EP1 – Not so Quiet on Set

Today we dissect the Quiet on Set documentary series and look at what it explores and what it leaves out. We go on to discuss Dan Schneider’s response, some of the cast who feel exploited by the documentary and the original expose doco, An Open Secret (2014)

Scroll down for the full episode transcript notes.

Speaker 1 00:08
Are we amusing ourselves to death, as Neil Postman once argued, or as Bell and Ted once said, I believe our adventure through time has taken a most serious turn. The City of Dreams is already a nightmare. Dark Alleyways, a screen and media podcast, identifies the concerns, idiocy, and serious side of Hollywood and the industry. 

Speaker 2 00:38
Okay, so this is our first episode of the Dark Alleys podcast, and we're diving straight into a very dark subject matter, but something that's actually gotten quite popular since the series Quiet On Set has released. I'm here with my fellow co-hosts. We've got Alex. Hello. And we've got Marina. Hi. And what we'll be looking at is the content of the show, but I think what a lot of us are more interested in is what the show maybe left out, what some of the context that's missing from it, but also... what this says about the wider industry in general. So before we start off, I just want to clarify, because this is something that's come up over the last, I don't know, five to six years about whether, you know, this issue of how children are treated, especially in, you know, in the media circles, it's treated as some kind of, you know, what's being said is like a conspiracy. But then when we explored this, what we found is there's nothing conspiratorial about this at all. We're looking at an industry where... regulations and standards are relaxed for the sake of prioritizing profit. And in that process, that just means it's easier for people who are abusers to maneuver themselves through. And again, because money is prioritized, the welfare of children takes a backseat, along with the welfare of a lot of adults. So we are looking at it from that angle. Why don't we go a little bit backward and focus on... Some of the stuff that came out from episodes one, two and three. So of course the focus for the shows were Dan Schneider, but also some of the actors who came out. Now these shows, have you guys watched? I watched some of these shows when I was younger. So I've seen the Amanda Show, Drake and Josh. What was the other one? All That. Now I remember that one. And there's a few others which I haven't seen like Zoey 101, iCarly. So are you guys familiar with any of these shows? 

Speaker 0 02:28
All That I know. It's like the Saturday Night Live version for kids. 

Speaker 1 02:33
I've read about them, but I was probably about 10 years older. Um, so I'm more the early nineties, eighties. So it kind of missed me, but I, I know Amanda Bynes. I know all the characters, but didn't, didn't watch it. 

Speaker 0 02:52
Yeah. So with what the, um, what Quiet On Set was showing us was that there's a number of scenes in a number of these TV shows where there's almost like these sexual innuendos that are associated with what the characters are doing on screen. The famous, the one that opened the show was Brian Grande, who I actually hadn't seen what she was in. She might have come out a little bit later. But she was a teenage girl. And I think, you know the scene where she's upside down in the bed pouring water on herself? Alex, you must have seen that. Yes. Yeah, so I think it's also because, you know, if we look at it back then. What people must have thought of it back then, I don't know, especially when it's made for children. So what would children think of it versus what adults are watching? 

Speaker 1 03:37
But that's the thing, though. That's the psychological aspect because kids watching it would not have seen it as sexualized. But subconsciously, it is a sexualized act or it could have been pursued as a sexualized act. So they may not have realized at the time, may have thought it was perfectly normal to behave like that. And then. to reenact it or when it is done to them at a later stage, it's perfectly normal. 

Speaker 0 04:06
That sounds like grooming. 

Speaker 1 04:08
It is totally grooming. 

Speaker 0 04:09
It's, oh God, imagine that you're grooming millions of children through a TV set. 

Speaker 1 04:14
I think it's horrible brilliance what they've done. And yeah, because they've been able to go to the masses, like even with the aspect of, you know, parents are bad. Don't trust your parents. If you have a look. at the the shows now I haven't I haven't watched them when I was younger but I've been able to watch a few since then and you have a look at it from a different set of eyes and you will find that they're subliminally telling you that um parents are not to be trusted parents aren't the right people to go to if something goes wrong and um that you in itself is subliminal and you're speaking to teenagers that already hate their mum and dads and you are exacerbating that. 

Speaker 0 05:08
Yeah, I think that's, that's a kind of, especially now when we look at something like that few decades later, you know, we sort of tend to reassess. 

Speaker 1 05:17
And I think that's what's happening with, with those scenes. And I think the goo scene and you know, the water scene. 

Speaker 0 05:25
Yeah. Just to give it a bit more, just to give a bit more meat to it. So some of the allegations against Dan Schneider. were that he was requesting massages from his people who work for him on set. He was making inappropriate requests of his female writers. Some of them included like expecting them to bend over a desk and pretend as if they're being sodomized and to pitch their ideas. He also said things like, you know, women aren't funny. So the other allegations are... That he got made, so far what we know, the women writers on the show split salaries. So that is something which we'll talk about later, his response. So splitting salaries is basically hiring two women for the same pay. 

Speaker 2 06:14
Let's talk about it now. Let's talk about it now. Like with, especially when he's come out with that interview with Terrence Bowe, where he addressed that. 

Speaker 0 06:29
It's very simple. There's a common practice in television when hiring writers. If you have a spot for a new writer, sometimes you'll go to two writers and say, hey, if you two new writers for your first job are willing to share a salary, you can both have the job. They have the opportunity to say, yes, that sounds good or no, no, thank you. So he says that it wasn't his decision about the funding. He says that there were occasions where men had to split it, a man and a woman had to split it, and also women and women had to split it. So in his mindset, he was defending the decision saying there was a systematic way of saying, hey, we're always going to split it when it's two women writers. Because that was just a decision that he followed through based on what his superiors told him, which I imagine would be the production outfit that was running the show and providing the money and possibly even bosses and bosses above Nickelodeon, who were never going to spin specific names. No. 

Speaker 2 07:24
Because I tried to find it and no. 

Speaker 1 07:28
Yeah, he won't name names because to be honest. 

Speaker 2 07:30
He wants to work again. 

Speaker 1 07:32
Well, that too. And he may not even know who they are, you know. 

Speaker 2 07:35
That's true. But what he basically says, if he's trying to say, oh, it wasn't me, I didn't do anything. If this is normal. Well, that means he's indicting the entire industry, industry saying that if this is normal, that you can split salaries, basically underpay people for their work. That means it's, it's not just a him problem. It's an industry problem. 

Speaker 1 07:52
Yeah. Look, uh, I, in his defense, right. And I don't necessarily agree, but if there is an obvious issue where constantly there's right of positions that come up and it's constantly two women splitting it up, we've got a problem there, right? Because it's consistent. There's a pattern here. But if there's other cases where if you go back and look and go, if the majority is women or if at least, you know, there's enough there to show that it's happening on both sides of the field, you know, the best way to get this guy is like, okay, that's fine. But this whole anecdote or story about, you know, women having to like... Pretend they're being sodomized to throw a pitch. Did you ask any guys to do that? Yeah. If you didn't, then why are you just asking women? I mean-That's what I would pursue. If we're going to talk about, you know, a response here, which they never brought up. 

