Hollywood & Child Artist Laws: A Comparison

Are there serious rules and regulations that govern child actors? These young children face immense pressure from the world and of course, from the industry they work for as well. Children are too young to be working, especially in a field where it is easy for them to fall prey to harassment and exploitation. Sadly, parents too force their kids into menial acting jobs in order to earn some financial assistance or fame. In this article, we are going to discuss the problems faced by child actors and their negative repercussions with a few case studies. The laws governing child actors in different states. Further, we will also discuss the comparison of two countries, namely, Korea and the United States in terms of the labor market in employing minor, culturally different industries collaborating and its growth in the twentieth century. 

“While Korea has been making free trade agreements (FTAs) with the United States and the European Union, more and more foreign companies have been establishing branches in Korea. Companies here are hiring more foreign professionals in an effort to enhance their competitiveness in the markets of advanced nations. While working in the same company or workplace, it is very common for disagreements or misunderstandings to arise between Koreans and Westerners due to differences in culture, occupational habits and language. There are many differences in the way we think and behave at work, such as the kind of hierarchy we are familiar with, the way we relate to each other through linguistic expression, the way we address each other, and the way we express our opinions.”

The concept of famous child actors or children gaining immense fame at a blink of an eye is not uncommon or not heard of. In Korea, for example in order to become a sensation in the industry, recruiting talent agencies mold you at a tender age to ensure that by the time you’re a teenager you are already a star, have around million followers, have your own niche-oriented fan base. However, child artists are still minor at the end of the day. What really happens when a parents is forcing their child to do something they do not want to do? What happens when a child is as famous and ear Hannah Montana, Briteny Spears, Home alone guy, and Shirley Temple and earn around millions? Does the parent take – away the entire money? Are they entitled to? What happens when the child is the sole bread winner of its family which might be as large as five or seven!? A better example: is Justin Beiber’s pop hit song that “Baby” earned him enough to get himself a Beverly Hills Mansion. He was a minor at that time.

Table on few states and their governing law on child artists and work permit:

The California Child Actor’s Bill (also known as Coogan Act or Coogan Bill) is a law applicable to child performers, designed to safeguard a portion of their earnings for when they reach the age of majority and protect them from exploitation and abuse. The original Bill was passed in 1939 by the State of California in response to the plight of Jackie Coogan, who earned millions of dollars as a successful child actor only to discover, upon reaching adulthood, that his mother and stepfather had spent almost all of his money. Since then, it has been revised a few times, most recently on December 7, 2019. As it stands, money earned and accumulated under a contract under the code remains the sole legal property of the minor child. The law requires a child actor’s employer to set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust (often called a Coogan Account) and codifies issues such as schooling, work hours, and time off.

“ALERT FOR EMPLOYERS: Some state child labor laws, including some of the provisions of state law listed below, are inconsistent with the federal child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 212(c), and its implementing regulations at 29 CFR Part 570. Where a state child labor law is less restrictive than the federal law, the federal law applies. Where a state child labor law is more restrictive than the federal law, the state law applies. See 29 U.S.C. 218(a).”

Another crucial question to answer is that the problem with employing a minor is that legally, it is understood that due to their age they are incompetent to understand the contents of a contract. This is true in many other legal aspects, Illustration: “A” a seven-year-old mixed rat poison in his grandfather’s “B” milk. Can “A” be tried for murder and homicide? The legal principle says that since a minor is incapable of understanding between what is right and wrong, “A” would be let off but will be put in a correction facility and provide him the mental health care that he so rightly deserves. In some states and countries any contract signed by a minor is considered null and void. However, the age of majority differs from place to place. In some countries, it is eighteen and twenty-one or even sixteen! 

CASE STUDIES 

1. Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin – whose original name was Macaulay Carson Culkin; He is not unheard of, as an American actor and musician he rose to prominence as a child actor in the Home Alone series starring Kevin McCallister. He was one of the most successful child actors of the 1990s, Culkin was placed 2nd on VH1‘s 2005 list of the “100 Greatest Kid-Stars”. He was also nominated for Golden Globe Awards and recently in the year 2023 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  

Culkin in an interview, talked about his childhood and how Kit Culkin (father) was often cruel and violent to him. He said he felt his father was jealous, because “everything [Kit] tried to do in his life [Macaulay] excelled at before [he] was 10 years old”. Culkin took his parents to court to block them from controlling his trust fund, which was reportedly worth between $15 and 20 million. He has been estranged from his father since. The media reported that Culkin had divorced or emancipated himself from his parents; in 2018, Culkin denied this, saying he had instead removed his parents’ name from his trust fund and found an executor. In August 2020, on his 40th birthday, Culkin tweeted, “Hey guys, wanna feel old? I’m 40. You’re welcome.” The tweet became one of the most-liked tweets of all time, peaking at number 9. 

1. Another popular actress Ariel Winter Workman best known for character as Alex Dunphy in the series Modern Family. Winter obtained her first entertainment industry job in a Cool Whip commercial advertisement in 2002 when she was four years old. For her leading role in the film The Chaperone, she was nominated at the Young Artist Awards 2012 as “Best Actress in a Motion Picture”. In 2012, Winter’s sister Shanelle Workman filed to become her guardian, alleging that their mother had been physically and emotionally abusive.  In 2014, the court awarded guardianship to Workman and permanently removed Winter from her mother’s guardianship. Their mother later released a statement saying that “the family has moved beyond the conflict”. In 2015, when she was 17 years old, Winter declared on Twitter that she was officially emancipated.

