The Lolita effect is a phenomenon I’ve unfortunately seen repeated and glamorized often in the media. Hollywood repeatedly presents a trope of alleged romance featuring a young girl with an older man. And everyone is…okay with it. In fact, most of these depictions become classics in the movie world. From the infamous original, Lolita, to the now-praised Miller’s Girl, movies have gotten away with far too much borderline pedophilia. It’s utterly disgusting in any aspect. Even if the original intention is to showcase a negative occurrence in real life, as Lolita claims, it is still unjust to portray these young girls as sexual. I don’t care if it is ‘fiction.’
By allowing movies to depict sexual situations to children, they are also allowing certain viewers easy access to their demented fantasies. Upon watching the film, Miller’s Girl, one that shows a full sexual scene with a teenager and her mature male teacher, I was left wondering if I had just witnessed something unethical. It is practically child porn. So what if they are ‘acting’? Viewers are seeing something that looks very real, and therefore leads me to believe that Hollywood is making softcore child pornography and getting away with it; hell, they’re even being celebrated for it! The world is already sick, and a line needs to be drawn between ethics and ‘art’.
The Age of the Actor is Irrelevant if They are Depicted as a Child
Often, the justification for these films and erotic scenes is that both actors are adults. If the actors are playing adults, I would perhaps accept the rationale. Yet, when an actor is depicting a child, I feel that they should place some level of respect upon children. That respect means that if they are acting as a minor, then they should do just that, act as a minor. Children should not be partaking in sexual endeavors with adults, and they most definitely shouldn’t be romanticized if they are. Yet again and again, this is shown not to be the case. The concept of childhood has been completely tainted by the media. And, although I am aware that it is still fictional, the ideals of these movies infiltrate the minds of viewers, causing, on some level, a warped view of what is right and wrong. And as more boundaries are pushed and the trope becomes more normalized, the moral line will eventually grow blurry.
I ask myself how long it will be before innocence is a concept of the past. The change is already prevalent in social media. Mothers pimp out their young children for views with the knowledge that they are feeding directly to the wants of predators. You know when you’re scrolling through TikTok and see a seemingly wholesome video of a baby, yet upon opening the comments, you are met with hundreds of heart-eyes and kissy faces from accounts of older men.
These mothers, like the media, know exactly who they are catering to. They are completely okay with pumping out content to satisfy predators in exchange for compensation. When will it end? Will there ever be a stop to this? Or is it only a matter of time before the image of childhood is forever tainted?
It’s Not Fair to the Children
The world is doing a complete injustice to all children. By tainting innocence, even in a fictitious manner, every child is at risk. People already have a sour sense of justice due to these sick depictions, and it will fade into everyday life. Eventually, no child will be safe. Kids cannot even be posted onto the internet without being preyed on, and the concept of child safety is eviscerated for a price tag. These people do not care about children. They only care about greed. People need to speak up against this complete injustice. It’s not just about the movies; this is real life.