Speaker 2 08:36
Yeah. Which they didn't in the show. I mean, to be fair, it's bad if it's mostly men or mostly women that have to split salaries. Like that, as workers, no one should be underpaid for their work. No. 

Speaker 1 08:46
Unless it's job share and it's agreed upon, you know, and in some circumstances, that's a part of a flexible workplace. 

Speaker 2 08:51
Yeah, part-time. 

Speaker 0 08:53
Depending on what the writing requires. Yeah. Yes, that is definitely going to be an issue. 

Speaker 2 08:56
I kind of also wonder whether they've actually done anything about it in the industry. Or is it still continuing? And if it's still continuing, maybe it's time to relook and cease that type of operation. 

Speaker 1 09:10
It's hard because I know that in some cases, if you're dealing with a variety show where you may have multiple writers doing multiple skits, you can't just hire 10 or 15 people on a full salary. So... In theory, what you say is like, yes, everyone should have one person per job. But if you've got any sort of shows that are variety shows that Nickelodeon did do quite a bit of that were skip based, there needs to be a different sort of model. And I'm not sure what that is. Contract. Yeah. It could be like based on the hours you work, you know, or whatever, which could be even a worse deal in some cases. Because if you split up by like, if you've got 15 or 20 writers and each person's doing a skip, you might get, ooh, that's a bad deal. So I'm not sure what the answer to that one is. Um, but I think we can all agree that if it's just like a, like a scripted show, then I don't think there's any reason why you should split that. Unless you all agree that you do half a season, half a season and it's consistent. I don't know. That's just thinking out loud. 

Speaker 2 10:07
I think it's also now with, I won't go too much into it, but with the rise of streaming and recently they had the writer's strike last year. I think that's changed the game, especially for writers. They've obviously been fighting to get better conditions for themselves at a time when residuals are the things that keep them going. So in this instance, it'll be interesting. I think that's something we should keep an eye on, especially how writers are treated in the industry, the rise of the threat. and rise of AI is one thing. But the other thing is that writers have been, you know, they've been struggling for a long time in order to get fairly compensated for their work. So yeah, I think when it comes to this situation, because again, going back to Schneider, basically saying that this was a normal thing to do. So the fact that he could say that, and I even tried to look it up. I'm like, is there any pushback on what he said? And is anybody else disagreeing? 

Speaker 1 11:01
Yeah, but this is Is he just merely the representative and the piñata saying what the whole industry is about? And if he is, then we're going after the wrong target. Yeah. He's a symptom of it. We've got to go after the big honchos. 

Speaker 0 11:14
Yeah, I think we should. But before we go on to the bigger honchos, let's just cover a few more things that the show brought up, which the other one was, of course, the treatment of children on set. Oh, yeah. Now, Marina, I think we'll speak about this a bit more in detail, but you said you watched a lot of shows from the 80s, the early 90s. Now, there's stuff that's come out about the treatment of children on the shows then. And you would think that, especially for the last, you know, like five, six decades, the amount of changes that would have been brought in for labor laws to make sure that children aren't put at risk or anything like that on set, you think it would have improved. Do you think, like, there was much of a difference between what you'd heard about in the 80s maybe and... See. 

Speaker 2 11:59
I mean, back then I was like... 12 so um i wouldn't have heard much behind the scenes um from what i saw watching the shows you would have no idea but what i find really interesting though it comes in waves because in the 80s um and probably early 90s you had a lot of shows that were like very family family oriented so you had like family ties yeah grain pains who's boss and they were like very very family you know Oriented and wholesome. Wholesome. That was the word I was looking for. Whereas when you get to iCarly and Drake and Josh and all that sort of stuff, it was like mateship. And parents weren't really around. I think there was full house at the time. Oh, yeah. But even then, one of the fathers, I think Bob. Saget. Saget. He was on the show and he was accused after he. passed away, um, of, um, molestation and sexual stuff. But I don't think that actually, this is all allegedly, but allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. 

Speaker 0 13:12
I didn't even know about this. 

Speaker 1 13:14
Yeah. Yeah. No. Um, go have a look. 

Speaker 0 13:17
I do remember that. Um, what is the actress Jodie Sweetin? I think she was the middle daughter. Yes. 

Speaker 1 13:22
She had issues. 

Speaker 2 13:23
She had issues, including like she admitted like, you know, she was, um, had issues with drugs. Mm. stuff like that. But there was also allegations that came out of the Full House set about the what was appropriate behavior, like the presence of drugs, the presence of pornography. And that was a set that had children, not just teenage teenagers, but very young, like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, where, you know, they started out as babies on the show. Yeah. And they grew up on the show. And if you look at, oh, even I think both of them went through their own sort of roller coaster, I guess to put it mildly. But, you know, you know what happens to child actors? It's become like a trope now. Like if you look at what quite on set, like some of the actors we bring out from that. So the primary ones being Amanda Bynes, there's Drake Bell. Those are the ones who we saw, specifically Amanda Bynes, go quote unquote off the rails. And she had a very public meltdown. I forgot which year. I remember the year that happened. And I don't want to go too much into the details about it because it's actually quite sad when you look back at it because everyone is making fun of her. And she's not the only one. Lots of people, especially the way the media and the studios craft the message is, you can even include people all the way from Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, there's all these ones who, because remember like Britney and all that were from Disney, they were children like child stars with them. And when these kids go off the rails, the studios, their way to defend themselves is, oh, this is what, they can't handle the fame. They can't handle all everybody, you know, fawning over them and being yes-men to them. But then when you put it into this context, they're clearly finding a way to deal with a trauma they've experienced. It doesn't mean you have to be sexually assaulted, but if you are exposed to things that you shouldn't be as a child, that's going to come at you at some point later on. And so working with children on set is not something that's just about making sure that they are not overworked past certain hours, but it's really about looking at their long-term health. It's such formative years. Amanda Bynes, there was an interview she did on some chat show where they even asked her, Hey, you know, they compared her to people like Lindsay and Britney and all these other people and said, unlike them, you haven't gone off the rails. You've been very quiet. And yeah, she was like, yeah, you know, I like to keep it like low profile. And then a few years later, she goes off the rails. So it's usually what happens with trauma is you bottle it up for as long as you can and then it just explodes. And that's why the treatment of children on set is not just about what happens in the moment, but should be seen as a long term thing. 

