Yes, the Rumors Surrounding Child Actors Are True | Brett Cooper

so you enjoyed your time in Los Angeles between 10 and 14 I loved it there's been a lot of rumors about child actors in Hollywood recently what do you make of all that a lot it's all true so what ha what did you escape unscathed I did I I would I I saw a lot of it what did you see um for example I worked on a children's TV show on a major Network and one of the writers after we wrapped on the show after the show was canceled had incredibly inappropriate relationships with young women like me who were on the show young women in my how young 14 okay and to my knowledge this was not sexual um but it was objectively grooming it was inappropriate relationships between an adult and minors because Hollywood goes ahead and it BL L the lines between what is appropriate between adults and children because you're working with adults constantly my entire life I spent my entire childhood I spent more time with adults than I did with children my management team they were all adults obviously agents managers directors casting directors producers wardrobes assistants who surrounded by adults constantly writers in this case and those lines get really blurred so if a a writer on a TV show that you worked on invites you and one of your co-stars out to lunch to talk about another TV show that working on your parents go oh okay yeah well you've worked with him for two years at this point let's take you to lunch MH and then you're sitting here with this girl who's a year older than you and he starts talking about the lesbian fantasies that he has about you and your friend like that's nothing nothing happened but that's the fact that he thought that that was appropriate the fact that he well that's a testing Behavior yeah and then the fact that later we're walking around the restaurant and he puts his hand in my friend's back pocket who's 15 years old and I was just you know I'd get me out of here completely in appropriate she how many of the young people in Hollywood are sold into that so to speak by their parents now you you characterized your mother as someone who was loath to take you yeah on the Hollywood Adventure but there's no shortage of parents is it more common among mothers probably the cluster B type mothers who use their children to their own Advantage come hell or high water yeah uh JZ Jennings for example speakings to mind right in the most brutal and horrible possible manner right but there's a you can see a lot of this on social media yeah you know parents pimping out their children transforming them as well you know and then proclaiming their moral virtue in consequence of the transformation you know my child is very very deviant but I'm such a wonderful person yeah that I still love them deeply right right butor pushed them in that direction in the first place and then you might say so yeah and I think another example did you read I'm glad my mom died by Janette mccartie no I haven't read it fantastic and that I mean that I think is the most incredible example of what a lot of Janette MCC she's carette you haven't talked to her on your podcast no I have not um I believe she talked to Michaela michaa okay okay um it it was just an incredible book I remember sitting I read it last year when it came out and I was just I mean full just tears reading it because these are the stories of the people that I grew up with they're the things that I saw but was protected against my mom was very wary about me being involved in this industry and she was a sharp she set firm boundaries she was always watching she was always within ey shot had aian oh yes right um and the other thing that I think was incredibly important that she did was again like I said I had so many other things going on in my life so my identity was not wrapped up in this industry I never connected it to money at all because my money was put in savings accounts my parents never touched it my mom never touched it the state takes 15% of whatever a young actor makes and puts it into your cougan account so if you are in a situation where your parents are exploiting you at least by 18 you have some money um never touched any of that and never wanted me to connect con Hollywood and making money cuz I would see she saw people in my circle these kids they would you know do an episode on the TV show and then their parents would go out and buy yeah six American Girl dolls and they would buy a fancy new car for the family and you know the the parents would take a huge vacation that the kid at 8 years old paid for right and my mom always wanted to ensure that I stuck in this industry because I loved it because I couldn't live without it because I loved telling stories and at least once a month she would say are you sure you want to do this CU if you ever want to stop we'll stop I don't care how much money we've invested in your acting classes and your dance classes if you want to stop if you want to go home you'll pack up and move to tenness what made her so sensible she's just a brilliant woman she's incredible she she's one of the most resilient people I've ever met she has been to Helen back a million times her first husband passed away her child then passed away um my older brother in light of my brother's passing uh has severe mental illness he's permanently in a psychiatric facility for schiz um very very hard marriage with my father very very hard upbringing where she was often the black sheep she is very comfortable being non-traditional and doing things that would be considered unconventional in whatever circumstance she's in how how did you end up with Traditional Values then because she's very traditional but I I realized that as I said that I contct myself she is willing to be unconventional in the given circumstances so in Hollywood we so she's daring she's daring and the majority of people that we were surrounded by where parents were pushing their kids into this she was willing to be the one that says no my kid is not doing that my kid isn't doing this kind of project my kid is not going out for this project that is run by right a producer that we know has you know a bad track record she's incredibly involved right well so fundamentally I mean the case you're laying out it's always useful to look at situational determinants of of unfortunate outcomes let's say and you know the first thing you said was well there are