Millie Bobby Brown called out the press for being super creepy in its sexualisation of her and honestly, drag them queen.
Millie has always been over-sexualised in the media — unfortunately, it’s a reality of being a teenage girl anywhere, and especially if you’re famous.
But when the Stranger Things star turned 18 years old in February earlier this year, things only got worse.
“[I’ve] definitely been dealing with [being sexualised] more within the last two weeks of turning 18 — definitely seeing a difference between the way people act and the way that the press and social media have reacted to me coming of age,” she told the Guilty Feminist podcast.
“I believe that shouldn’t change anything, but it’s gross and it’s true,” she added.
Gross indeed. Earlier this year, Millie’s fans called out a NSFW subreddit that was counting down the days until she turned 18 — which was when it planned to go live.
I cannot believe I have to say this once again but stop being fucking creepy and weird about Millie Bobby Brown pic.twitter.com/5zp90MyWNh
— Mary (@QuiteeContrary) February 20, 2022
“It’s a very good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualised. I have been dealing with that — but I have also been dealing with that forever,” Millie said on the podcast.
Yep. Remember when Millie’s Instagram was bombarded with hate after she wore a bodycon dress and heels at 14 years old because it was too ~sexual~? Or when she wore a dress that was *gasp* mid-thigh length at 15 years old?
In the interview, she recalled the time she was “crucified” for wearing a low cut gown to an awards show. She was 16 years old.
“I thought ‘My, is this really what we’re talking about? We should be talking about the incredible people that were there at the award show.’”
Unfortunately, Millie Bobby Brown isn’t the first or the last teenage girl to be subjected to the gross, pervy nature of the press.
“I remember on my 18th birthday I came out of my birthday party and photographers laid down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloid [newspapers] the next morning,” Emma Watson told a HeForShe press conference in 2016.
“If they had published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal, but because I had just turned 18 they were legal.”
Mara Wilson, who played the lead in Matilda when she was nine years old, told Elle in 2017 that she was still a kid when she started appearing on foot fetish websites.
“Even before I was out of middle school, I had been featured on foot fetish websites, photoshopped into child porn and received all kinds of letters and messages online from grown men,” she said.
The world is a messed up place for young girls. Let’s hope calling out this creepy over-sexualisation actually changes things.