Speaker 0 15:48
It's probably a combination of things that are going on here. Not that I'm a psychoanalyst or anything, but. Two things that spring to my mind is one, as a child, you're not being a child when you're working. And number two, you're living in an alternate reality where everything is very highly structured. It's almost similar to sport. You know, you get a lot of young sports people and everything is managed for them because they need to focus on training and everything. So they have people that look after what they eat, where they need to be, what sort of sponsorships they're dealing with. It's almost like they're infantilized, you know, and then suddenly when... all that structure is taken away and all those support people of you know your PA and everyone else that organizes stuff for you they can't function because they're out they don't have that regimentation anymore so of course what happens with idle hands you do things you probably shouldn't do and you probably listen to people you shouldn't you know and this is probably where things go astray and also you know as a kid your expectations are probably very high about your ongoing future But you don't realize that just like sports people, you have a limited lifespan unless you can show that you have other merit to your abilities, you know, to transform into something else, you know, whether it's a mature actor or anything else that goes with that. So yeah, no wonder you get that sort of business going down. 

Speaker 2 17:06
We've also got to remind ourselves that in the eighties and nineties, where this, all this stuff happened was before social media, it was before YouTube, before someone could jump onto YouTube and become super famous. Like you had to be on iCarly. You had to be on, um. 

Speaker 0 17:26
Zoe. Mass media. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 17:30
So you had to be on mass media to, um, to be famous. Now it's disseminated and now I'm in control. If I want to be on YouTube, I can do that. So I'll be curious to see how much, um, issues around now compared to what there was in the 1990s. 

Speaker 2 18:00
Yeah, I think social media is another thing that can come into this because now a lot of, you know, back then where, the shows that, you know, that came out in the 90s, 2000s especially, there was the other ones were like Hannah Montana, That's So Raven. So these kinds of shows were again, yeah, your parents, you know, don't really know what's good for you. You know what's good for yourself. But also the whole thing is about wanting to be famous. Like that was the main thing. Like somebody has a secret identity that actually famous or you want to try to get big in some career field. And then after that, you see the explosion, you know, the slowly but surely explosion of influencers through YouTube primarily and then Instagram and then other platforms. And so now we have a situation where as a creator, as a... influence as an actor whatnot you have a bit more control over how you present yourself in public but on top of that but then you know they're saying as if oh this is our authentic self but everybody can tell it's like none of it's authentic in fact authenticity is now a brand on its own yeah and so when it comes to how people can be famous because i think we've talked we're talking about this now about what it was like to have children on set especially on those shows how do you think like We'll be looking at influencers in 20 years'time and seeing, okay, what is it like letting these kids get... Because remember, they're not just influencers on their own screen. They end up... There's a pipeline now from influencers into actors to singers. I think Justin Bieber was the famous YouTube kid that became a singer. 

Speaker 1 19:25
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's not an up-down. Yeah, it's a bit more fluid now. 

Speaker 0 19:29
Yeah. And also people having a lot more access to these entities, even though the whole thing is... completely constructed. Okay, I just want to bring up one more thing from the documentary, which was the use of NDAs. So the non-disclosure agreements. I think this is something that's come up, especially since Me Too exploded in 2017, was the use of NDAs to silence anybody from speaking out. We can talk about women, but it's something that's used across... the industry, multiple industries, but it's basically expected that a lot of people are expected to sign it. And you know, for them, the whole thing is, oh, I need to continue to work. So I need to sign this. And then later on, when you want to speak out about something, you can't. 

Speaker 1 20:16
Yes. And that's what I really admire Jeanette McCurdy about in her book, I'm Glad That Mum Died. She basically said that she was approached by Nickelodeon to pay her off $300,000 just to sign an NDA and keep quiet. And she told him to get stuffed. And I love that. 

Speaker 2 20:42
It takes some guts to do that. 

Speaker 1 20:44
I've been tempted to take the cash. 

Speaker 2 20:46
Lots of people would have. I think, you know, we've got to look at it from a, especially people like, I think Jeanette McCurdy came from like a poor background. Yeah, she did. Yeah. So for a lot of people, they would rather just take the money and help them and their family out and deal with the trauma later. So. It takes quite a bit to do that. I think. 

Speaker 1 21:02
She would have made a bit of money out of the books though. 

Speaker 0 21:04
Oh, she definitely would have. But you know, but it's still at risk. Like, you know, you don't know who's going to read it. Um, especially with such a. 

Speaker 1 21:11
But she doesn't name names. She just calls it the creator, but everyone kind of knows. 

Speaker 2 21:17
Who it is. 

Speaker 0 21:17
Dan. 

Speaker 1 21:18
Dan. Allegedly, allegedly. 

Speaker 2 21:21
Yeah. Um, I think what's interesting is, so Dan Schneider's name came up during Me Too. and he was being investigated by journalists. And it was because there were other content creators on YouTube and people putting up content, looking at all this creepy stuff from Nickelodeon shows that Dan Schneider was a part of. 

Speaker 1 21:39
That's when he got on Quiet On Set. 

Speaker 0 21:41
Yes. Yeah. So that's what later on led to Quiet On Set. So there was already all this information going around. And it was in 2018 when Nickelodeon quietly parted ways with Dan Schneider. So that means he stuck, if he stuck around for that long, you... Because the way this documentary frames it is as if he is the main target where... And look, it's pretty obvious he's an asshole. But what I think the documentary fails to capture and fails to be able to articulate is a more nuanced conversation, which is about the industry behind him, the studio execs, the money behind him that allowed this to happen. It's not like... obviously people that witnessed all this and it wouldn't have just been people who were crew on set. Like even if people raised anything, they would, you know, what would the people who, again, funding it, people who are the executives behind this, for them, because it's all about the money at the end of the day and a lot of these shows and a lot of these young kids made them a lot of money. Dan Schneider made them a lot of money, but so did a lot of these shows and they don't want anything that gets in the way of that. So, I think, yeah, the show, you know, really focused on him. It's almost like Dan Schneider is a convenient scapegoat. Because his, like the stuff was so brazen. People already knew about it in 2018. They were making videos about his gross stuff and his gross behavior. So he became like low hanging fruit. Let's just burn this guy and then they can make a show out of it. But they're not really talking about the figures behind and the money behind it. 

Speaker 2 23:09
Oh, totally. Like Dan Schneider's bosses would have known what an asshole he was. And they would have. heard things there would have been rumors because apparently it was quite known it was like under the cover quite known the fact that they did nothing about it and I would not be surprised if an equivalent of Dan Schneider is in his place allegedly at the moment because they would just place another puppet to yeah sorry they will put another puppet in its place. But with Dan Schneider, though, like the interview with Terrence Bowe, where Dan Schneider was saying, you know, I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology. And Alex and I were talking about it before that he doesn't mention names, but anyone can apologise and not. 

Speaker 0 24:18
It hurts my heart because I should have and I wish I could go back and fix that. In the writer's room, there's no doubt that sometimes those jokes went beyond the pale and I said things that went too far or made practical jokes that went too far. And that was wrong. And that was because, you know, I was an inexperienced producer. I was immature. Wouldn't happen today. But I'm just really sorry it happened. 

