And the movie and music industries. Humorous video about this serious topic, which outlines the problem of parents selling their kids to these industries in a palatable manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJh6jgnqn_s
There should be a general blanket ban on parents monetizing their kids. We don't need child actors in movies, most stories can be written to avoid their necessity. And maybe very soon, it should be feasible to replace child actors with CGI.
Child pageants are creepy AF. They are perfect targets for creeps - former President Trump, for example, got alleged by five women to have walked in on girls as young as 15 while they were changing [1] -, but even without that level of creepiness, the sexualization of young girls has been closely linked to mental health issues down the road [2].
And this legalized pedophilia industry makes 5 billion dollars a year[3]. Unbelievable.
My wife and I watched a season of this stuff just to gawk at how terrible/creepy it was. Then we felt bad about contributing towards its popularity and stopped.
Wholly agree and people do recognize it as such. Also child actors (though they don't have all things in common, one thing they often have in common is exploitation by their parents/guardians as well as industry).
There should be a general blanket ban on parents monetizing their kids. We don't need child actors in movies, most stories can be written to avoid their necessity. And maybe very soon, it should be feasible to replace child actors with CGI.