Well, this is gross. While the boy was meeting the world, the girl was meeting the much grosser parts of Hollywood.
Danielle Fishel opened up about being sexualized as a young woman on the classic sitcom Boy Meets World last week — and unfortunately it went far beyond teens her own age!
In a recent episode of Pod Meets World, the rewatch podcast Danielle does with co-stars Rider Strong and Will Friedle, guests Ceej and TJ of the Bruh Meets World podcast had some intense questions! One was about what it was like for the trio to be “an object of desire at such a young age.” Obviously everyone on the show was the subject of thousands of crushes by young viewers. That kind of thing can really mess with your head!
Related: Brooke Shields Reveals SHOCKING Story Behind Nude Child Photos — And More!
But Danielle’s answer was a lot worse than any of the guys expected. She began:
“As a kid, I always wanted to be older. I always wanted to be an adult, I wanted to be seen as an adult and so getting adult male attention as a teenage girl… I didn’t think of it as being creepy or weird. It felt like it was validation that I was mature and I was an adult and I was capable and that they were seeing me the way I was, not for the number on a page. And in hindsight, that is absolutely wrong.”
Yeah, unfortunately that’s probably how a LOT of teenagers feel. It’s not until they’re adults that they understand the power dynamic issues — and how much of a kid they still were, even in their teens. She continued:
“I’ve always been able to hold a conversation with an adult. I can look you in the eye, I’ve always been those things but in a romantic, male gaze sense I should not have been outwardly talked about at 14, 15, 16 years old.”
Topanga inspiring googly eyes among her peers was one thing, but being lusted after by adults? Big ick! And the craziest thing? These guys felt comfortable telling her about it!!! She revealed:
“Even directly to me, I had people tell me they had my 18th birthday on their calendar.”
Yeah… Not hard to believe as we all heard about that website and those t-shirts celebrating the day the Olsen Twins turned 18. And they started on TV as BABIES.
Most disturbingly for Danielle was when a Disney boss told her to her face that he had her calendar. And not just that…
“I had a male executive, I did a calendar [shoot] at 16, and he specifically told me he had a certain calendar month in his bedroom.”
WTF?!?
Unfortunately, as Danielle recalled about her teen perspective — she didn’t even know to be horribly grossed out and offended! She told the gang:
“And at the time, my first thought was a little bit like ‘oh’ — but the immediate thought after that was, ‘Yes, because we are peers and this is how you relate to peers.’”
Rider and Will agreed, confirming it was “totally normal” to hear adults on the production discuss their sex lives — and even talk about “how hot the guest stars” were that week. Since most of the guest stars were also teens, that’s pretty foul.
It’s only been in the last few years that Danielle has been able to “connect the dots” and realize how much the sexualization at such a young age affected her. She said she ended up being “bad at boundaries” and had “absolutely no expectations of how you’re supposed to talk to me, of how you’re supposed to treat me.” She felt much more confident in her boundaries when they filmed Girl Meets World — something she says was “37 years in the making.”
What do YOU think of Topanga’s teen sexualization by adults?? You can listen to the full discussion HERE!
[Image via Pod Meets World/YouTube/Disney+.]