Speaker 2 24:42
Yeah. 

Speaker 0 24:44
It's like when you do something bad, you know, we've all done it as kids. growing up with your mum and dad. You do something wrong, what do you say? I'm sorry. Yeah. And you move, and that's it. 

Speaker 2 24:53
Hopefully they move on. 

Speaker 0 24:54
You move on like that. It's almost like a get out of jail free card. Yeah. Now I'm not saying we're insincere when we say we're sorry. And mum and dad, I was truly sorry when I did those things. But we've all done those things that. you know we've kind of just swept aside as a thing i remember my mum once grabbed me and she said sorry's not good enough yeah and i realized that was like oh yeah you're right this is serious sorry yeah so the thing too is he's very smart in the sense of you know the lawyers have said to him you can apologize and you can look good about owning it but don't say specific names don't refer to specific scenarios because that would open him up to a civil case but i i felt like this interview was like. 

Speaker 2 25:33
They sent him a whole bunch of questions and they said, we're just going to like scheme the absolute surface. Whatever you say, we are not going to dive deeper into it. So it was all up. 

Speaker 1 25:45
Tebow had to take that handshake. I mean, here's an opportunity to have someone tell their side of the story, which, you know, I'm always a person of like, give the other side a chance, which the doco did. They reached out to Dan, I believe, but Dan refused to make a comment, maybe on advice by his lawyers. True. But here he's come out and he's done something that's very, you can tell he had the questions in advance. He was ready for everything, ready to go. And Thibaut pushed on a few things, but didn't push on specifics. So yeah. 

Speaker 2 26:13
I mean, I'm going to take it a step further and say, I really think that the reason why, I mean, first of all, it's a softball interview, but the reason why he admitted to certain things, but he's keeping it very surface level, he's not going into details, is because he wants to find a way to resurrect his career. From this, so remember, like, what he's being accused of is bad stuff, but it's not on the Weinstein level. Like, Weinstein, even though, yes, we are recording this in the same week that he was acquitted from, I mean, not acquitted, his appeal was successful from the New York case. He is thoroughly disgraced. Like, he's someone, it's going to be hard for him to rehabilitate his image. But this guy, he has a chance to do that. And so this interview was a chance for him to sort of, because some of the things he brought up in that interview, he mentioned that he was not in charge of hiring anyone. 

Speaker 1 26:59
That I had the power to just produce whatever I wanted and have it is completely false. 

Speaker 2 27:04
Okay. 

Speaker 1 27:04
There were many, many levels of scrutiny. Okay. We had executives in LA. We had executives in New York. 

Speaker 2 27:13
So two coasts. 

Speaker 1 27:14
Two coasts. Okay. 

Speaker 2 27:15
Of approval. 

Speaker 1 27:15
Yes. And by the way, approval at every stage, really. Okay. And I'm talking about wardrobe. I'm talking about makeup, sound, sets, dialogue, jokes, everything. Now. 

Speaker 0 27:25
When you say approval, obviously that's a hierarchy. 

Speaker 1 27:27
Not your... 

Speaker 2 27:28
Colleagues or people in the room. 

Speaker 1 27:29
Okay. No, no, not my colleagues. No, these are my bosses. Bosses and then their bosses and then their bosses. And they're approving all of this. Okay. 

Speaker 2 27:36
Okay. So that brings up the question. We'll talk about, you know, like Brian Peck, who was the other very featured person on Quiet On Set. 

Speaker 1 27:42
He distances himself from that situation. 

Speaker 2 27:45
And yeah, so he didn't hire them. He didn't hire... There was another guy on Quiet On Set as well, who was also... Remember the one that emailing the minor? The PA. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, I forgot his name. So... He wasn't in charge, which means, yeah, it's a bigger problem than just Dan. He wasn't in charge of hiring. He also said, like, you know, all the jokes that he wrote had to be okayed. If they told him to cut something, he had to cut it. 

Speaker 1 28:04
If nobody on the set, if all of the dozens and dozens of adults that were on the set, if they didn't say anything, if my bosses said, if they insisted, you've got to make a change here, you've got to cut that, I had to do it. I had no choice. 

Speaker 0 28:18
And so that says, like, there is some truth where... He's saying like, look, man, I wasn't in charge of every single thing here. He was in charge of a lot. And that's why he has to concede and admit and apologize to some things. So I think what it's done is it's opened up bigger questions about who is, you know, again, the power behind him. But it is also a way for him to sort of soften the blow on himself so that he can come back. 

Speaker 1 28:41
Look, I call it crap because, no, I do. I call it crap because he admits that he was harsh at times. I think it was worse than harsh. Like you've got, like in the interview, he was talking about, look, if someone came to me and said that they weren't comfortable with a piece that I had written, I would cut it. And it's like, you can't cut it when Dan is being mean spirited and terrifying and degrading women. And this is what Jeanette. McCurdy had actually stated in an interview. So if you're approaching someone like that, of course, you're not going to go, oh, I don't like pouring water in this way all over myself. You would just suck it up and just do it to avoid that horrible confrontation. And the fact that he was, not him, but the creator for Jeanette McCurdy was giving her alcohol. 

Speaker 2 29:46
See, okay, I'm glad you brought that up. So I'm not expecting the, you know, the cast or the crew to feel like they can speak up to him and try to get him to cut something. I'm talking more about even the execs and Nickelodeon because it's, you know, if because he said, you know, if any of them said you have to cut this stuff, you'd, you know, I would have to do it. He had to listen to his paymasters, not to the people below him. But that being said, again, the creator. 

Speaker 1 30:08
But even the paymasters and get this both ways. I look at the paymasters and go, you're responsible too. But these are the guys paying someone down the chain to take care of that for them. So they know that there's only a certain amount of observation that they can do and a certain amount of accountability that they can have, but they're paying someone to be that person that is accountable because they're on set. They see these things. They're the control master. True. I'm not trying to give these faceless people. 

Speaker 2 30:40
No, it's delegation. 

Speaker 1 30:41
Yeah. So that comes with the territory. So it's, you kind of screwed both ways you look at it. 

Speaker 0 30:46
I know. But if you look at it, these shows after they released, you know, if something had come up because people, it's not just children watching, there were adults watching this as well. And if there were complaints raised, a lot of these execs, they're not going to pull these shows. These shows were huge moneymakers. So for them, even if they knew something was gross, they could see it. They're like, ah, whatever, it's making money. 

Speaker 1 31:04
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 31:05
Just forget, unless you get a proper complaint, they're not going to do anything about it because it... They were making bank off this and they were making bank off Dan as well, which is why if stuff had come up and I wouldn't be surprised if some complaints were raised and it was just brushed aside. In fact, once you start brushing aside a few complaints, everybody else is just scared to complain. So it creates that atmosphere. So I think, yeah, with the way he's done his interview is to try to find his way back in one way or the other. But I think let's go to another interview that's come out, which was in the show. 

