I didn’t think that I would ever have to write this, but it is not normal to continually see news articles, Facebook posts and tweets claiming that any of the children from Stranger Things are sexy or hot. They are teenagers, minors, only children! No child should be exposed to such degrading and terrifying comments about them.
The one article that really took this issue over the edge for me was proclaiming that Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, is this year’s sexiest woman alive. There are many problems with such an outrageous statement, the first one being that she literally can’t even be considered a “woman”- she is a child!
Many people are also targeting Finn Wolfhard, or Mike, on the Internet and lauding him as some handsome man. A video from ComicCon has been making the rounds where the host of the panel makes a joke of Finn’s name sounding like that of a porn star’s. The cast laughed it off, but it is extremely clear that they are uncomfortable. There is nothing okay about a stranger approaching a random kid on the street and telling them that some part of them reminds them of a porn star, so why is that normal for a celebrity?
I understand that one negative aspect of Hollywood is the constant attention brought upon stars, however a line needs to be drawn on how much we are exposing children to in the industry. Countless times, we have seen child celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes or Miley Cyrus resort to dangerous habits like drug use or hard partying as a result of the inappropriate Hollywood lifestyle they are forced into.
I know that this article won’t really mean anything in the long run and won’t have any impact on the creeps that do this to the Stranger Things children. However, make no mistake that if any of those kids end up in a Britney Spears-esque breakdown because of the constant obsessions hovering over them, I will not hesitate to rudely call out the next person who calls Millie Bobby Brown sexy.
As Raven Symone put it perfectly, “Ya Nasty!”