OpinionsEditorials

Child stars deserve extra protection

Child stars Todd Bridges and Corey Feldman, although gone from the public eye for a while, are back in the spotlight. The two former child actors have decided to back a bill that requires talent managers, photographers and everyone whose job involves unsupervised access to child performers to provide fingerprints and submit to criminal background checks.

According to a Los Angeles Times article, a similar measure was proposed in 2006 and died in the Senate. However, due to two separate incidents that happened late last year the measure was proposed again in 2011.

In November, Martin Weiss, a talent manager who specialized in representing young actors, was arrested on suspicion of child molestation.

Two weeks later, police arrested Jason James Murphy, a film casting associate working with young actors under the name Jason James.

Murphy has been charged with failing to file a name change with authorities and government, so to alert them that he had been convicted of child molestation and abduction 15 years ago, according the Los Angeles Times article.

Bills like this need to be passed to protect the children who go into entertainment.

Once they sign their name on the dotted line, it is up to the studios to ensure that they are not taken advantage of by the adults around them.

In the past, child stars have been stereotyped to have a laundry list of problems.

From getting involved in lifestyles that include drinking and drug use to going to rehabilitation centers, the public takes their problems for granted and leaves them for the gossip rags to attack and feed off of.

However, for many of the child stars these negative outlets are in response to their childhoods being taken over by studios.

Their childhoods were not only taken away, but there is a chance that they were molested by one of the managers assigned to them.

Often times, like in the case of Feldman and Bridges, children are so scared by the experiences that they do not come forward.

They are left to deal with the problem on their own without a clear answer as to who they can turn to in their time of need.

With this bill in place and passed into law, it will protect children and give their parents and the studios a place for the children to go if a case of molestation arises.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

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