Speaker 1 31:36
Can I say one more thing? 

Speaker 2 31:37
Oh, yeah. 

Speaker 1 31:37
Of course. I think. If you dig further into his interview, and this is really what stuck out to me, was he had a quote saying, like, I really wanted people to go back and watch my shows to enjoy them. This interview really, at the end of the day, is not about apologising because it really doesn't apologise to anyone. 

Speaker 2 31:52
Yeah. 

Speaker 0 31:53
Okay. But it's really about preserving his legacy. It's all about him. Yeah. Let's just be quite frank about it. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 31:59
Even in one aspect, he's going, that will make me happy. And I'm just like, of course it would. 

Speaker 2 32:04
Of course it would, yeah. 

Speaker 1 32:06
So that just sums it up. Okay. But look, he was very well spoken. And, you know, I listened to it the other night and I was like, oh, okay. I think I have a better understanding of where he came from. And you know what? He did a real good job of almost turning me. He actually did. Because I was almost like, oh, okay, maybe there's other people here and you're not the only bad guy. You've admitted to it. Good on you. But the more and more I looked into it, I was like, yeah, but you've got to look at the nuance of this. 

Speaker 0 32:30
It's a clean up job. 

Speaker 2 32:31
It was deflecting. Yeah. 

Speaker 0 32:32
So it even had me a little bit conned. And you know what? That shows you how sophisticated this fellow is. 

Speaker 1 32:37
And he was deflecting because then he brought up Brian Peck. 

Speaker 0 32:41
Oh, that's a good segue. 

Speaker 1 32:42
And the fact that how could Brian be like after, sorry, let me just get my. 

Speaker 0 32:55
Oh, because he said he didn't hide him. 

Speaker 2 32:56
He said with Brian Peck, he said after he got out of prison. And was, to my knowledge, a registered sex offender. He was hired by a Disney Channel show. And I don't understand that. I never understood that. I don't understand. So, yeah, and I see that as deflecting. Even though it's true, I see that as a deflection because, like, oh, I haven't done anything wrong. Have a look at Disney. Disney sucks. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 33:26
True. But you can't also peg Dan on the activities of someone else who's hanging out with Drake Bell outside of work hours. Yeah. Where these incidents occurred. Yeah. You can't turn to Dan and say, you're God, you control everything. If it was outside of his, if it was done on set, that's his problem now. But outside of set, perhaps he should have kept a tighter eye on a few people, but that's the benefit of Hindson, you know? 

Speaker 0 33:51
Yep. In fairness, I do hope that there will be an expose of Disney at some point as well. 

Speaker 2 33:55
Yeah. But, um, Alex was telling me that the whole Disney and the Peck thing, um, is. 

Speaker 1 34:02
Out of context. It's minor, man. The guy was brought in to do a voiceover for a show, lasted three days. The minute they found out, maybe because HR didn't do their job or someone was just not thinking straight, realized and they yanked him off it. So he was never on set. And again, just the voiceover. Automatically in your image when you hear, oh, but he went and worked for Disney. Now you got this image of this guy roaming around. 

Speaker 0 34:29
Oh, no, no. So when I said expose on Disney, I don't mean Peck. In fact, that thing you mentioned about like probably HR not doing their job. I think that's how a lot of these people actually slip through the cracks is because of, you know, the failures of bureaucracy in there. But that makes, when I mentioned Disney because remember you look at some of the Disney cast, the people that came out of it, there's Miley Cyrus, there's Britney Spears, there's, I think Christina Aguilera. I mean, there's a few other like the ones that are. you know, again, child stars. And Disney had this image specifically that, you know, they got their stars to wear purity rings, come out and publicly say they're virgins. They had an audience they were aiming towards. And so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of shady stuff happened on the set of Disney, especially with the presence of children. And it's even worse when you're getting them to, you know, publicly claim and pretend like play act like for a brand deal kind of thing. 

Speaker 1 35:18
But that's another story. 

Speaker 2 35:20
Yes. So hopefully at some point we can get see an expose on that. But I just want to quickly touch on the Drake Bell situation because we talked about that briefly in the beginning. So Drake Bell from the TV show Drake and Josh, I saw that when I was younger. What's interesting is when I, because I think this is the one from the show that's really gone viral. 

Speaker 1 35:38
Which one did you like best? 

Speaker 2 35:40
The two of them. Drake. He was a very charming character. And that's the thing. I rewatched some of it. And it's like you couldn't even tell. Because he's obviously very good. He's very talented. And he said in his interviews, like while he was being abused by Brian Peck, because he was so desperate to get that role on the show, Drake, his own show. He was a part of the Amanda show for a while. you know he obviously and and brian peck knew this kid wanted it so he knew that he's going to be quiet yeah and he deliberately isolated him from his parents especially his father and from the show i think i think from the interview what we got was you know it's obviously a very brave thing for peck to come out and speak about it um and the fact that you know again the same thing you mean bell drake bell yes yes great drake bell yeah and you know he went off the rails um even during the show, he said in his teenage years, he was turning to alcohol and drugs. But I think the other thing that the show left out, and again, may have also given a bit of a cleanup job for Drake Bell as well, is it doesn't really go into the allegations that he faced. Now, there are allegations against him. But what we do know is that he pleaded guilty and was convicted of child endangerment in 2021 for inappropriate sexting or texting with a minor. But the minor's statement in court. Makes it seem like, I mean, there's a lot more to it than just that. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 37:03
The minor alleges that not just only did this occur for what he pleaded guilty, but she actually said that there were occasions where there was actual sexual contact. 

Speaker 0 37:12
And he's been grooming her since she was 12. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 37:14
But isn't that, isn't that due to the fact that it's a cyclical thing where he got abused, so he continues on and abuse, and that's the typical cycle. of sexual abuse in kids. 

Speaker 1 37:32
Yeah. There's many studies that look into it and depending on what you read, different numbers come out. But there is, there is a pattern there when you look at a lot of individual cases that that is a common thing. It's not a hundred percent a predicator for doing it yourself as an adult, but the likelihood of it increasing. Yeah. It's like if, if you, if you hang around someone that like, you know. steals cars and does things that they shouldn't do when you're at a young age, you're probably going to end up stealing cars and doing the same thing. 

Speaker 2 38:03
Same thing with domestic abuse. Children that grow up in abusive households. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 38:07
You only reflect what you know. Yes. You're showing. Yeah. If you're surrounded by, in a war zone and all you see is killing, that's probably what you're going to get up to. Yeah. It's one of those things. 

Speaker 2 38:18
And by the way, this is the one that he was convicted of, but he was, these are allegations where he was alleged, I think, I know one specific example, his ex-girlfriend, where she was. allegedly at the time 15 and he was in his early 20s I think and she said it's illegal yeah there was verbal and physical abuse that it was quite scary that's what her allegations were so I think see the thing is the idea of understanding how you know abuse transfers through a cycle that would have again been something very interesting to explore but I don't think this documentary would have done as well if it wasn't a very you know sort of Painting Dan as this villain, like a very sort of black and white. Paint Dan as the evil villain. Obviously, Brian Peck, another evil villain. And Drake as the brave survivor that spoke out. 

