It’s a crazy world when elected officials are smoking crack and talking nonsense, and former child stars like Mara Wilson are living apparently normal lives and writing interesting reflections on why most child stars go nuts. She’s also funny on the Twitter machine:
A Hufflepuff on the street but a Slytherin in the sheets
— Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) February 20, 2013
Here’s an open thread.
jibeaux
That’s awesome. I really love the Matilda movie.
raven
I posted this on my FB
“Since no one we know would push their kid(s) into show biz there is probably no reason to post this”.
raven
From her IMDB listing:
NonyNony
Thanks for the link – she’s really funny. And apparently she has a blog: http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/
A time sink that I’ve bookmarked for later.
mike with a mic
I’m kinda shocked to see a cracked article here.
raven
@NonyNony: And her FAQ’s are great!
People don’t really ask you these questions, do they?
Every one of these is either a direct question I’ve been asked multiple times, or a statement made about me I figured I should address. Trust me, I know I’m not that important. If I come off as aloof, it’s just because I’m bemused that people care about a former child actor/would-be writer they’ve never met. And if you read anything I’ve written, I think it’s pretty clear that ninety percent of the time, the joke is on me.
EconWatcher
Her self-awareness, confidence, and independence are really impressive. I hope my daughter will feel just the same way. My son, too.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So, BJ ads have decided to tell me about the newest Megadeth album, Super Collider. As much as I like metal, Megadeth has always been a “meh” to me.
gogol's wife
The greatest child star of all time, Shirley Temple, went on to live a happy and productive life. It’s possible. But the parents have to be semi-sane for it to happen.
Southern Beale
We talked about this yesterday, but I’ve finally put up a post about it: conservative religious group gives abstinence sex “ed” talk to Nashville high school, and then the fun begins.
EconWatcher
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I use Judas Priest to get me through my morning treadmill action.
rikyrah
There’s sometimes when you read something you read until the end for the tag line:
SOURCE: THE ONION.
That didn’t happen.
I’ll repeat it again:
Sometimes TRUTH is stranger than fiction.
…………………………………….
The Associated Press @AP35m
Al-Qaida rips into prima donna terrorist for not filing expense reports, ignoring calls, failing on big ops:
……………………………………
Abu Abbas didn’t participate in stepping up to buy weapons,” the letter says. “So whose performance deserves to be called poor in this case, I wonder?”
The list of slights is long: He would not take their phone calls. He refused to send administrative and financial reports. He ignored a meeting in Timbuktu, calling it “useless.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-rise-al-qaida-saharan-terrorist
raven
@gogol’s wife: Yea, she was fucking great:
rikyrah
for Kay:
UNO boss Rangel: ‘I have failed’
By DAN MIHALOPOULOS Staff Reporter [email protected] May 28, 2013 9:54AM
The embattled United Neighborhood Organization announced steps Tuesday its leaders hope will win the resumption of tens of millions of dollars in state funding for construction of a charter high school on the Southwest Side.
Juan Rangel, UNO’s $250,000-a-year chief executive officer, is stepping down from unpaid posts on the boards that oversee UNO and its charter-school network, which is the biggest in Illinois, but will stay on as CEO.
UNO is overhauling its board and turning over construction of the new school to an outsider to oversee.
“I am here today to apologize,” Rangel said at a news conference to announce the moves. “I have failed.”
He said he had “failed to exercise proper oversight . . . For these failures, I am sorry, and I take full responsibility.”
In late April, Gov. Pat Quinn suspended all remaining payments from a $98 million school construction grant after the Chicago Sun-Times reported $8.5 million of the state funding went to companies owned by two brothers of Miguel d’Escoto, a top UNO executive who quit his $200,000-a-year post following the news reports.
http://www.suntimes.com/20389466-761/uno-boss-rangel-i-have-failed.html
Gin & Tonic
Am I a complete loser for having no idea who Mara Wilson is and what she is “famous” for?
raven
@Gin & Tonic: I thinnk the fact that you never heard of her is her point. She was in a bunch of movies.
