Brooke Shields rose to stardom as a child star in the 1980s, and while she received massive fame for her roles, the actress believed she was s*xually exploited. In her new Hulu documentary series, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, the actress talked about her early works.
Shields was merely 14 when she filmed the famous scene in The Blue Lagoon, starring alongside Christopher Atkins. The actress claimed that director Randal Kleiser advertised the movie around her innocent young girl image and projected it toward the male gaze. Furthermore, Shields believed that the filmmaker was responsible for exploiting her s*xual awakening while filming the movie.
Brooke Shields Refuses To Discuss S*xual Allegations Against Blue Lagoon Director
While Brooke Shields appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show to promote her documentary, the 57-year-old actress also shared that Kleiser tried to reach out to her regarding the sexual allegations (via BuzzFeed News):
“I saw his name on my phone, and I was like, ‘What do I do,’ and I let it go to voicemail because I was like, ‘I want to see what the tone is.’ He wants to chat. I don’t know about what. I don’t feel like bringing any of it back up again, and it’s not about that, you know?”
The Pretty Baby star also expressed her sentiments about being “a commodity” during the entire duration of the filming.
“It never was about me, it was never protective of me. It was fun and loving at times, but I was just there. I was a pawn, I was a piece, I was a commodity.”
The Blue Lagoon follows two children, Emmeline and Richard, stranded on a South Pacific island. As they grew up to become teenagers, they discover love and s*xuality amid trying to survive on the island.
Although the film was a commercial success for Paramount Pictures, it was heavily criticized for themes of child nudity. The majority of the movie saw Shields naked, with only her hair covering her breasts.
Shields reached stardom at an early age, working as a model before landing her first breakout movie role. She played a child prostitute in Pretty Baby (1978), and after finding success in that kind of movie, she worked on other films of the same nature, such as The Blue Lagoon (1980) and Endless Love (1981).
Brooke Shields Believes Directors Sold Her S*xual Awakening
Early in January, Shields recalled her experience working with Romeo & Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli on Endless Love.
“The physicality and the exploration of sexuality felt really dangerous to me, and I didn’t trust the director to create a safe environment for me. I was really shut down after that. I thought of myself as just the workhorse: They paid me, I did the thing, they sold it, everybody was happy, it was transactional.”
The actress also claimed that these directors tried to make the film appear as a reality show:
“They wanted to sell my actual s*xual awakening. The irony was, I wasn’t in touch with any of my own s*xuality.”
Shields reiterated that the directors she worked with in the early years of her career depicted her as a “s*x object” with “these males needing me to be in a certain category to serve their story.”
Source: BuzzFeed News
