​Brooke Shields agreed to participate in a doc about her life and career not because of what it would say about her, but for what it could say through her — namely, a discussion about the sexualization of young girls.
By now, the celebrity bio-doc is well-trod territory, but Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, which premieres Jan. 20 at the Sundance Film Festival, aspires to be more than a career retrospective. “I’m not interested in famous-person problems. What I am interested in is how fame can amplify and supercharge relatable problems,” says director Lana Wilson, who most recently directed the Taylor Swift Netflix doc Miss Americana. “[Brooke’s] life has been extreme and utterly unique, but her experience of being a woman in America is horrifyingly relatable.”

The doc, which sometime after its Sundance debut will be released in two parts on Hulu, draws its name from Louis Malle’s 1978 drama that, while critically acclaimed, was widely criticized for featuring child prostitution and a nude preteen Shields. The doc’s archival work includes magazine covers with headlines like, “I’m Shocked by the Child Who Drives Men Crazy” (Shields was 9 at the time) and a parade of clips of male late night hosts questioning a prepubescent Shields about her sexuality in the wake of Pretty Baby. This is intercut with talking-head academics and sociologists who offer historical and cultural context about the objectification of girls.
“To me, that felt like a much more intelligent, interesting way to approach a story — a person, a journey — through the lens of the changing climate and where we are today,” Shields says.
Of course, Pretty Baby, which counts Alexandra Wentworth and George Stephanopoulos as executive producers, does document Shields’ life, from her relationship with her mother, Teri Shields, to her friendship with Michael Jackson and a decades-spanning career that includes touchstones like 1980’s The Blue Lagoon, her iconic Calvin Klein ads and her later TV career with the sitcom Suddenly Susan. And, for the first time, she chooses to discuss a sexual assault by an unnamed Hollywood professional in a hotel room when she was in her 20s, after graduating from Princeton University, and experiencing a career lull.
“It was quite expanding to me to look at all of it, in its entirety, and be proud of who I am and how I’ve evolved,” says Shields, who talked to THR ahead of Pretty Baby’s Park City premiere.
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Why was now the right time to make a documentary?
I have been approached multiple times, and it didn’t feel like the right entities for whatever the reason, and it also felt too soon, in many ways. On all the other situations, they either felt premature or they felt like they were coming at my story from the wrong direction. [This direction] took it out of the realm of just biopic.
Did you know what you wanted to relay to possible viewers heading into the doc?
Not at all. I went in extremely open. I am not the director of it, I’m not the producer. I trust the creative and the intellectual aspect of what that team brings to it. I got out of their way. I spent an extraordinary amount of time just talking and sharing the extensive archives that I had unbelievably finished the process of digitizing. My mother saved everything, so the material goes so far back. I’ve been around since quarter-inch, Beta[max], reel to reel. I figured, rather than it all disintegrating, I would go through the expense and the process of digitizing it. So when they came to me with a documentary, [I said] “I happen to have some materials.” (Laughs.)

The taxpayers of NYC pay xxxx. each day to prosecute misdemeanors.  

1/2 get thown out

90% of the remaining 1/2 are forced into accepting a plea.