Mrs. Doubtfire Natalie “Nattie” Hillard
1994 Miracle on 34th Street Susan Walker
A Time to Heal Barbara Barton TV movie
1996 Matilda Matilda Wormwood Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Nominated—Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film
Nominated—Young Star Award for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film
1997 A Simple Wish Anabel Greening Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Nominated—Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film
Nominated—Young Star Award for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film
1999 Balloon Farm Willow Johnson TV movie
2000 Thomas & the Magic Railroad
Suffern ACE
@rikyrah: it is a good question as to why the state is paying money to build new schools while the city is closing school. What the article doesn’t say is what those firms owned be the d’Escoto’s were hired to do. It makes it sound like they were just contractors.
Ash Can
@mike with a mic: Cracked has gone from cheap-ass Mad Magazine ripoff to a repository of consistently good humor writing, along the lines of the grand old Punch Magazine. I don’t know when the transition took place, but the results are great.
jibeaux
@Gin & Tonic: No, but Matilda is worth watching, especially if you have kids.
JPL
@Gin & Tonic: That what IMDB is for. Mrs. Doubtfire is the only movie that I saw but after reading the article, it appears she’s a well grounded young lady. Maybe she’ll counsel Lohan, Byrnes and the rest of the former child stars who couldn’t adapt to adulthood.
Linda Featheringill
@Gin & Tonic:
The movie Matilda, with Danny DeVito. Wonderful movie.
WereBear
@mike with a mic: I’m kinda shocked at how good Cracked is. Sure, it’s a humor site, but a lot of what they say actually make sense and can help out a confused twenty-something.
I’ve come to regard them as awesome.
Butch
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t know who she is either and that “hilarious” twitter post also is going completely over my head.
cleek
i might have gone with “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood”, for the title.
because that’s the song that’s stuck in my head now.
They are child stars…
With their sex, and their drugs,
And their rock, and rock, and rock and rock and roll, hey!
Citizen_X
I’m still trying to figure out if this would be a good thing or a bad thing.
Gin & Tonic
Well, yes, I know how Google and IMDB work. My point was that as a free-association game, “former child star” would bring up many names but, for me, wouldn’t bring up Mara Wilson. Maybe indeed, as Raven says, that’s also her point. But “star” doesn’t mean much these days anyway.
Ash Can
@WereBear: I wasn’t even aware of Cracked’s transition until I started following links left by posters and commenters at LGF. I’m really impressed.
Also, this. Makes me laugh every time I read it, no matter how grumpy I am to start.
Corner Stone
If someone offers you a promotion to the number 2 slot in your organization, just say “no thanks”.
U.S. drone kills Pakistan Taliban Number two: security officials
lamh36
@JPL: there has been a plethora of child stars who are just off ths deep end, but ive noticed that the large majority of them are white child stars of late. I think its obviously cause therr are just more of em but sfill I think of lohan contemporaries like Raven Symone (who I believe actually roomed with lohan during the disney years), also Nick Cannon & Keenan Thompson & Keysia Knight-Pulliam. I don’t think its solely a phenomenon of white child stars, but damn it sure seems worse and id be interested in therories why.
MomSense
SCANDALSCANDLSCANDALSCANDALSCANDAL!
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/05/28/lipstick-gate/
Corner Stone
@raven:
A truly awful show with no redemptive values of any kind.
MomSense
@Citizen_X:
Sweet nothings sound much kinkier in parseltongue.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Citizen_X:
I think it would manage to be both at the same time.
raven
ShowBiz Kids
While the poor people sleepin’
With the shade on the light
While the poor people sleepin’
All the stars come out at night
After closing time
At the guernsey fair
I detect the el supremo
From the room at the top of the stairs
Well I’ve been around the world
And I’ve been in the washington zoo
And in all my travels
As the facts unravel
I’ve found this to be true
Chorus
They got the house on the corner
With the rug inside
They got the booze they need
All that money can buy
They got the shapely bods
They got the steely dan t-shirt
And for the coup-de-gras
They’re outrageous
Chorus
Show biz kids making movies
Of themselves you know they
Don’t give a fuck about anybody else
Scotius
Cracked pieces can be a real hit and miss. Her article really stood because it was so well written and informative. It’s taken over from “Seven Awesome Moments in the Greatest Police Training Video Ever” http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-awesome-moments-in-greatest-police-training-video-ever/?wa_user1=2&wa_user2=Extras&wa_user3=blog&wa_user4=feature_module as my favorite Cracked article.
piratedan
@Butch: okay Butch, I’ll take your post at face value….
