“Pretty Baby” is more than another cash grab documentary from the latest celebrity. It is an intimate and honest look into the harrowing realities of child stardom. In it, Brooke Shields recounts her years as an underage “sex symbol,” touching on topics ranging from the sexualization of young girls to postpartum depression.
The two-part Hulu docuseries introduces us to Shields as a toddler. Her mother, a force around which the documentary (and Shields’ life) revolves, had a vision of fame for her beautiful child. “My mother, she really believed that I was the most unique creature she had ever laid eyes on, and I was hers,” Shields recounts.
Shields had a complicated relationship with her mother, speaking about her with conflicting admiration and hurt. Shields describes her mother as a “spitfire” who “wanted things to be bigger.” Clearly, she got what she wanted. Working as her manager, Teri Shields filled her daughter’s schedule with photoshoots and interviews, catapulting Shields into stardom before she reached her teenage years.
This stardom came with disturbing consequences. Shields, admired for her otherworldly beauty, was cast in increasingly sexualized photoshoots and roles. At only 10 years old, Sheilds posed naked for Playboy. At 12, she was cast as a child prostitute in the film “Pretty Baby,” after which the documentary is titled. The Louis Malle film featured nudity and a particularly controversial scene in which the young girl’s virginity is auctioned off. At 15, Shields starred in “Blue Lagoon” and became the face of Calvin Klein jeans in a hyper-sexualized ad campaign. She was a star, but to the public, she was little more than a beautiful face.
Shields discusses these events with candor and grace. Her insight speaks not only to her personal experiences, but also to those of all girls and women who have ever been reduced to objects of desire.
The second, and final, episode of the documentary picks up after Shields’ graduation from Princeton. After four years of absence from the entertainment world in which she discovers her self-worth aside from beauty, Shields struggles to reenter the business as a respected actress.
While part two may be less eventful than part one, it is arguably more personal. Shields opens up about her victimization at the hands of a Hollywood figure and she delves into her complicated relationship with her former husband and tennis star, Andre Agassi. Shields describes the relationship, which helped her to break toxic patterns with her mother, as swapping “one controlling personality for another.”
“Something in me knew I wouldn’t be able to separate from my mother without someone like Andre,” Shields says.
She recounts her experience with postpartum depression following the lifelong desire to be a mother. Her story, which she made public in an effort to destigmatize the all-too-common struggle, faced backlash. More importantly, though, it brought awareness to postpartum depression, ultimately changing legislation.
The documentary concludes with a conversation between Shields and her daughters. The girls, 19 and 16 years old, tell their mother how unsettling they find her past, underage sexualization at the hands of her mother and Hollywood big names. Shields raises the all-too-timely question of how her past is any different than what her youngest posts on TikTok and Instagram.
“I’m in a bikini.” “She’s posting it herself,” her daughters reply.
“Is that empowering?” Shields urges.
“Yes,” they answer. The conversation does not answer the question, “Is it any different now?” Rather, it encourages viewers to examine how the sexualization of girls and women has evolved — perhaps changing forms and ownership, but remaining nonetheless.
“Pretty Baby” is an uncomfortable, often saddening watch. But it is also a story of the resilience of a bright woman, once exploited by the Hollywood system and a textbook “stage mom,” taking ownership of her body, career and future. This documentary is timeless, personal and, somehow, also universal. It is the story of one woman and all women — a truly powerful watch.
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