Misconduct of children in the entertainment industry has been prevalent since the early 1900s.  One of the first major court cases was involving Jackie Coogan a young actor whose parents had spent almost all of his earnings by the time he was legally entitled to them, inspiring one of the first piece’s major legislation concerning minors who worked in Hollywood.  But numerous times the legislation set in place has failed these young children in three major ways: financially, being sexually abused, and being over worked.  The purpose of this analysis is to examine past and present legislation to find the parts where they fail to protect the children.  

California and New York have the strictest child labor laws and rightfully so seeing how those two states are where the concentration of children working in the entertainment industry is the highest.  But many states have little to no labor laws concerning minors on sets.  Twenty three out of fifty states in the US do not even require legal workers permits for minors, most just require a permission form from their parents (United States, 2017).  Utah and New Hampshire have no restrictions at all.   Most of the regulations that states say they have are just a few sentences saying how children under the age of eighteen and working in the entertainment business are exempt from child labor laws, which is not a helpful regulation at all.  Some states, like Georgia, Maryland and Connecticut do better with regulations by getting their labor commissioner to sign off or issue special permits.  But there are only four states that have the Coogan Law set in place New York, California, Louisiana, and New Mexico (Coogan Law, 2017).

Minors in the US who work in print, television, movies, or on stage are exempt from the regulations set in place in the Fair Labor Standards Act.  “Therefore, FLSA rules regarding total allowable number of work hours in one day and allowable times of day to work do not apply” (US DOL).  One of the main reasons this law is set in place is because it supposed to help prevent children from working jobs that infringe upon their safety and educational opportunities but how is this supposed to happen when not all children are legally covered by this law?  On the Department of Labor’s website, it says that “Many states regulate the employment of minors in the entertainment industry more strictly than does the Fair Labor Standards Act” (US DOL).  But as seen in the paragraph above that is not necessarily true. 

Another safety measure established in the FLSA is the right to minimum wage and overtime.  Since there is no record of their time working most children get paid a flat fee and if the state their working in has no laws protecting minors in media then they might not even get paid minimum wage. Most of these children are not seen as actually employees just tools to be used on set so, they do not get lunch breaks or over time.  While filming the Harry Potter Series there were times when they would technically be done filming but take Daniel Radcliff out of school to make up a few scenes that had bad weather.  And they could do that because there are no binding laws that say school comes first and they cannot just pluck him up out of class (Sand, 2003). 

CNN Money did a study in 2016 about how models are cheated out of their hard-earned money by agencies charging them extra expenses. One model, Lisa Yanowitz sat down with the crew and went through financial statements from work she had done.  She talks about all the little things they charged her for like hair and make-up, for FedEx messengers, and for non-disclosed “fees”.  She also had the agencies twenty percent commission taken out of her paycheck.  And in the end her final number on the paycheck was not even correct because she still had to pay taxes on it because models are considered freelance.  This has happened to others as well.  Some models get more than half of their paychecks taken like one model who was supposed to get paid thirty thousand dollars was paid six thousand four hundred seventy-five dollars with the agencies commission, fees, and taxes taken out (Ellis and Hicken, 2016).  

California passed a bill in 2012 stating that all adults working with children on set must undergo a background check and have a fingerprint on file.  The fact that this just got past five years ago for an industry that has seen numerous sexual abuse and pedophile cases is crazy.  When I worked at my church in the preschool department for Sunday mornings and afternoons I had to be submitted for a background check.  Almost all jobs involving children had to have a background check before this idea was even brought up for the entertainment industry.  The agencies in charge of finding kids jobs were actually upset because this meant that they would have to two different screening processes.  The first, which has been in place for a while was “a written application to the Labor Commission that includes two sets of fingerprints and affidavits from at least two reputable residents of the city verifying that they are of good moral character” (Mckay, 2012).  If this law was set in place when the other was that required most jobs involving minors to have a background check then maybe a lot of kids would not have had to go through the horrifying experience they went through. 

Thandie Newton is one of those children who this law could have saved from sexual abuse.  She was born in London and from a young age loved to dance but a severe back injured “forced her to quit”.  So, she set her sights on acting, moving to Los Angeles to work in film.  It became difficult for her to get jobs because of her British accent so she moved back home where she studied Anthropology at Cambridge University (Foster, 2013).  Years down the road she gave an interview with CNN about how one time she was at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France with her husband and they ran into a British film producer who was acting “sheepish” around them.  Her husband went up to him and asked him why he was acting that way and he explained that one time at a director’s house, a director who Newton had worked with, he showed a video of Newton with her legs spread in front of the camera touching herself in a sexual manner.  At the time Newton was 18 and she was told to do this when auditioning for a part.  She thought it was “normal” because the casting director, who was a woman was in the room as well and she had seen and met with both the director and casting director before.  She thought she was “protected” but she was not.  She learned from that producer in Cannes that the director did not only show it him but to other “interested parties late at night in his house” (Foster, 2013).  