The cultural phenomena that was the Harry Potter books that extended through seven volumes of books and eight movies and inspired a theme park in Florida followed the adventures of a young boy who had a destiny thrust upon him as he went through the adventure of self discovery while dealing with the adolescent awesomeness of determining that he was a wizard and that small secret society has its own rules and boundaries for growing up.
One of the structures that the author put in place was that within the British/English school for training young wizards is that they were placed into four separate houses that emphasized certain attributes (but not exclusively so) of a young person’s nature…my own attempt at a generic synopsis below
Hufflepuff – solid, stalwart, plodders
The yeoman citizenry, folks that are nothing special but know the basics and are generally fine if left to themselves
Ravenclaw – bookish, intelligent, reserved
The theorists, scientists, and intelligentsia of the wizarding world
Gryffendor – brave, courageous, trustworthy
The adventurers, the leaders, the ones willing to take a chance
Slytherin – cunning, manipulative, ethics challenged
an incubator for mad scientists and bad girls
Others may have more to add but essentially Maya is stating that while on the surface she’s doing nothing to garner any special attention, in the bedroom…you can draw your own conclusions…
Shakezula
I thought the bit about delayed teen rebellion was interesting. And it is nice to have a term – hedonism treadmill – for why people who get whatever they want can’t be satisfied.
@raven: Yay!
NonyNony
@lamh36:
I think your first observation (there are more of them) is a good starting point. Disney has always churned out child “stars” but they really ramped it up in the last two decades, and the vast majority of the kids produced by the Disney star factory are white. And, frankly, the Disney star factory seems to churn out quite a few kids who grow up to have a lot of problems. But again that might just be numbers because they churn out so many. On the other hand, as Mara Wilson observes in the Cracked article:
Disney has an entire system for cranking out child stars to a fanbase that depends on them being disposable like this. So… I think I can see how people could get severely messed up by that kind of system.
Butch
@piratedan: You were right to take it at face value. I’ve never read any of the Potter books and never seen any of the movies; I genuinely had no idea what she was saying.
Gary K
@Gin & Tonic: For me (and I’m guessing many others) she’s in that category of unrecognizable name but instantly recognizable photo. She really was the “star” in at least two movies, even played the title character in one.
Shakezula
@NonyNony: Female actresses are also far more disposable. And isn’t American Idol a giant Hot New Thing factory?
WereBear
I think a case could be made the Disney system is particularly abusive; the Mara Wilson article points out that a “Disney posse” is part of the culture there; more isolating, and more precarious, than a child actor who has a good home life, as Wilson did.
Look at Different Strokes for a child-star meltdown trifecta. None of those kids had decent family lives, I understand. I think that makes all the difference.
piratedan
@Butch: the books are great (imho) for kids and parents of kids as you essentially “grow up” with Harry. The movies are a ymmv kind of thing, if you haven’t read the books they’re fine, if you have, theres’s a good bit of sub plots and parallel threads that are left on the cutting room floor that you may have longed to have seen immortalized on film.
jon
@Citizen_X: I’d be willing to do some investigating.
cleek
no kids here, but both my wife and i really liked the HP books. they’re easy reading, fun, entertaining. definitely worth reading, IMO.
no cool points will be subtracted, either way.
Forum Transmitted Disease
She’s flat-out a good writer. And seems to have kept her sanity. Good for her.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@piratedan: The Order of the Phoenix as a full movie would have required a Peter Jackson level of disregard for the numbness of audience’s rear ends.
