Getting home from school and sitting in front of the TV to watch Nickelodeon shows was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. I’d sit down with my snack and watch iCarly or Drake and Josh for the rest of the night before my mom made me go to bed. This is a shared memory for a lot of kids in my generation.
Since the recent show “Quiet on Set” has been published, a darker reality of the treatment of child actors from fan favorite shows is now in the public light. People realized what they thought was a fun, silly kids environment was not at all the reality of what happened behind the scenes.
Drake Bell, a famous child actor who starred in “Drake and Josh”, was interviewed on “Quiet on Set” and exposed the evil things that happened to him concerning his acting coach, Brian Peck. Brian manipulated his way into Drake’s life and gained his trust over time to the point where, in between auditions, Drake would be sleeping at Brian’s house. This lead to a series of horrifying sexual abuse events at only the young age of 12.
The Hollywood industry is merciless in the sense that if you say the wrong thing, your whole career can be over in seconds because the higher producers hold so much power. Drake said he was terrified to speak up about what was happening until convinced to do so by his ex-girlfriends mom. In his case he was identified as John Doe and never spoke about his abuse until interviewed on “Quiet on Set”.
Dan Schneider was one of the main producers working at Nickelodeon and is most known for his ability to create such popular kids shows that almost everyone has seen. People have started to question his choice of scenes specifically with Ariana Grande who starred on “Sam and Cat” and “Victorious”.
In one scene, he films Ariana Grande pouring water all over herself on her bed in a tank top. Looking back at it, it’s clear that there were hidden sexual elements that kids would not notice. He also films her squeezing a potato in her hands trying to “squirt water” from it. This scene is quite disturbing when Ariana was only 15.
Jennette McCurdy, who starred on “ICarly”, has also spoken up about abuse and sexual intentions coming from Dan Schneider on set. She says that Dan would ask the female actors and staff to massage him everyday during filming, her being one of the girls he asked multiple times. She also alleges that he pressured her to drink alcohol as a minor and constantly made sexual comments to all the girls and women. She has published a book called “I’m Glad My Mom Died” exposing more events that she witnessed on set with Dan Schneider.
Children actors are crucial to creating a show with specific age needs but the way that they have been treated is not appropriate. The fact that children are scared to speak up about their abuse because of the fear of their career being over is unbelievable. A set should be a safe space where kids can have fun and be themselves without the pressure and fear from threatening producers.
Nickelodeon has stated that they have made changes to the guidelines of set behavior to better protect the child actors after these events were exposed. Time will tell whether they really enforce these guidelines or if the past repeats itself again.
