Review: Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
By Scarlett Brisbin (she/her)
Exploitation, power, glamor, sexualization, and Hollywood. These five words perfectly encapsulate the topics that the two-part Hulu docu-series takes the viewer through, in this two-hour-long saga that leaves you feeling horrified at the events yet awestruck by the woman who clawed out of them.
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, directed by Lana Wilson, is a two-episode docu-series on Hulu that explores actress and model Brooke Shields's life as a young girl growing up in the entertainment industry. The documentary's title references Shields’s debut 1978 film, Pretty Baby, infamously known for its controversy and child pornography allegations. Through the span of the show, we witness outrageous lows, but also the incredible transformation of a woman that reclaims her power, against dark forces desperately trying to thwart her from it. The show allows us to truly learn what happened to Brooke Shields, through her own testimony and also offers us the perspectives of her closest friends and colleagues, who all describe Brooke’s life to the public for the very first time.
The show starts with a montage of interviews stitched together from when Shields was a young girl being subjected to lewd questioning. It introduces the narrative of an unhinged press corps, and allows the viewer to automatically empathize with the 12-year-old girl. Then Shields, who is now 57, dives into the complicated relationship she has with her mother, Teri Shields. Teri, a single mom who was looking for a source of income, entered Brooke into the industry, with her starring in an ivory soap ad as young as 11 months old. Soon Teri became her manager, but her unhealthy dependence on alcohol left her handicapped as a parent. In the show, Brooke recalls her mom’s addiction to alcohol and how it undeniably strained their relationship. Teri Shields's addiction not only affected herself, but Brooke as well. With teenage Brooke’s career launching however, the public started to scrutinize Teri more, for the role she played in Brooke’s life. Questions were being raised about her morals as a mother for sending in her own child, to play roles that were very sexual in nature, and that sometimes involved full nudity. While Shields makes an effort to defend her mother in the documentary, for her flawed decisions, she also acknowledges the mistakes her mother made on her path to fame.
Shields describes her experience of being seen as an object of desire and being seen as a sex symbol as a minor. Not only was she sexualized within her work, journalists and interviewers routinely bombarded Brooke with inappropriate interrogations. This included questions asking for her measurements, asking about her current boyfriends, her virginity, and older male interviewers discussing how beautiful she was. No matter what she did Brooke always found her career in the hands of men, and herself to be the pawn in their game. Because the industry places the women within it, in a glass cage. If an actress steps one toe out of line, she risks stepping right through the tightly fit walls, and watching the ruins shower down upon her career and personal life.
It was this systemic control that led to Brooke feeling powerless over her own self-worth, which had been decided for her, ever since her childhood, by others. But all of that started to shift slowly when she went to university. It was there, in this brand new environment that was far away from home, and her mom, that Brooke felt like she was able to truly start rebelling against this image that had been cut out for her. Through interactions with people from all backgrounds, she was able to find and utilize her own voice, and regain a sense of self that encompassed not just her beauty, but her own thoughts and ideas.
As Brooke finished college, her career had been on hold and Brooke was not as appealing as she used to be to executives, due to her absence in the media. Like many women, Brooke felt as though women could only have one shot in their careers, while men, on the other hand, could have multiple comebacks. Brooke felt like she was past her prime, and increasingly felt lost in her career. Yet soon enough, as luck had it, she got her own show, Suddenly Susan, which also starred Judd Nelson and Kathy Griffin. This show provided Brooke with a rare opportunity to reframe the image the public had curated for her, for so long. It allowed her to do something that none of her past works had: It allowed her to be funny. This comedy sitcom that ran from 1996-2000, became an instant hit, and a beloved classic. Not to mention it allowed Brooke Shields's public persona to go through a renaissance.
This show allowed Brooke to send a universal message of empowerment. This second wave of empowerment later enabled Brooke to defend her voice against major events and stars, such as her past sexual assault and Tom Cruise infamously scrutinizing Shields about her postpartum depression. Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields serves as a clear representation of misogyny and the cage enclosed on the oppressed sex. It relates to the experiences of women and how women feel in a patriarchal society. Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields is not only a masterpiece about Shield’s own life, but it is a story that resonates with women who’ve been in spaces that aren't built for them. And most importantly it reminds all of us to be vigilant to the systemic bigotry, women in the media face.