MomSense
My boys and I loved the HP books. For many years my knitting needles served double duty as wands.
NickT
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Someday a bored and disdainful god will put the idea of Peter Jackson’s Mahabharata into Hollywood’s evil little mind.
dance around in your bones
We just had a 4.9 earthquake off the coast of Santa Barbara. Shook the whole house and freaked the kids out.
It’s not enough to have a wildfire, apparently.
NonyNony
@Shakezula:
Absolutely. And the Disney system seems to crank out more young women with issues than young men with issues mostly because they seem to crank out more young women as disposable pop stars period. I’m not sure exactly what the business dynamics behind that is – I’d hope that it’s because young guys and girls will put up posters of “hot teen girl pop star” but only young girls will put up posters of “hot teen boy pop star”, but I suspect it’s because they can snag men all the way up to who-knows-how-old with a young girl pop star (which is disgusting on so many levels).
Yes. But it’s adults doing it to themselves. Admittedly some of them are just teenagers or just out of their teenage years, but I even see a difference between a 16 year old trying to “hit it big” on a competition show and a 12 year old (or younger) being recruited into the Disney star factory.
Butch
@piratedan: Didn’t mean any hostility at all; fantasy just isn’t a favored genre for me and the nearest movie theater (I’m serious about this) is nearly 30 miles away, so I rarely see movies.
TaMara (BHF)
I met and absolutely adored Shia Labeouf when he was just 12 or 13 and wanted to “be a star”. I was terrified for him, because he was very talented and determined and he was immediately surrounded by people who saw only the $$ and were salivating and ready to exploit this kid. I expressed my fears, but I was pretty much powerless and a nobody, so people just kind of nodded and then moved on to their plans for him.
I still worry, but he seems to be doing well. I hope. I still think he’s adorable.
Paul in KY
Read her story. Like to know how much she made & whether she is fabulously wealthy (compared to a low paid schlub like me) now due to her ‘child star’ work.
Easy to pooh pooh it all when you’ve done your time & have many tangible assets to show for the pain you were put through.
TaMara (BHF)
@dance around in your bones: When do the locusts arrive? Or I suppose since you’re coastal, a tsunami is probably the next plague.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
I’m guessing you felt the same about Junior Seau, yes? After all, he got rich from his work, so what did he have to complain about and why should his family be allowed to sue?
dance around in your bones
@TaMara (BHF):
Heh. They actually warn us about tsunamis after a quake in the coastal areas.
Quake downgraded to 4.6 now. I’ve lived through many earthquakes and the thing about them is it keeps you on pins and needles waiting for the next shakeroo – that’s uncertainty! I guess the free market here is going to stop hiring.
Frankensteinbeck
@NonyNony:
The business dynamic is that they’re a cheap, reliable return. Nickelodeon had this phase, too, and it’s part of Eisner’s legacy of trying to get Disney out of animation. Animation is expensive to make, very expensive. America is flooded with cute tween girls who can sing okay and would love to be famous. You sign ’em early when their pay and the cost to make their show (by entertainment industry standards) is peanuts. You never lose money, and when it looks like you’ve got a hit on your hands you market the girl hard. You can drop her at any time when you think the money spigot is drying up. This is the Hollywood version of MBA logic.
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
My theory is that the basic problem isn’t with the child stars themselves, its with excessively pushy parents who force their kids into being child stars. Those kids are the ones most prone to having problems when they finally become adults. I don’t know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the parents most prone to that kind of things are poor whites.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
It’s that, and also parents who are themselves failed actors who want to live through their kids. Look at the Culkin or Lohan families — it’s pretty obvious that it was the parents (particularly the fathers) themselves who wanted to be famous and pushed their kids into acting.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Butch: If you have any kids in the books age range, some may find them interesting. To me, the best thing about them is that Rowling had the framework for the entire series in her head when she started them. Thus, they are very consistent for a series, and some of the things that are mentioned in early books are referenced later on. They got one of my kids into reading.
