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Comment by maverwa | Hacker News Reader

This, to me, looks like a case where both parties are "wrong". I think its wrong to put photos of people who cannot (or have not) agreed in the public, especially photos of children, even more so when its not just some publication, but your damn Album cover. Also looking at you, scorpions. But I also think the "the dollar makes it look like a sex worker" spin is ridicoulus. Sounds to me like a claim that just exists to spin up the media and make sure the original claim ("you did not have the right wo put that image on that cover without covering") gets through.

So yeah, I guess that guy should get some of the Nirvana money. But cut the sex worker crap.

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So literally there should never be anyone under 18 featured in any sort of media?

Luckily, I am no law maker but a random guy with opinions on the internet. But no, I would not say that we should ban every depiction of non-adults from all media. That would be way to broad. And I am not saying the "what" and "how" is something I can answer nor did I think about it in detail. I think the rule "should" be something between what we have now and what what you suggested (and what my original post might suggest). Where exactly, I cannot answer. But thanks for pointing out that my original formulation was lacking.

There are rules around sexual content in particular in the US (which may differ by state) and certainly around under-age sexual content. Which this was not considered to be. (That said, I doubt any record label would sign off on that cover today.)

At first I thought you were being ridiculously extreme in your interpretation, but now I realize you were referring to the legal age of consent, as the parent was.

It’s a good point, and I think the age of consent is varied by state and country for just this reason.

Some countries have one age at which all the rights and responsibilities suddenly apply. It doesn't have to be like that. In some countries, drinking age and voting age and driving age and smoking age and signing a contract age are all different.

Well, not naked at least.

I haven't heard many positive stories from former child actors who talk about their experiences. The stories usually involve parents abusing their authority over the kid to make them chase fame for the parent's benefit. There should at least be more protections to ensure kids used in media aren't left with nothing other than jokes about that thing they did as a kid from strangers.

Selection bias ? How many child actors play in a few TV episodes, probably have a bit of fun and earn a bit of money, then disappear from the spotlight. You never hear from those because there is nothing to say.

That's selection bias. You never hear from them because they weren't famous enough to hear from. I know someone who modeled/acted a couple of times as a kid, not remotely famous, and yeah, it wasn't good for them. But you'll never hear their story, because they weren't famous.

A short list of child actors who are doing just fine:

- Jessica Alba - Leo DiCaprio - Ben Afleck - Ryan Reynolds - Selena Gomez - Ryan Gosling - Justin Timberlake - Julia Stiles - Elijah Wood - Lacey Chabert - Emma Watson - Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Neil Patrick Harris - Natalie Portman - Hayden Christensen - Ethan Hawke - Anna Paquin - Fergie - Kenan Thomson - Nick Canon - Scarlett Johansson - Jodie Foster - Christian Bale

This supports my point. I haven't googled all of them, but a random sample all wanted to go into acting, or at least don't recount the experience in a way that suggests the kind of pressure I'm talking about.

IMDB lists 31.4 million actors and 20.3 million actresses. I don't think your short list of actors says much about the whole range of experiences.

> I don't think your short list of actors says much about the whole range of experiences.

And you think your even more anecdotal and even more vague "I haven't heard many positive stories from former child actors who talk about their experiences" does?

To add support, this is basically Jennette McCurdy's story, although she doesn't blame her parents for it. https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/why-isnt-sam-in-the-ica...

Tell that to Mila Kunis (Baywatch at age 11) the Olsen twins (Full House as literal babies) Kaley Cuoco (first film appearance at 11yo) and thousands of other sucessful people who got thier big breaks as children. Children are part of the entertainment industry and always have been. An industry without them would look very strange.

Harry Potter, but Harry is 18yo on his first day at Hogwarts. Every family sitcom disappears. And what about work entirely created by kids? I guess highschool drama clubs are out too. This gets very strange very quickly.

To be fair, The Magicians is magic college instead of magic grade school, but it's more common in literary magic systems for the child to discover magic after puberty, in which case magic high school might make more sense.

And are you really going to claim that the Olsens are normal?

When did Mickey Rooney start talking about how kids are treated in Hollywood? I'm surprised that at this point we have the ASPCA but no equivalent organization chaperoning kids on movie sets. Not only should this exist, but I think it should have an oversight board of former child actors. Foster, Barrymore and Feldman for instance would have a lot of hard questions to ask.

Given that one if them is now an Avenger, I wouldn't tell her that her career path was any sort of mistake. She can decide that for herself.

She is not an Olsen twin.

Barrymore has no qualms talking about how rough things got for her. One of her things is offering sometimes unsolicited advice to young actors about avoiding her worst mistakes. Foster simply doesn't talk much to anybody, and only part of that was because she was in the closet for decades (came out in '13, but apparently was an open secret as far back as '93 when an LGBT friend outed her to me). She fucked off to France to get some peace and quiet. Both of these have had careers at least as good as Olsen's.

Feldman, as far as I'm aware, still hasn't named the person who was ultimately responsible for Haim's suicide, even after #MeToo and Weinstein's defrocking.

All three have strong opinions about what constitutes sketchy. I'm not clear if the Olsen Twins have registered the ways that they could have had a better life and that makes me sad.

I don't recall if it was Barrymore or someone else who said that the problem with being a famous child is that you are too young to really understand friendship yet, and once people want things from you it's very hard to learn about it, because so many people are investing energy in pretending to be your friend. Imagine going through life not knowing what real friends look like.

Then go tell the next britney spears or taylor swift that she isn't allowed to perform until she is 18. Waitress? Sure. Dig ditches on a farm? Ok. Sing a song and get paid for it? Nope. That is adult stuff. Can she dance at the olympics or is that also performing?

Neither of the Olsen twins is Wanda - Elizabeth Olsen is their younger sister.

Thanks. That is the limit of my olsen sister knowledge.

were any of the people you mentioned or other child actors forced to perform in the nude?

We had no idea who this non descript nude baby was until he recreated his own photo. America is sexualizing children and creating a moral panic on it. Not all nudity is sexual. Please grow up America.

The olsen twins? Id have to check. Maybe. I saw a nude kid on a documentary last night about surfers called The 100 Foot Wave. Look for the infamous clip of Cuoco from Growing Up Brady, or the coconut bikini clip of Kunis from That70sShow. I think those were very exploitative, certainly far more so than the Nevermind cover.

> I think its wrong to put photos of people who cannot (or have not) agreed in the public, especially photos of children (...)

The article mentions that the plaintiff's parents were paid $200 by a photographer who was a friend of the family to have a photoshoot,and go as far as claiming that they were unaware of the whole pro photoshoot they held at the pool and were paid $200 to join was a photoshoot.

They also state that the record company even gave the plaintiff's family a commemorative record and a teddy bear a couple of months after the album release.

From this newspiece alone, and ignoring the fact that the plaintiff is known for having been milking his role in Nirvana's album cover since ever, it's hard to believe that a) the plaintiff and his whole family were not fully aware they willingly participated in a commercial photoshoot for which they were paid for, b) the plaintiff had an epiphany and change of heart regarding the event and suddenly felt he was a victim.

These are allegations. The judge will decide what grounds these allegations have appropriately. It's not likely the sex worker has any grounds and will be tossed out. I presume it's just to beef up the lawsuit.

"Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks", if you will.

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