Speaker 1 39:02
He's done nothing wrong. Who was that YouTuber you sent me the link of? And she was saying that victims can be perpetrators too. 

Speaker 2 39:10
That was a YouTube channel called Scandi. 

Speaker 0 39:12
Yeah. And she was talking about the fact that in that documentary, they briefly actually brought up these allegations, or at least the case. And... It was only for like maybe addressed for like a minute and a half minutes at most. Um, they've obviously had to do a bit of a handshake here to get him to interview. Um, that's probably why they've stayed out of it. 

Speaker 1 39:34
Yeah. And obviously not showcased his negative side because otherwise he probably wouldn't have spoken on the... 

Speaker 0 39:43
Exactly what I'm saying. They couldn't have had. this show do so well if it was going to be so nuanced. And also, you won't get him, he won't agree to participate in it. Because after what's happened now is, he's going around doing multiple interviews because now he's, you know, found his lane. Now, of course, what happened to him was terrible. We know that it's true that he was brave to actually speak. It's very rare for a child actor to come out and speak out, to take that risk and show up in court. And also, he did manage to get his show afterwards. In fact... The especially again, what was mentioned in the show was when he went to court against Brian Peck, Brian Peck's side was filled with people like there were so many industry people, prominent figures wrote letters of support for Brian Peck. And, you know, so obviously they must have felt very isolated. So that's very true. But but considering what's happened since then and what Drake is accused of, what he's been convicted of, he this is a way for him to clean up his image. And now some of the women that have accused him. of different allegations are getting abuse online. 

Speaker 2 40:41
Yes. 

Speaker 0 40:41
Yeah, and this is a funny thing because on the one hand, these are the same people that are like, oh, but we disagree with what Dan did and everything, but on the other side, they apologise for Drake. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 40:51
You can't have it both ways. Yeah, you can't be contrived. He's a hero and a perpetrator all at the same time. Yeah. And people can be like that, but people outside should definitely not be. abusing the people that are, the women that are coming out because it's an, almost like an oxymoron. 

Speaker 1 41:18
Yeah, pretty much. 

Speaker 0 41:22
It's kind of a reflection of what happens, you know, because from the MeToo era, like especially a huge part of it was, you know, public shaming of people who are accused of certain things. And of course, something like that where You know, one of the reasons why something like that comes up is because people have lost faith in a legal process, which especially when you have huge amounts of, look, the idea of natural justice, the idea of, you know, making sure people get a fair trial, get their day in court, you know, are innocent until proven guilty. These are all very important things. It's not just for the accuser that they're, for the accused that it's important, not just for perpetrators. It's also, I mean, sorry, alleged, like everybody has a right to be, you know, have their defense. It's also important for victims who come forward that. you know, trials are fair for both parties. So just as an example, again, we mentioned the Harvey Weinstein case, that his New York case, the reason that it was his appeal was successful, was because the law states that you're not allowed to bring in people who have been victimized who are not a part of the trial, like they're not allowed to testify. Now, the reason they testify is because the statute of limitations ran out for their case, so they could never get justice anyway. So the law is unfair, I will agree on that. But the lawyers, I would not be surprised if they kind of knew this. took a gamble because they thought it's such a high profile case. It'll be great for their career if they nail this guy. And what's happened is lots of accused people who are, you know, perpetrators will appeal. And if the process is at any point unfair, that could be used as a way for them to say, I'm a martyr. I've been, I've been chased after. And that means it undermines victims. So have making sure a trial is fair for, for the alleged perpetrator is very important, not just for the perpetrator, but also for the victim. 

Speaker 1 43:00
Yes, I agree. 

Speaker 2 43:02
Yeah. And so... 

Speaker 1 43:03
Look, we all know that courts aren't interested in the truth. The unfortunate matter is, is they're interested in evidence because that's the only way we can make decisions knowing for sure. So that has to be respected and we have to make sure that we don't pick and choose and it's consistent. And that can end up being bad in some cases where we know that there's a problem here. But we have to stick to it. 

Speaker 2 43:26
I know. The thing is, we have to stick to it. But also, I think because people get frustrated, that's where the public shaming comes out. And when that happens, things go off the rail. And so then you have a situation like how Drake Bell's accusers are being shamed. But then even, again, I'll just bring Harvey Weinstein up one last time. There was a woman that worked with him. I think her name is Jill Messick. And she was someone that, you know, was copping a lot of heat because she was one of the people that covered up for Weinstein, introduced him to women. Rose McGowan went after her and all that. She actually took her life when it got too much for her and she was dealing with other stuff. So there are other casualties that happen when it... leads to public shaming. The danger of the public shaming is, first of all, you could shame the wrong person. So that's bad. Second of all, even if you're shaming the right person, there's all these, it's never, perpetrators never on their own. Usually there are enablers. Usually there's people that cover it up. 

Speaker 1 44:13
There's a place to do this and it's in court. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 44:17
But then we also do have to acknowledge that because of how unequal our society is, how power is so imbalanced, that there's like justice. is colored by that. And so, like, if you look at, again, going back to appeals, it's not unusual where cops stitch up people, especially if they're poor, if they just want to close a case. But the thing is, poor people don't have the resources to appeal. Someone like Weinstein's got all this money, even if he's in jail. They can always appeal. Yeah, so I think we recognize the importance of natural justice and of the court system, but we shouldn't be ignorant and naive to the fact that in an unequal society, it's... There is a, it's a weight again, like it's difficult for victims to get justice. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 45:02
The problem is too, is, is you just don't know who, who, who is who and what they're doing. Because like a lot of people come out and always say, oh, but you should have known. Oh, it's clearly obvious. But you know, it's not sometimes, especially when you work in the industry. I worked with someone who turned out to be one of these guys. I knew him for five years. I would hug this guy when I would see him. I would eat dinner with him. Okay. And then it came out. I read the paper and there it is, plain as day. I didn't know. 

Speaker 0 45:30
Yeah. But there's a difference between you working with him and you, you know, so involved with his work that, you know, if you have, you know, looked past certain things that are dirty because it's totally, yeah, that's different because it's totally normal where I think, you know, we always look for a perfect victim and there's no such thing as a perfect victim, but there's also no such thing as a perfect perpetrator because we expect perpetrators to be monsters and they hardly ever are in public. They're usually very nice, charming, friendly people. 

Speaker 1 45:53
Well, even with Dan Schneider, when he was saying that he was supporting Drake and helping his mum prepare a speech for the judge that, you know. it's showcasing the human side of him. Like ultimately he's human, even though he's been a shit to so many other people, he's still got aspects that people still admire and still respect. 

