Shirley Temple: She Topped the Box Office, But At What Price? (Part 1)

It seems that sex has been taking over the entertainment industry on a greater scale year after year. We have all heard the term “sex sells”. How has this term become so commonplace and even accepted? How has society become so desensitized to the point that many believe that the concept of using sex as a way to pull in audiences is acceptable, stretching age boundaries more and more? Has it always been this way? This post will perhaps open your eyes to certain nuances in film that may not have crossed your mind previously. It is quite simple to point out multiple overtly sexual images, lyrics, scenes, etc. in modern entertainment, many of which are actually aimed at and accessible to young audiences. Unfortunately, sexualizing content that has been both created for children and that portrays children has a long history in Hollywood film and the career of Shirley Temple is just one such example.

Surely, You Know Shirley…

Shirley Temple, it is very likely you have heard of this child actress, perhaps one of the most famous child stars in the history of film. Shirley Temple was born on April 23, 1928 and began her long film career at the tender age of 3, quickly rising to stardom for her “memorable” performances and adorable nature. During the Great Depression, Shirley remained America’s silver screen sweetheart and number one box office attraction.

At closer inspection, this cherub-faced girl’s roles were anything but adorable or appropriate. So, let’s take a look at some of her roles and why we should be analyzing them for their portrayal of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

For decades, Hollywood film and entertainment has been teeming with overt sexuality and innuendos. The truly sad, even tragic, part is the perversion with which child roles were treated. and the unscrupulousness of portraying children in compromising poses and situations. This sexualization and objectification of innocent children was projected as entertainment and even comedy.

Miss Temple’s First Roles

Shirley’s first film was Baby Burlesks. This film series, released in 1931, had an all-child cast and was directed by Jack Hays and Charles Lamont, the latter of whom had apparently discovered Miss Temple. In the 1930s, Baby Burlesks episodes were often screened prior to the main feature. They were then interpreted as innocent, fun-filled spoofs on leading actresses of the times. In reality, these films were loaded with slapstick jokes and innuendos which will eminently be discussed.

Shirley Temple, as the leading actress in many of her films, regularly portrayed a prostitute or nightclub performer. In the 1932 movie Glad Rags to Riches, her role was that of “La Belle Diaperina”, a dancer at the Lullaby Lobster Palace. Her young suitor in the movie, (suitors at preschool age?) when biting into a large pickle, showers her head with the pickle juice as it squirts across to the table she is sitting at.

In War Babies, toddler soldiers fight for her attention by offering her huge lollipops. In one of the scenes, a very young African-American boy performs a strip tease as “entertainment”. Another toddler, seen on all fours, opens his mouth to drink milk from an overturned baby bottle on a table above. Meanwhile, in the background is a sign with the words “Sour Milk”.

When viewed, these images evoke feelings of discomfort as they look truly disturbing and not at all innocently comedic. Shirley Temple’s character eventually finds a rubber glove in her purse and attaches it to a keg of sweet milk protruding from the wall and the same toddler, still on all fours, suckles away at it. A man can be heard moaning on the soundtrack. Shirley’s prostitute status in the film War Babies is confirmed when one of the patrons at the “milk bar” picks his teeth with the bobby pin which had held up her diaper. If this does not scream child abuse and innuendos to pornographic films, I don’t know what does!?

When viewed, these images evoke feelings of discomfort as they look truly disturbing and not at all innocently comedic. Shirley Temple’s character eventually finds a rubber glove in her purse and attaches it to a keg of sweet milk protruding from the wall and the same toddler, still on all fours, suckles away at it. A man can be heard moaning on the soundtrack. Shirley’s prostitute status in the film War Babies is confirmed when one of the patrons at the “milk bar” picks his teeth with the bobby pin which had held up her diaper. If this does not scream child abuse and innuendos to pornographic films, I don’t know what does!?

Child Call Girls?

In the 1933 film Polly Tix in Washington (Polly Tix almost sounds like the name of a “pornstar” or stripper), Shirley again played the role of a call girl. In this clip, she sets out to corrupt a new senator. When the senator buckles under her charms, her character Polly, confirms her sex for hire status by stating, “Aha, I’m expensive”. The senator’s fall from grace sees him go down on a giant cake, oddly spewing white icing from behind it.

In the final segment of the Baby Burlesks series titled Kid in Africa, Shirley played the cannibal-civilizing Christian missionary Madame Cradlebait. Wait, Cradlebait!? What is being implied?

In the film, the Madame travels through the jungle with an obedient troupe of African child labourers (also quite inappropriate). During a raid, Shirley’s character is captured by “savages'' and she is stuck in a giant cooking pot. The chef seasons her with salt and telephones the operator asking for Congo 342. Shirley ends up being rescued by a toddler Tarzan after which a strange honeymoon scene appears outside Hotel Squaldorf.

A young African child can be seen carrying a billboard on his back reading “Weary Nipple Café Specials.'' He then proceeds to fill up at the “Last Chance Filling Station” by sucking on the end of a gas pump. The mouthfuls he swallows are tallied on a “gulp metre” nearby. The pump's nozzle shockingly resembles male genitalia. Truly horrific!

What’s Nabokov got to do with it?

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist who achieved fame in writing after moving to the United States and beginning to write in English. His popular novel Lolita, was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels in 2007. Below, I will discuss the significance of this book. Not to take away from the many subliminal and also obvious depictions of compromising roles children portray in today’s films, the exploitation of children in media has a long and disturbing history.

Nabokov directly linked Kid in Africa’s subliminal pedophile code to this particular book, reiterating themes and numerology. At the Enchanted Hunter Hotel, the adult male character Humbert brings the young Lolita to room 342. The room number is a reference to the call made by the chef who had been seasoning Shirley in a pot in Kid in Africa.

Throughout the night, Humbert experiences broken sleep due to the sound of a flushing toilet – a tainted reminder of the popular honeymoon trip to Niagara Falls. After Lolita escapes with another character, Quilty, Humbert searches 342 hotels and motels. Nabokov’s book was remade by director Stanley Kubrick into the famous movie of the same name.

The predatory nature of Humbert’s obsession with the young girl Dolores (aka Dolly, Lo, Lola, Lolita), aged twelve, mirrors the pedophilic agenda of the movie Kid in Africa and the numerous episodes of Baby Burlesks.

What’s Next?

In 1934, Shirley signed on with 20th Century Fox, but the strange scenes containing sexual innuendos did not disappear. Overwhelmingly, films starring Miss Temple continued to evolve around child institutions where Shirley was often portrayed as an orphan.

Many guardians in these films met with untimely deaths, creating, so to speak, the vulnerability of the child character and an opportunity for a pedophilic adult character to take over by abusing this vulnerability and playing on the innocent child’s emotions.

Stay tuned for part two where I continue to break down the defamatory themes of Shirley’s movies and in the near future, delve into the pattern of child exploitation in the media over the subsequent decades.

If you are or believe you have identified someone in a trafficking situation, you can take action. Call 911 immediately to notify local law enforcement. You may also call the human trafficking hotlines in Canada and the United States by dialling the numbers below. Both hotlines are open 24/7/365 days of the year and provide services in over 200 languages.