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The media certainly was problematic in terms of their handling of a young Brooke Shields. This includes how they spoke about her infamous Calvin Klein photoshoot when she was just 15 years old. All of this is thoughtfully dissected in her 2023 two-part documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. The project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of its release on Hulu.
Shields, however, chose not to take creative control of the documentary, which sparked a lot of buzz due to some rather gutwrenching revelations revealed within. Instead, the two-parter was helmed by director Lana Wilson, the woman responsible for the acclaimed Taylor Swift Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. The documentary, therefore, has a far less biased perspective... and arguably a more effective one in terms of revealing the project's deeper meaning.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brooke Shields revealed the true reason why she surrendered much, if not all, of the creative control to Wilson.
Why Brooke Shields Didn't Want Creative Control Over Her Documentary
Usually, when a celebrity is involved in the creation of a documentary about their lives, they maintain a significant amount of creative control. While this tends to provide viewers with a far more biased story, it's also understandable. What person wouldn't want to control the narrative of their life? But in her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, acclaimed actor and model Brooke Shields revealed that she wanted to step away from manipulating the account of her life and career.
During her interview, Shields admitted that she had been approached multiple times to do a documentary.
"It didn’t feel like the right entities for whatever the reason, and it also felt too soon, in many ways," Brooke Shields explained to The Hollywood Reporter. "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."
Because the two-part documentary is about more than just her life (more on that later), Shields felt far more comfortable relinquishing control and opening herself up.
"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," Shields continued.
"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.'"
Brooke Shields went on to say that she handed director Lana Wilson all of the material and simply walked away.
"[I] said, 'Your narrative and your point of view is a huge piece of this.' I’m a conduit to a bigger conversation."
As to why she didn't demand creative control, Sheilds said the following:
"If I go in and say, 'Show that interview!' then it’s all about me and my own ego. At the beginning of the process, I stepped very far away, ego-wise and emotionally. This was not going to be a retrospective of all the [career] highlights. This is actually something bigger. I wanted to hand over the archives and say, 'The story will evolve from you watching this and from the narrative that you, as a director, are wanting to tell. It’s not for me to decide.'"
What Is The Deeper Meaning Behind Brooke Shields's Documentary Pretty Baby?
During her interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brooke Shields claimed that her documentary is about far more than just her experiences in Hollywood.
"It’s a larger conversation on the sexualization of young women. Myself being at the eye of that storm on many different levels throughout the decades. I’ve been a part of the conversation — or maybe not even a part of the conversation, but part of the focus — and that narrative itself has changed over time, depending on outside influences and the era," Shields explained. "I’m now a mother of two young women, and the conversation we have around sexuality is very different today than it was. There was hardly any conversation about it, to me personally, when I was a child."
Shields went on to say that she doesn't believe it's her job to try and change people's minds or alter the way that Hollywood treats young women. Instead, sharing her story was about dealing with the "guilt" and learning how to process her experience; most notably the horrific incident that received the most media coverage following the release of the documentary. But it's also about letting others know that they are not alone in their struggle.
"I wanted to share this story with other men and women who might possibly be struggling or trying to survive this, hoping that at least if I share the incident and the story then it helps others to work through whatever they need to work through. I’m hoping to be that type of an advocate."
Shields is doing just that by having learned to "maintain" her truth and then "deliver" it.
"I’ve been ready my whole life, and I’ve had a lot of practice," she said to The Hollywood Reporter.
Fortunately, she was egoless enough to do so by handing the reigns over to someone who she trusted to tell an unbiased, emotionally raw, and moving story that has resonated with fans. And while Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields deals with a lot of pretty horrible things, as well as dives into tricky subjects, it's also an account of the positive experiences she has had.
"Despite it all, I love to be in this industry. It’s a gift to be excited about what I do. I’m not really dreading any part of it because, to me, the story is so much bigger," Brooke Shields admitted to The Hollywood Reporter. "I’m so proud of looking at my body of work and saying, "I accomplished that and I kept learning and I kept growing.' I’m still here."
