Yikes! Sounds like Bella Thorne was getting sexualized from both directions when she was a kid!
The former child star found a kindred spirit in Emily Ratajkowski — and really unloaded on her High Low podcast this week. We already heard the story of how she was rejected by a potential director because he thought she was “flirting with him.” Despite the fact she was only 10 years old at the time. Gross.
But she told another story about being sexualized in a different way. This was after she’d gotten her breakout role on The Disney Channel‘s hit sitcom Shake It, in which she starred alongside Zendaya from 2010 to 2013. It turns out Disney — you know, the company conservatives keep ragging on for being so “woke”? — had values more in common with the weirdos from 19 Kids and Counting.
Related: Bella Gets Real About Disney’s Impossible Image Standards
She recalled bitterly of a time her career almost got derailed because she acted like a normal teenage girl:
“One time I almost got fired off the Disney Channel because I was 14, and I wore a two-piece on the beach.”
Say what?! Fired for wearing a bikini?? She continued:
“This stylist that I was hanging out with put this chain on me that’s, like, a body chain. I don’t know? I don’t care. There was a fan, they got a photo of me on the beach. I almost got fired.”
Why would Disney fire her for being photographed wearing a bikini… at the beach??
“It was all over the media, it was literally viral in that time. It was, ‘How dare this little girl do this? This is so disgusting.’”
Gross.
Reacting with this kind of pearl-clutching and censorship is in some ways just as bad as reacting lasciviously towards a young woman just for showing some skin. Obviously the latter is ickier up front. But they both send the same disturbing psychological message: “Your female existence is inherently sexually arousing and being judged by its effect on men.” It’s still sexualization of a child’s body. In the case of the overly offended stance, it’s also telling you that you should be ashamed. And that can also have negative longterm effects on a young woman’s self worth.
Still, those vocally outraged folks — who she says were “putting Disney under pressure” to fire her — scared the Mouse House into going full Duggar on Bella. She recalled:
“They were like, ‘Hey, we’re getting a lot of heat for this. Everyone’s getting heat for this because you’re in a bikini on a beach, so she needs to make sure she goes out in boy shorts and a loose t-shirt next time she’s at the beach.’”
Again, gross. Telling her she needs to cover up like a nun because her body will offend people? It’s just sexualizing from the other direction.
See more of Bella’s talk with EmRata (below)!
[Image via Disney/YouTube/Bella Thorne/Instagram.]