TaMara (BHF)
@dance around in your bones: Funny story, I’d been in LA for two years and was getting ready to move and I said to a friend, you know I never felt an earthquake. That night, boom 5.9 and two days later 5.7.
You know what, I’ve never won the powerball jackpot…..
ETA: For years after that, when my old washing machine hit the spin cycle, I would brace, because it kind of felt like how the quakes started.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
OotP was a mess of a book and really needed to be trimmed. Unfortunately, in doing so, the movie downplayed the absolute menace that Umbridge represented, something far more dangerous than Voldemort and an entire army of Death Eaters. She represented the rot from within, the slow creep towards fascism and rigid authoritarianism, and showed just how easy it is for the “good guys” to be no better (and in many ways worse) than the “bad guys”. Voldemort just wanted to kill and subjugate; Umbridge (and people like her) want to control. Voldemort tortures children because he genuinely enjoys it; Umbridge tortures children because she feels it’s her duty.
I’ve often said I’d rather deal with people who are smart but evil than people who are dumb and sincere. Umbridge falls into the second camp, and she’s in charge.
piratedan
@Butch: didn’t take it as hostile, so we’re cool Butch…..
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I heard that, but there was enough crammed into the books that they could have split each of the the last four books into two movies apiece if they had gone ahead and followed all of the subplots, but for the most part, kids were enthralled by the magic brought to the screen from my recollection, still nothing against the films just a boatload of story going on.
Alex S.
Cracked is very good, mostly.
Shakezula
@Roger Moore: On what do you base the supposed correlation between race/economic level and fucked up kid?
dance around in your bones
@TaMara (BHF): Be careful what you wish for, no?
I have lived through the rolling type earthquakes, the side-to-side shakers and the up and down OMG we’re all gonna die! types. The scariest ones are when the ground feels like jelly and you just know it’s gonna open up and swallow you whole. Hasn’t happened yet!
Good luck with that Powerball thing :)
Origuy
Justine Bateman, who was Michael J. Fox’s sister Mallory on Family Ties, is studying computer Science at UCLA now.
Mnemosyne
@Shakezula:
As far as “economic level,” I’m guessing that parents who are desperate for money could be more likely to put their kids into dicey situations or push them into bad roles just to make money. Half the appeal of reality TV characters like Honey Boo Boo is that they’re “rednecks” — would people find a kid from a middle-class home to be nearly as entertaining?
Tommymet
@Butch:
It’s a Harry Potter reference couched in a Tom Waits lyric from the song “Downtown”.
Roger Moore
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The thing I find most impressive about the Potter books is that the books grow up with the characters and readers. The characters grow up, go through awkward puberty, and eventually emerge as something like adults at the end of the series, and the plots and situations get more complex and grownup as the characters do. It’s something that’s essentially unique among book series. One of the things that makes the movies so successful is that they let the cast grow up in exactly the same way, so you get to see the characters mature as the series goes along. It was an amazing job of casting to get a group of kids like that and have them all grow up into good adult actors as the series went along.
Tommymet
@piratedan:
And don’t forget the Tom Waits nod from the song “Downtown” form the Heart Attack and Vine” album.
“She’s butch in the streets but she’s fem in the sheets”
Roger Moore
@Shakezula:
I’m describing an observation, not proposing an explanation. My impression is that a lot of the child actors who wind up melting down the worst are ones who come from less privileged white families. That may be because of something about those families- they’re more likely to throw their kids into the child star hopper, or they don’t have the support structure to help their kid survive it to become functioning adults- but it does seem to be the case. Maybe a better way of expressing it is that I get the feeling that a lot of the child actors who melt down when they become adults had family problems before they went into acting, and being child stars just gave them a bigger stage when the meltdown happened.
gene108
@Frankensteinbeck:
No offense, but Hollywood’s been crushing child stars long before colleges started offering MBA’s. Mickey Rooney’s* adult life had issues, because he started his acting career at 6 or something.