kids working with adults and so the lines are blurred and okay so that sets the stage and then you can imagine that within those relationships there's no shortage of people always whose ability to obtain intimacy like in a relationship or sexually is like stunningly compromised right and so so those people at minimum are going to like just as a consequence of their inability are going to be looking for opportunity and maybe not even that good at distinguishing an appropriate from an inappropriate opportunity and then there's the ones that are really bent because they're resentful and because they're isolated they're actually looking for innocence to subvert and destroy those are the more people who tilt more and the explicitly Nar narcissistic and sadistic Direction and your circumstance was such that you had a mother who was watching out for you and so that instead of a mother who was complicit and exploiting you who turned to Blind yeah now you said you had a gr SP when you were how old nine yeah so what how physically mature were you by the time you were 14 um relatively I always looked older for my age one so I that's another thing that blurs the lines right and if you're around adults and you learn to act like an adult you're going to also present yourself you know in a more mature manner yeah and if you physically look like one I mean I yeah yeah well that's yeah it makes it very very complicated however it also it just shouldn't what did you what did you do do you think that so often girls m bully victims in general girls who are subject to exploitation are not very good at subtle signaling they don't know how to say no they don't know when to say no they don't know how to broadcast no yeah like right from the initial interactions right so how do you think you conducted yourself so that cuz cuz I know you said your mother was protecting you but did you conduct yourself so that nothing got going yeah okay how I would say just intrinsically I'm very self-aware and have been for a long time and I think that that is because I had to grow up very quickly in terms of my family I was just very aware of everything that was going on you also said you didn't want to cause trouble yeah um unnecessary trouble yes unnecessary trouble but I don't think that means that I was not willing to stand up for myself because in situations that were this severe in terms of my safety my innocence um anyway I I think that I was very self-aware and then it goes back to my mother again when we moved out to Los Angeles she knew everything all the rumors about Hollywood the casting couch she put me in women's self-defense against sexual assault classes when I was 10 and I did those classes until I useful the most incredible thing I've ever done hands down I was put in situations I started out doing group classes and you learn how to fight against a male opponent that is bigger than you because you can do Jiu-Jitsu you can do karate I think that those disciplines are incredible they often do not translate to real world fighting for women specifically of course women we hold our strength in different parts of our bodies um when you are dealing with an assault their you know situational awareness is so important your voice is so important just being able to scream no yeah um it was it was incredible and so I mean I was put in situations in these classes where you know a man comes up behind you my instructor comes up behind you holding a knife to your throat knowing how to get out of that holding a gun to your head you were on the at least you at least were run through situation I was run through but I think this situation you described in the restaurant where this writer I think you said was writer slipped his hand into the back pocket of this of your friend you said she was a little older than you yeah she was 16 why didn't he do the same thing to you he tried to and I moved away and I said that's weird don't do that okay did she do that no okay so so that that's the perfect example yeah well that's exact that's exactly my point those are the micro NOS that stop things from proceeding yes right yeah and so and I credit a lot of that to these classes that I did because as you said and as you brought up again I was unwilling to rock the boat I was a doormat in my family and still that's something that I'm still working through as an adult now I'm being very very nervous about that in my immediate family just because of the way that I RA are you agreeable person do you like to please people I do uhuh right right right well you can also see the complexity because if you're an Entertainer and you're on the stage you're obligated as part of your role to be magnetically attractive charismatic and all of that and to capitalize on that and so Drawing the Line um Marilyn monr she said she could walk down the street as Norma Ray normae Norma genene Norma genene or as Marilyn right and if she walked down the street as Norma genene no one paid any attention to her but if she walked down the street as Marilyn Monroe then she was magnetically attractive right and so those are obviously well she was a master of that seductor role she's still iconic because of that and it's like 70 years later that's really quite something and it certainly destroyed her yeah right because that was too much well if you're an actor an actress then you have this conundrum because you're rewarded for your attractiveness you're capitalizing on your attractiveness you're among adults but you have to hem that in so that you're not exploited yeah right well when exactly are you being exploited and when exactly are you exploiting yourself it's not like that's obvious so it's a very good thing that you had your your mother along with you yeah the courses too that's interesting because you were at least placed in frightening situations and you were at least alerted to the fact that those sorts of things existed how do you think what you learned in the course is translated into changes in your day-to-day Behavior [Music]

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 2,532,808

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, Jordan B Peterson, psychology, psychoanalysis, existentialism, maps of meaning, free speech, freedom of speech, personality lectures, personality and transformations, Jordan perterson, Dr Peterson

Id: -NrVdM8X7jA

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024