Looking for a good documentary for a rainy evening?
If you come across 'Pretty Girl: Brooke Shields' (2023), it is wholeheartedly recommended that you give it your time.
The two-part film, a Hulu production directed by Lena Wilson (who is also responsible for Americana, the Taylor Swift documentary), is available to watch on Disney Plus.
While Brooke Shields did not officially serve as a producer, she was heavily involved in the project).
It is not just a retrospective on the career of the actress and model;
This is a scathing indictment of a culture that exploited her childhood and innocence.
On the one hand, admiring her beauty and acting opportunities, and on the other hand, dealing with sexualization and domineering horror.
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The film sheds light on the 1980s, a time when young women like Shields were portrayed on and off screen in a sexually explicit manner at a young age.
Through interviews and archival footage, Shields reveals the high psychological cost of navigating this hypersexual environment, fighting for recognition and appreciation in a world that has seen her as a commodity.
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But 'Pretty Girl' is not just a story about the price Shields paid.
The film is also a testament to her resilience and intelligence.
We get to know her today, 58 years old, happily married and mother of two, as she finds her voice as a Tochav woman herself.
Undoubtedly, her capacity for introspection and self-reflection allowed her to analyze her past;
Childhood as an only daughter to a single mother who struggled to support herself and her daughter, an estranged father, a strict Catholic education, her dream to succeed as an actress, her mother's alcoholism, her loneliness in college, her path in Hollywood that was never easy.
And finally, she speaks candidly about the double standards imposed on women, and challenges the common perception of 'lolita' innocence masking the desires of adults.
The film is a must watch not only for Shields fans, but for anyone who wants to delve into a complex portrait of a woman who stayed with her head above water despite years of exploitation and became a cultural icon and a voice for female empowerment.
Here are 11 heartbreaking and unforgettable revelations from the film:
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She started modeling at the age of only 11 months
Shields was born in Manhattan, New York, on May 31, 1965, to former model Terry Shields and Revlon executive Frances Alexander Shields Jr.
In 1966, Shields began modeling after her mother's close friend, Francesco Scavolo, shot her for a TV commercial for Ivory soap.
"I always knew she was beautiful," Terry said in an archival interview in the film.
'As soon as I brought her home from the hospital I just knew she was going to be a star.'
Her first kiss was at age 11 with a 29-year-old actor in a movie
Her first kiss was with Pretty Girl actor Keith Carradine - 16 years her senior.
While shooting the scene, Shields refrained from reacting in disgust.
He actually tried to calm her down and told her: 'Hey, you know what?
it does not count.
It's a pretense.
That's all as it is.
After the film was released, Shields said everything changed for her: 'I was no longer just a model who was an actress.
I became the focus of so many things - good and bad.'
The director of 'The Blue Lagoon' said that she changed from a girl to a woman in the film itself
When asked about Shields' nude scenes with Atkins in The Blue Lagoon, director Randall Kleiser said: 'It's real.
She transforms from a girl to a woman during the filming'.
Shields was 15 and her co-star Christopher Atkins was 18. 'They wanted to turn it into a reality show,' she said.
'They wanted to sell my true sexual awakening.'
The irony of it all was that Shields didn't even know her sexuality at the time.
She grew up Catholic, and sex was associated with both shame and guilt for her.
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She didn't realize that her Calvin Klein jeans ads were sexual
In one of her most famous campaigns, 15-year-old Shields wears a stomach-revealing button-up shirt and skinny Calvin Klein jeans.
Her gaze is fixed on the camera, and her right leg is kicked up as she balances on her arms, albeit uncomfortably.
The slogan of the ad: 'Want to know what's up with me and my Calvin pants?
Nothing' - an allusion that the minor in the advertisement is not wearing underwear.
"I had no idea it was sexual," Shields said of the ad, which was later banned from airing on two networks in the United States.
She thought it meant that no one could come between her and her jeans, so she explained.
She was injured when she appeared in court
In 1981, Shields' mother sued fashion photographer Gary Gross, alleging that he sold nude photos of her daughter that allegedly ruined her reputation.
