You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Child Labour Laws and the Entertainment Industry
It's a shame this didn't kick up more discussion. I like the irony of the question posed.
For me it's like, many things, a good/bad balance. There are a lot of tales of child actors taking up drugs, falling apart, etc. However, there are also child actors who with a good supportive family did just fine. They're just not as interesting to talk about. There are also kids from every walk of life who end up addicts or falling apart. There are child entrepreneurs who became wealthy from making their own business; could that be classed as child labour? Where do we draw a line?
Oh and if you think the government are the best people to deal with protecting children, have a look at some of the stories @familyprotection. It makes you think.
You make some great points, especially as to whether the government is actually capable of even doing the job. I have no idea how or where the line would/should be drawn as far as children being able to enter the workforce.
How's this for an anecdote though? I was working, doing sound at a gig only 2 nights ago and there was a young kid who came up to my boss and I at the front of house and was just standing there watching for a while, so we started chatting to him and he told us that he owned his own sound and lighting company and had been running it for a year and was doing quite well. I let him have a go on the lighting console and he was really good at it! The guy was 13 years old and he was killing it! He clearly really enjoyed what he was doing and it was evident that this was something he himself genuinely wanted to pursue, to which I say "kudos kid!" If he keeps it up he will undoubtedly be one of the best in the biz in no time. I don't feel that there is anything wrong with that, in fact I think it's fantastic. But is there a way of finding this stuff out on a case by case basis? Should there be some kind of psychological analysis to find out whether the child themselves actually wants to do the work? Again, regardless of whether the child wants to do it at that time, are they actually emotionally mature enough to make that decision? In this specific situation that seemed to be the case but we can't see the future. This of course isn't really taking into account whether dance festivals are really an appropriate place for children to be anyways, but I guess if they are gonna be there at all, it's probably better that they are behind the desk working and not in the crowd getting wasted...Haha there are a lot of facets to this which is why I thought it would be a cool discussion to open up.
What a great anecdote! A whole can of worms isn't it?! We don't always want to take the time to delve into things on a case by case approach, so it's easier to try and make a box to put things in.
It was a fantastic discussion to open up, just a shame it didn't attract more attention.
Thank you for replying despite it being an old post.