Speaker 0 46:23
Yeah. That's hard. Well, that's the thing, yeah. So I've just been looking at what else we just need to cover. We've just got to go over two more things. One of them I wanted to just briefly touch on was I think there were two people who came out who were part of the documentary who worked with Schneider, worked with Nickelodeon, Alex Nicholas and Raquel Bill I'm saying that name wrong, but these are you know they were I think Raquel was in the Amanda show and Alex was in Zoey 101 and they have come out and actually criticized Quiet On Set saying they were not told about what this show was going to be about and they wanted to talk about their experiences. especially when it came to, you know, working conditions and all that. And they claimed they were misled about what the show is about and were interviewed. And then when it finally came out, they feel like, you know, their stories were used to bolster a different narrative. It wasn't actually about them. Like, you know, they were scared to speak about their experience, but the show used it and exploited it for its own purpose. 

Speaker 2 47:25
So they weren't able to talk about their own experiences and what they wanted to talk about, but they obviously took out. bits and pieces to bolster the narrative. That's a real shame. 

Speaker 1 47:38
So is there a specific example where they say, oh, this was misrepresented or I was baited and switched? Are they actually given clear indication to that or are they just speaking generally? Because like at the end of the day, they may have an expectation or what they think directorially that documentarily should take a form of, but they're not the ones that make that call. Now, if I go there and say, hey, this is about selling chips. instead of turn around and say, see, this is a person who's anti-GYPS and I've manipulated that. That's a different story. 

Speaker 2 48:10
Yeah. I think, I mean, I'm reading this article from IndieWire, by the way, just for anyone, all the research and the links we've got, we'll publish that in the show notes as well as evidence. So they claim that quite on set, the co-creators, Emma Schwartz and Marina Robertson, used their sensitive interviews about difficult childhood memories. primarily as a premise to re-air salacious material from Schneider's years at Nick. As a result, the women say that the creators misrepresented at least one survivor's take and left the other feeling deceived and abused. So, yeah, what they're saying is they felt like it was not what they signed up for. I'm trying to see if we can find a bit more specific examples of what they talked about. But, you know, when something like this gets sort of, what they're saying is, yeah, their accounts were misinterpreted. It wasn't aired in full, is what they said. 

Speaker 0 49:00
Well, that's a hard one, guys, because this is... 

Speaker 2 49:05
It's more like opinion. 

Speaker 0 49:07
Yeah, this is more than, I hate to be that person, and I'm going to be that person, so I'm just going to tap the hate. But it's more than just them. This story is bigger than them, and they need to recognise that. Now, if they feel that way, they're allowed to feel that way. And they're allowed to feel disappointed. Just like if I sign up for a movie and I have all these aspirations for... acting or filming it or cinema and it doesn't turn out the way I was hoping for, I can feel that way too. 

Speaker 2 49:33
And there is nothing stopping them from getting on to YouTube and telling their side of the story. That's right. 

Speaker 0 49:38
That's right. The opportunity is there. So I don't understand what the issue is here. It's maybe someone's gone up and maybe got a few lines out of them and now they're pumping it up. But these people do have an outlet to tell the story in full. 

Speaker 1 49:51
Yep, I'd love to hear the story too. 

Speaker 2 49:53
I would look forward to hearing that as well, because like I myself have criticisms of the way Quiet on set. built their narrative itself. 

Speaker 1 49:59
It feels like two documentaries mashed into one. 

Speaker 2 50:01
Yeah. And I feel like, you know, if these women could speak a bit more about how they felt like they were let down by the producer, I would really look forward to hearing that because I think it would paint a bit more of a picture. Like we just read before, the documentary was kind of black and white. It didn't want to deal with the nuances. And I think some of what these women would say, maybe wouldn't suit the narrative. So that's okay. That's fine. 

Speaker 1 50:21
There's not so many narratives you can chase down, man. It's like it's a nebulous, it's a nebulous. 

Speaker 0 50:26
No, no, that's true. But I think there is a bit of a problem where if they feel like they've been misled about what the show is about. That's different. That's a problem. So that's why I would say it would be great if we could hear their responses in long form detail. That would be good. Now, the last thing I wanted to touch on was the original Quiet Onset, which aired in 2014. I say it, but. The actual thing I'm talking about is a documentary from 2014 called An Open Secret. 

Speaker 1 50:54
That's the one I watched. 

Speaker 0 50:56
Yes. Now, that is available on YouTube. We will post the link. Everyone should watch it. I personally think it's better than Quiet Onset. But Marina, your take. 

Speaker 1 51:04
I thought the thing that really saddened me was the effect that it had on the kids after. So the abuse that they went through and the fact... that they were recorded, like they recorded their abusers. They went and one of the abusers went to jail. But in the whole scheme of things, he only served time for six months. 

Speaker 0 51:32
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 51:33
And then went back to work. 

Speaker 2 51:34
Well, that's the thing. So just to clarify for anyone that isn't familiar, An Open Secret directed by Amy Berg. So this is documenting child sexual abuse in the industry and it actually speaks to... people who at the time who back then were child actors and the shows they worked on and it openly names some of these people who have been convicted brian peck featured on quite on set was on it as well this focuses on tv shows i think we mentioned like um different strokes uh growing pains had the feldman's on there too the feldman's on there yep that's true corey feldman corey feldman of course features in it um the people there was other people named like the other one is brian singer was he the director of the x-men series yeah so he He's another one that I think he was... 

Speaker 1 52:19
Usual suspects and apt pupil as well. 

Speaker 0 52:21
Yes. So with this doco, the reason, again, like I said, I encourage people to watch it is because it was actually slated to get a mainstream release, like a theatrical release. But there were different reasons why apparently that was snuffed out. It was... 

Speaker 1 52:37
What were the reasons? 

Speaker 2 52:39
From what I've looked at it is there was a bit of a concerted effort by certain studios to try to clamp down on it. They didn't want it to be a mainstream release. 

Speaker 1 52:47
There were other factors too. It didn't help that the director, Amy Berg, wasn't promoting the documentary as well. So that further complicated it. The producers and the director had a few issues. They had to go through arbitrage, if I recall correctly, which means there was an issue with the delivery of the documentary and the time of it. It missed, it almost missed a major festival milestone, I think in New York. So I suspect that also had some impact on it as well. 

Speaker 0 53:15
I'll put a bit more context to what I had read. I just looked this up now where the producers were encouraged about its commercial potential because there was also a pirated version. But apparently the film received no TV deal, no deal for video on demand distribution. And according to some of the people who financed the film, the person said, we got zero Hollywood offers to distribute the film. Not even one, literally no offers for any price whatsoever. 

Speaker 2 53:48
Of course. Of course they wouldn't want to showcase it. 

Speaker 1 53:51
But even from a marketing perspective, let's be honest, it's a hard sell. Who wants, like, we've all seen Capturing, who's seen Capturing the Freedmen's here? 