*Mickey Rooney is the last person alive in Hollywood, who acted in silent movies…just for a sense of perspective about how long child movie star turned train wreck has been going on.
Cris (without an H)
I know a guy who was a child actor in the late 60’s and early 70’s. When he turned 18, he hopped on his motorcycle, got the hell out of California and went back-to-the-land in Montana. He’s had a pretty satisfying adulthood, in part because he never looked back.
Cris (without an H)
I’m having some trouble with that right now, because we’re reading the books far faster than they were published. It might have been nice to have to wait a year for each installment.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Apples and oranges, IMO.
Mr. Seau was extremely well compensated & certainly knew it wasn’t good for his longterm health to be going around slamming into dudes multiple times a game.
I don’t exactly know what his family is suing about but they certainly have the right to bring a case.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
You’re arguing that child actors have no right to complain about how they were treated because they were well-compensated for it. I’m asking if you think that football players also should keep their mouths shut about their lingering physical and neurological ailments because they, too, were well-compensated.
Elizabeth Taylor suffered a back injury on a movie set at the age of 12 that lingered for the rest of her life and contributed to her ongoing problems with prescription drugs and alcohol. Was the money she received as a child actress sufficient compensation for that lifelong injury?
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
But the core of the suit is that the NFL A) knew more about the long-term dangers than the players did, B) refused to tell the players about it, and C) failed to take available steps to mitigate the risk. You can’t claim that somebody voluntarily accepted a risk when the extent of that risk was deliberately concealed from them.
In any case, it’s not really applicable to child actors. As children, they are legally (and usually practically) incapable of making major life decisions on their own. If they suffer psychological damage from the experience, they have every reason to be angry at the adults who were supposed to be making decisions on their behalf and in their best interests.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I;m not arguing what you say I;m arguing. All I’m saying is that it is very easy to complain about ‘how bad it was’ when you are doing that complaining from your beautiful condo in Tribeca & are going to a very expensive school on the profits you accumulated when you were havin that rough go of being a child star.
If that is the case, you will have many, many things you will be able to do throughout your life that can only be done when you have a big whopping pile of money.
If you were physically/sexually abused or screwed out of your compensation, you have every right to sue/complain/get the police on the case.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: As I said ‘apples & oranges’. or apples & wombats.
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
Judy Garland was a lifelong drug addict because the studio doctors gave her amphetamines when she was a teenager to help her lose weight and appear more energetic on camera.
But I’m sure that as she was dying of a drug overdose, Garland’s last thought was, “All that money I made as a child actress totally makes up for my years of studio-sponsored drug addiction.”
Also, if you actually read Wilson’s article, she’s not saying that she, personally, has a terrible life. She’s explaining some of the weird things that former child stars do and the reasons they do them (like having their “teen rebellion” in their 20s). She’s explaining how people like Lindsay Lohan and Dana Plato ended up so fucked up, not whining about how hard her own life is.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: Ms. Garland (once an adult) had the ability (IMO) to get out of that crazy life. She also had the bankroll to sue the Hell out of them, etc. etc,
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
How? As the article points out, a lot of child stars don’t even have a GED once they’re past their fame, so many of them can’t get into college. What other work was Garland suited for, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s when there were many barriers to women being in the workforce? She could sing, dance, and act, and that was about it.
Again, how? Her mother approved the studio doctors giving Garland the drugs. Who was Garland supposed to sue?
Sorry, but it’s really hard for me to say that a three-year-old chose her own path when her mother decided to put her on the stage, so therefore a child star is completely responsible for all of the ramifications of those choices.
Mike G
@raven:
Shirley Temple is still alive. Whodathunk.
Matt McIrvin
@Gin & Tonic: No, because Mara Wilson was never a name star, which is probably part of the reason she had a better time of it than some. I didn’t recognize the name, even though I’ve seen “Matilda” relatively recently.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: Actually, as she says, it wasn’t a rough go for her at all. She’s speculating on why so many other child stars implode, extrapolating from her own experience and what could have gone horribly wrong.