The film An Open Secret directed by Amy J. Berg is “about the sexual abuse of teenage boys at the hands of Hollywood big-wigs” (Bond, 2017).  Berg interviews multiple men who tell stories about how in their childhood they were sexually assaulted by men who worked with them in Hollywood.  “It tells of lavish parties where men allegedly gave boys drugs and alcohol before "trading" them for sex.  Others were accused of spending years earning the trust of victims' families, grooming them, then sexually assaulting them” (O’Connor, 2017).  Berg is a prominent director and producer.  One of her works similar to this topic called Deliver Us from Evil which is about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, won an Oscar.  But this film had not had that much popularity because no one in Hollywood wanted to produce it but with new stories coming out about Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey this film has seen a growth in interest to watch.  

Young children are taken advantage of everyday in the media and this is nothing new.  For child actor Jackie Coogan he learned that his financial gains were not protected the hard way.  Coogan gained popularity for his role in The Kid staring alongside Charlie Chaplin and went on to star in other films that made him a phenomenon.  His father, while he was alive was in charge of young Coogan’s money but once he died his mother gained control.  His mother remarried Coogans former business manager, Arthur Berstein and they lived lavishly through Coogan (Girls Do Film, 2013).  Once Coogan turned 21 he asked his mother for the money that he had earned throughout his childhood and when she would not give it to him he took her to court.  She claimed that she was entitled to what was left of it not him because he had not earned a cent of it and that “it was all (hers) and Arthur’s” (Hibschman, 1938).  “The landmark case was not financially successful for Jackie, but it focused attention on the treatment of child stars” (Girls Do Film, 2013).  As result of this case the Coogan Law was put in place that requires parents of minors working in the entertainment industry to put aside fifteen percent of earnings into a separate account to be held until the child turns eighteen and has approval to withdraw from the court (Siegemund-Broka, 2015).  

This law has since been reformed from its initial implementation in 1939.  Advocates for children’s rights who work in entertainment like SAG-AFTRA, which stands for Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artist were successful in closing many of the loopholes found in the original Coogan Law.  But that does not change the fact that only four states require Coogan accounts.  California, New York, Louisiana and New Mexico are the only states in which having a Coogan account set aside for young actors is required by law (Coogan Law, 2017). 

 

Filming for movies does not just happen in Hollywood anymore it happens all over the nation and all over the world.  So, young actors could really live anywhere and star in a film.  If they live in Georgia and star in a Nicholas Sparks film the only laws the parent or legal guardian is held to is to get a workers permit and get “the Commissioner of Labor to give written consent” (United States, 2017).  After that the money is free range.  The agency takes the commission laid out in the contract and any extra fees they want, taxes get taken out of it and then the parents have total control of the rest.  This is how children in the media get taken advantage of.  

New laws are being written and passed every day.  One major piece of legislation that was passed in New York recently officially “classif(ies)” underage models as “child performers”.  This bill “limit(s) how long, how late, and how often young models can work”.  Ziff explained that learning that underage models were excluded from the laws that the Department of Labor set in place was the motivating factor for writing and advocating for this bill.  She says she knows that it will make it harder to employ young models but she does not think that’s necessarily a bad thing (Winick, 2013).  

Ziff and most her team know from personal experience how hard being a model and young adult can be.  There is a lot pressure to “maintain” your body while it is going through so many changes.  Alise Shoemaker a former model told the report how happy she was that this law was signed.  She told a story about how when she was fourteen she was in a situation with a designer where he was undressing her and her chaperone called from her agency because it was five minutes past curfew and he “saved” her.  She says now more young girls and boys will have that.  They will now have someone who is accountable and looking out for them (Winick, 2013).  

It is great that new people are becoming aware of this problem and truly wanting to make a change.  New bills being passed to protect vulnerable children is exactly what needs to happen.  People are recognizing that the current laws are failing these minors and are speaking up about it.  And now young children are becoming more empowered to say when something is not right and they are being taken advantage of.  The US needs to keep on this track of reform because there is still work to do but I am hopeful that one day these children will get the legal protection they deserve.
