People Need To Stop Being Creeps About Millie Bobby Brown

Millie Bobby Brown has been famous for most of her life, and growing up in the spotlight means she has become a magnet for a lot of creepy bullsh*t. As with many a child star, particularly the female ones, she was both heavily sexualized and infantilized by the press. Losers on social media made up homophobic ‘jokes’ about her. Her turning 18 was treated like a free-for-all by paparazzi and perverts. She’s only 21 and the grossness has only gotten worse.

In recent years, Brown’s fashion choices have made her a popular punching bag as well as a topic of ‘concern’ over whether or not she’s being styled too maturely for her age. She’s also become the poster child for this weird assertion that ‘Gen Z is ageing poorly.’ Now, Brown has had enough of this crap and took to Instagram to share her feelings. And she named names.

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She called out specific journalists (many of whom, shockingly, write for the Daily Mail), adding:

‘Let’s talk about the articles, the headlines, the people who are so desperate to tear young women down. ‘Why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown ageing so badly?’ by Lydia Hawken. ‘What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face?’ by John Ely. ‘Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone’s mom as she guides younger sister Ava through LA’ by Cassie Carpenter. ‘Little Britain’s Matt Lucas takes savage swipe at Millie Bobby Brown’s new “mommy makeover” look’—written by Bethan Edwards, amplifying an insult rather than questioning why a grown man is mocking a young woman’s appearance. This isn’t journalism. This is bullying. The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, it’s disturbing. The fact that some of these articles are written by women? Even worse’

It’s pretty revealing to see the words laid out like that. It’s that insidious mixture of shaming, fake concern, and pretending that you’re examining a trend or just asking questions while highlighting the most leading and cruel headlines. Imagine taking anything Matt Lucas, a man with a history of Blackface, seriously, or pretending it’s good journalism to amplify him without a critical gaze.

What is it about Brown wanting to dress as she pleases that is so mind-boggling to hellsites like the Daily Mail? Their perennial quest for the nastiest content possible means that they view everything and everyone as fair game, but particularly young women in the public eye. They’re notorious for their ghoulish combination of slut-shaming and sexualizing of kids. How many headlines with the term ‘all grown up’ have they published about people under the age of 18? I shudder to think.

And here, we have a young woman who became very famous at a very young age. She entered adolescence as the world watched and she grew into adulthood with every moment of her teen years visible to the planet. Did they want her to stay young and ignorant? Honestly, I think so, at least on some level. I 100% believe the press wants her to stay as baby-faced as possible, to be someone they can simultaneously fetishize and scold as though she’s an eternal teenager. This is nothing new. When Emma Watson turned 18, the press fell over themselves to creep over her because it was now legal. Charlotte Church has talked about how difficult it was for her when photographers would trail her around town as she tried to do the kinds of things that all teens do, but be scolded for it. The Jenner sisters were shamed for ‘acting older’ than their ages but that didn’t stop newspapers from printing photos that could be described as ‘racy.’

Could you blame Brown if she wanted to dress more maturely? She’s 21 and knows that a hell of a lot of photographers could make big money with an upskirt shot or something along those grotesque lines. Besides, who didn’t experiment with their style and makeup when they were 21?

Also, can we stop it with the ‘Gen Z is ageing bad’ crap? It’s bad enough that ‘preventative Botox’ and buccal fat and the ‘morning shed’ are inescapable. Can we not give young people complexes by declaring that they’re doomed to look like hideous crones? Ageing happens to us all and we should stop demonizing it, because the last thing this terrifying timeline needs is a generation of people afraid to smile or spending all their money on fillers before they’re old enough to drink. The Substance was not an instructional guide!

It’s sad how much Brown’s words remind us that the media has not only learned nothing from history, from Madonna to Britney to Meghan but that they’re proud in their exploration and degradation of young women. The business model never changed. It just became easier to spin it all into #content.