CHILD STARS
★★★★★ (3 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing child stars.
Some of the most famous people have been children. Shirley Temple and the Mickey Rooney both got their start as famous children and grew up to be famous adults.
While such stardom has sometimes been detrimental to the emotional growth and well-being of said child stars, it’s also a proven fact that children are cute and funny and great idols. Therein lies the problem. Is it wrong to sacrifice a child’s future for the enjoyment of society? An army general would say no problem. A former child star would say to please stop asking questions, what’s done is done, and do you have any work for me. Then he or she would start frantically tap dancing.
In a world with no child stars, Leave it to Beaver would have been called Leave It. The Brady Bunch would have been called The Brady Duo and Their Unnecessary Maid, and Punky Brewster would have been called Lonely Old Man. None of those are shows I would want to watch. Well, I might watch Lonely Old Man.
Think about how enriching Justin Bieber’s music has been to your life, and now imagine if you had never heard him and instead only got to listen to adults like Frank Sinatra. What a loss that would be.
In defense of the existence of child stars, not all of them go crazy. Take Kirk Cameron for instance. He seems like a really pleasant guy who always wears a button down shirt. And he’s transitioned from TV to feature films, like his role as Buck Williams in Tribulation Force. Sure, he’s said some hateful things about gay people, but he said it out of love. That’s a much better life than getting arrested for DUIs.
I myself was a child star. Not nearly as popular as someone like Hannah Montana, but I was very well-known as a talented organ grinder. I toured through several towns to sold out shows. When organ grinding became less popular and I couldn’t find work, I entered a dark period I would prefer not to discuss. But now everything is okay!
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing a smudge.