The photos show her at the age of 10, naked and covered in oil and makeup in a marble bath.
At the time of filming, Shields' mother signed a contract that allowed Garr to photograph her daughter.
With the international publication of the girl he had photographed years before, Gross offered the photographs for sale.
In court, Shields says in the film, someone stared at her and ran his tongue over his lips, which shocked her.
In addition, Emma and she lost after the New York Court of Appeals ruled that Gross could continue to market the images as long as he did not sell them to pornographic platforms.
Director Franco Zaffirelli touched her during a sex scene in 'Immature Love'
The director of 'Immature Love' Franco Zaffirelli was not happy with a sex scene in the film, and decided to grab her toe to hurt her and create a desired expression for him.
"But it was anxiety more than anything because he hurt me," Shields said.
'The look on your face - it must be ecstasy,' Ho told her, and she didn't understand what it was.
But since I didn't want her to look stupid or untalented, she just hung up.
'They paid me.
I did the thing.
They sold it.
Everyone is satisfied.
You know, it was a deal.
Michael Jackson once told her they should adopt a child together
Her 'very childish' friendship with Michael Jackson began when she was 13 and Jackson was 20. 'We were both quite young in some ways and quite mature and experienced in other ways, so we became friends, but he always wanted to be seen with me,' she said .
In one case, he even told her that they should 'adopt a child and raise a child together'.
The friendship eventually fell apart after Jackson lied and told Oprah Winfrey in a 1993 television interview that he was dating Brooke Shields.
She felt hurt, called and asked him 'what are you doing?'
And 'eventually the relationship with him ended.
She was raped by a Hollywood executive
Shields reveals for the first time in the film that at the age of 22 she was raped by an executive whose name she does not name.
The incident occurred after a dinner where they discussed opportunities for her to return to acting upon her college graduation.
'It was like wrestling.
I did not want.
I was afraid of choking or something'.
Shields said.
'I didn't struggle that much.
I just completely froze.
I thought my one 'no' should have been enough.
And I just thought about staying alive and getting out.
God knows I knew how to detach from my body.
I practiced it'.
Then, when a friend told her she had been raped.
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Her journey to parenthood took a mental toll on her
She and her husband, film director and screenwriter Chris Henchy, experienced difficulties trying to be parents.
She underwent fertility treatment and abortion and thought she was being 'punished', that 'something was wrong, that she was 'not meant to be a mother'.
On her sixth in vitro fertilization (IVF) attempt, she eventually became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter Rowan in 2003. Soon after, she experienced depression.
In her best-selling 2006 memoir Down Came the Rain, she said that antidepressants saved her.
Tom Cruise (who had a small role in 'Immature Love'), an ardent Scientologist, said of this in response that she 'doesn't know the history of psychiatry'.
She responded to him in a New York Times article titled 'The War of Words' in which she wrote, 'If any good can come of Mr. Cruz's ridiculous rant, let's hope it brings much-needed attention to a serious illness.'
Eventually, he apologized and they made up.
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Her turbulent relationship with her mother
Her relationship with her mother was dependent, so much so that at one point, she believed that if her mother died, she would die too.
Her mother's alcoholism was an integral part of her childhood.
"You never know what to expect with an alcoholic," said Shields, who suffered emotional abuse.
'I felt a kind of abandonment whenever she wasn't herself.'
Terry Shields agreed at one point to stop drinking solely for the sake of her daughter, but Oh's promise was short-lived.
Her alcoholism worsened over the years, and in 2012 she died of dementia after years of dementia.
"I broke up a long time ago," Shields said tearfully.
Johnny Carson had a bad joke about her
As she began her studies at the prestigious Prinson College, Johnny Carson, host of the talk show 'Light Show' told a (not funny) joke about student Brooke Shields in his opening monologue.
'I heard that she is an excellent student who gets A's.
Recently, her professor gave her a 10 in anatomy.
The anatomy of her body'.
And she even studied literature.
Such were the jokes on television of the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7KedT6uvus
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