this regard and interestingly, child actor Eddie Hodges who sang 'High Hopes' with Frank Sinatra in the 1959 film "A Hole in the Head', earned an M.S. degree and went on to practice counseling with a wide range of clients, including child actors.
So, what can we take away from this discussion? Who is to blame for this exploitation, dehumanization and commodification of children in the entertanment industry? It is certainly easy to blame Nadya Suleman for bringing 14 children into the world without the necessary resources, or villifying Jon Gosselin for his marital infidelities, or raging against parents who would allow their babies to be 'borrowed' on live television. We can blame the television industry for using children in adult-themed shows that compromise their childhoods and potentially undermine their adulthoods. We can blame the parents for allowing this exploitation to occur. But then again, perhaps, we can and should blame ourselves for colluding with the 'industry' by tuning in to these modern-day gladiatorial games, where instead of slaves being devoured by lions, the children are devoured by the media and our seemingly insatiable appetitie for this perverse type of circus. This line of argument might even lead us to question the potential damage to children and teens who are pushed into the athletic, academic, advertising and entertainment spotlight?
Or perhaps blame isn't as important as understanding, which is what the science of psycholgy and the art of psychotherapy seek to ascertain. Psychologists suggest that viewers are drawn to reality televsion for a variety of reasons, foremost among which is voyeurism-not necessarily of a perverse nature, but the need to peep into peoples lives. Perhaps it is the fantasy of immediate fame and fortune associated with realty programming involving children, or the lust for competition that is whetted and/or satisfied by witnessing their so-called 'real' adventures. Or perhaps it is as simple as the Aristotelian notion of catharsis that comes with watching 'human' drama and tragedy. We turn off our televisions, exhale a collective "whew" and convince ourselves that "we are so much better parents than they are" or "our kids would never act like that" or "our divorce won't be as destructive as theirs is."
I close this post by referring to a July 29, 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times by Glenn Whipp in which which he draws our attention to the latest in child-based psycho-horror flicks. Reflecting on the recently released "Orphan" starring 12 year old Isabelle Fuhrman as the cinematic reincarnation of Rhoda Penmark from The Bad Seed and Damien Thorn of The Omen, he notes "is the inevitable therapy [for Fuhrman and similarly and inappropriately exposed child actors] worth the title role?"
For additional research on this topic, please see "Why People Watch Reality TV by Reiss & Wiltz in The Journal of Media Psychology, 2004, volume 6, issue 4), "Understanding Reality Television by Holmes & Jermyn (Routledge, 2004), "Reality TV Audiences and Popular Factual Television by Hill (2005, Routledge); as well as the two excellent Psychology Today blogposts entitled "Reality TV: Harmless Entertainment or Bloodsport? Is Reality TV Harmless or Bloodsport? by C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D. and "Why America Loves Reality TV" by Steven Reiss, Ph.D and James Wiltz, Ph.D. Candidate. And lastly, enjoy Eddie Hodges and Frank Sinatra singing High Hopes, because there is hope for these children if we attend to them.