Speaker 2 54:02
I haven't seen that. 

Speaker 0 54:03
Okay. Check out Capturing the Freedmen's, but that's like. 

Speaker 2 54:06
Yes, I have watched that. 

Speaker 0 54:09
If you're well familiar with it, it's a very hard documentary to watch. Okay. And when you go to someone and say, we're going to try and make money out of this and a doco. 

Speaker 2 54:20
Yeah. 

Speaker 0 54:20
And it's all Netflix haven't quite hit a stride at this point in time either. Don't forget. 

Speaker 1 54:25
So pretty much I've got a theory on that because with the marketing, if that, if it did go mainstream, then people would have had a different slant on it. And they would have said, oh, Hollywood have made this up. Hollywood have done this because they're being salacious and it's all bullshit. Whereas because it's under the cover, not under the covers, but it's like released on YouTube, it's released on almost like the black market. It makes it more believable. So I'm actually glad that it didn't go Hollywood mainstream. 

Speaker 0 55:01
Yeah. By the way, that brings up another point because I'll just mention this, that the three of us last year went to go see the film Sound of Freedom. So that one, again, another film which, you know, released in theatres after a number of years where it was put away and there were rumours swirling that Hollywood deliberately tried to quieten the film because they don't want it to expose, you know, child sexual abuse in the industry. We watched the film. It... There was nothing about child sexual abuse in Hollywood. It was literally about child trafficking, you know, in general. And it was based on a true story. Yeah, and basically from the research that we've done about it, it wasn't some conspiracy to try to snuff out the film. It was basically that, what was it, I think Fox. Yeah, no, no, Disney bought Fox Studios. And it was sitting on the shelf. Yeah, it was sitting on the shelf. And, you know, they get to decide, okay, there's all these films that are here. Which one of these can we sell? Which one can we make money off? So they probably couldn't, they couldn't make money. They feel like they couldn't make money off Sound of Freedom, but clearly Sound of Freedom proved you could make money off it. There was an audience for it, which is why I think now, if you look at Open Secret on YouTube, there's way more views now. So maybe back in 2014, they couldn't have made money off it, but. 

Speaker 2 56:07
I don't think they could have made money off it because it didn't have that conspiracy behind it. So if you look at like Hotel Rwanda and like the, the true stories and they're horrific, horrific. movies that make you think. I don't think Sound of Freedom would have been as successful if they just released it without any hoo-ha conspiracy. Ooh, what's really going on behind it? 

Speaker 0 56:36
Yeah, right moment, right time with QAnon. 

Speaker 1 56:38
Yeah, totally. Like they released it at the right time and they got the right people. 

Speaker 0 56:43
Yeah, I guess especially when Sound of Freedom was like, you know, this action. packed film. It really does sort of manipulate your emotions with the way they crafted the film, whereas an open secret was, and also even same thing with Quite On Set. It was done in a way in which to, you know, paint characters as obvious villains and victims, to not give any nuance, not give any backstory, but open secret was a bit more, I would say a bit more gritty. 

Speaker 1 57:07
I found, I haven't, as I said, I haven't seen Quite On Set, but I found open secret to be the most realistic, like... we don't give a shit what anyone else says. This is a story we're going to tell. And I think I thought they, cause they interviewed the parents, they interviewed the people and I thought they explained it really well. 

Speaker 0 57:30
Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, for anyone who's watched Quiet Onset who still has, you know, questions from it, who feel like maybe, you know, you'd want a bit more context, definitely watching An Open Secret, um. 

Speaker 1 57:42
Would make sense. 

Speaker 0 57:43
Would make it make more sense. 

Speaker 1 57:45
So I think we're wrapped up. 

Speaker 0 57:47
Yeah. I mean, we could go on for ages, but let's. 

Speaker 2 57:52
Look, it was a really heavy topic. And I've got to say, because I have a child as well, and I'm just reading through the scripts. I'm reading through a young child, the other one's an adult. But I was reading through the scripts and, like, it was a lot to take in. And it just, for me, it showed. I wouldn't want my kids to be super famous because all that exposure to all those crazy things, they would be in therapy for the rest of their lives, which a lot of the actors are. 

Speaker 0 58:34
Even if they want to be rich, see that the problem here is the rich and the fame kills you. Like if you had a choice, but if you had a choice about being rich and famous, right? I'd go rich, but I don't want to be famous. I'd rather be an economist, mate. Yeah. You know what I mean? No one knows my business. But there's some people out there that want everybody to know their name. 

Speaker 2 58:51
Recognize their name. 

Speaker 1 58:52
Yeah. And I never quite understood that. And unfortunately, some of these kids got more than they bargained for. You know what I mean? And that's because they just didn't know better. They didn't understand the world. That's why they're kids. 

Speaker 0 59:03
See, that's one thing. You know how if someone says, I want to be an actor, I want to be a singer, something like that, that makes sense. But there's some people that say, I want to be famous. Now there's a difference between wanting to be like practice a craft, maybe do it in front of people, but wanting to be famous is almost like I want validation. 

Speaker 1 59:19
Because that's so insecure. 

Speaker 0 59:21
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 59:21
I have no self-confidence. I need to source it externally. Yeah. It's psychology. 

Speaker 0 59:27
101. Oh, I just quickly, cause you remember, you know, the, um, the guy from Friends, Matthew Perry. Yeah. I really liked him on the show Friends, but he passed away. I think it was last year. I was looking back at some of the interviews that he did and he actually was, I think it was on Oprah, I can't remember, he actually said when he was a young boy in school, he kept praying to God that God would make him famous. 

Speaker 1 59:49
I read his book. He wrote that in his book. 

Speaker 0 59:52
Yeah, and for me, because it's almost like he gets famous. it's probably not what it's cracked up to be. And because you could see his addiction issue continued on until the very end. So it's almost like, and that's why a lot of these child actors, they don't know what they're getting into. The same thing, even parents don't know what they're getting into. And some parents, of course, treat their children like an ATM, as a way to get them out of poverty. And so, or to get them more money. And it leads to a situation where the casualty is the kid and you see the effects of it long down the track. 

Speaker 1 1:00:22
Yeah, totally. 

Speaker 0 1:00:25
Okay. So I guess we've ended on that note. So these are some of the things that our series will be diving into. And hopefully next time we'll try and find something that isn't as heavy, but still is. 

Speaker 1 1:00:38
Nah, bring the heaviness. 

Speaker 0 1:00:39
Bring the heat. Okay. Okay. 

Speaker 1 1:00:40
Fine. Bring it on because I think these are things that need to be exposed, explained, discussed, because if we sweep it under the carpet, then The same thing will continue on and on. 

Speaker 0 1:00:56
All right. 2024 is like the year of the expose. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll see you next time. 

Speaker 0 1:01:02
Thanks. Bye.