Over the weekend, actress Eliza Dushku posted on Facebook about the alleged abuse she suffered on the set of 1994 film True Lies, claiming that one of the film's stunt coordinators groomed and abused her during the film's production.
Yesterday, the film's director, James Cameron, issued a statement denying knowledge of and condemning the abuse and yesterday, Jamie Lee Curtis, the film's female lead, wrote an op-ed for Huffington Post discussing the responsibility of playing a mother on screen and expressing the shock and sadness she felt upon hearing Dushku's story.
After revealing that Dushku had shared the story with her privately a few years ago, she shared a story of implementing a swear jar on the set of My Girl to protect the young Macauley Culkin and Anna Chlumsky from hearing bad language, saying:
"I was so conscious of my adult self and foibles that I implemented the use of a swear can on the set of 'My Girl.' I knew that we had children present and that adult language was inappropriate. Naturally, I was the biggest contributor to the can and handed Macauley and Anna the lucrative contents on their last day."
Curtis then went on to state that all adult performers must take responsibility for how they treat their young co-stars, and never forget they are working with children no matter how adult they seem.
"All of us must take some responsibility that the loose and relaxed camaraderie that we share with our young performers has carried with it a misguided assumption that they are adults in an adult world, capable of making adult choices. Many of us involved in “True Lies” were parents. Jim, Arnold and myself. Parents of daughters. What allegedly happened to Eliza, away from the safety net of all of us and our purview is a terrible, terrible thing to learn about and have to reconcile.
"The truth will set us all free. Hopefully that freedom will bring a new ability to call out abuse and, when that abuse occurs, to have swift and consistent action, so that no one again will have to wait 25 years for their truth to be heard."
Curtis's full op-ed can be read here. Already in a moment of reckoning, Hollywood will now also have to deal with the treatment of children working in the film industry.