WHAT IS EMANCIPATION? 

Emancipation of minors in the United States is a legal system in which a minor attains the status and rights that an adult holds. Through this process, a minor is also freed from the control of his / her parents/guardians. The responsibility of the parent or guardian on their child is also removed through this process. As stated earlier, minors are legally considered incompetent to not only enter into contracts but also when it comes to taking control of their life. The concept of emancipation overrides this assumption on minors and allows them to make some or entire decisions on their own. There are various criteria to attain emancipation depending on your jurisdiction. In the United States, all states have some form of emancipation of minors. Statutory provisions for juvenile emancipation have spread outside of common law jurisdictions, for example in Brazil. In Argentina, where there is no lower age limit on marriage, child marriage is sometimes used as a mechanism for emancipation. The rights granted in such cases may not be as full as common-law emancipation.

TYPE OF EMANCIPATION

1. Express emancipation exists as a legal possibility yet is rarely decided by the court and takes place when a parent agrees that the child may leave home and collect wages and control assets. Express emancipation may come under review by the court if the legal purposes for which the child was emancipated are interpreted more broadly than they were intended at the time of parental agreement and/or a dispute arises over who has the right to control or lay claim to the child’s assets and services.
2. Implied emancipation:  In most emancipation cases that come before the court, emancipation is implied from the evidence of circumstances and conduct that negatively affirm the fundamental relationship that both law and society recognize as existing between parents and children. Implied emancipation arises from minor and/or parental conduct inconsistent with the right and duty of parents to exercise control over and provide care and support for their child during its minority.
3. Emancipation Based on State Laws: Approximately half of the states regulate emancipation by statutes specifically designed for that purpose. These statutes may specify the procedures or conditions required for seeking emancipation. Statutes vary considerably from state to state, but under common law, most states allow for the possibility of court-reviewed emancipation. No fixed age of emancipation exists, yet a minor is presumed to become emancipated upon reaching the age of majority. In most states, the age of the majority is 18.

In California, something called the “infancy doctrine” was codified in the year 1872, which states that  “children have the right to break contracts (including employment contracts) without facing any legal repercussions. This is the reason why credit card companies, for example, refuse to sell credit cards to people under the age of 18. A child needs only to indicate that they wish to disaffirm a contract. Additionally, while the minor party to the contract has the right to disaffirm, the other party to the contract, i.e., the credit card company, is obligated to uphold their end of the deal.”

“The early film industry was desperate to recruit and invest time and money in young talent, but the minor’s right to disaffirm a contract discouraged them from doing so. By the 1920s, Hollywood was operating under the “studio system” – actors received long-term contracts from companies (approximately seven years) and were paid millions of dollars to star exclusively in that company’s movies. However, with child actors enjoying the right to disaffirm their contracts, they could jump ship to a competitor at any given moment. Production companies needed contracts that would prevent competitors from snatching child actors at the height of their fame and earning potential.

Therefore, in 1927, the California legislature responded to pressure from the film industry. An addition to the California Civil Code allowed for the removal of a minor’s right to disaffirm a contract once the contract was “approved by the superior court of the county where such minor resides or is employed.” Production companies like Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) only had to find a judge to approve the contract for the minor to be legally bound by it. There was no standard that a contract had to reach before it could be approved, leaving children with no means of escaping them.”

As such, this seems to be a trend in various industries. The modelling industry for one always wants young models as young as thirteen or fourteen and even three! Name one is Kristina Pimenova who began her modelling career at the mere age of 3 and quickly became one of the most sought-after child models in the industry and also modelled for various brands and designers, including Roberto Cavalli, Benetton and Dolce & Gabbana. The same trend can be seen in the Korean industry as well. Young children are trained in the earlier days so their success is guaranteed by the time they reach their early teens or twenties. 

“One of the things we tell [new talent],” Lee says of this operation, “is that they are representing our country. If you were on an Olympic team you would have to be trained and we see no difference. If they want to be the best in the world, it takes a lot of work. They get media training. They study languages so that they can communicate with many different audiences. We teach them how to have good personalities.”

Minors that are employed clearly, have immense pressure. They are too young to be facing problems at an age where they should be playing, making friends, having fun, and loving life. The work environment in any industry if hiring any minor needs to create a conducive environment, have a counsellor they can talk to now and then, provide health benefits and more or so provide a safe environment. In the case of Ortega v. Salt Lake Wet Wash Laundry, an issue was raised on whether the Workmen’s Compensation Act is the exclusive remedy for a minor illegally employed, who is injured in the course of employment. Lupe Ortega, a girl fourteen years of age, was employed by defendants, from February 1943 to April 8, 1943. On the date last mentioned she was required and directed to work on and operate a power-driven machine, to wit, an electrically driven mangle. On said date, while working her hand was crushed in the mangle because of which she lost the three fingers and the distal phalanx of her right hand. She filed suit for damages. The defendants demurred, which demurrer the court sustained and dismissed the action on the ground that the Workmen’s Compensation Act is the exclusive remedy for an injured employee, and therefore a civil suit for damages would not lie. The plaintiff appealed. 

“Compared to the U.S., the Korean labor market is very inflexible. This inflexibility stems from a key philosophical difference concerning employment reflected by Article 32 of the Korean Constitution, which gives Korean workers a right to employment. While the U.S. Declaration of Independence states that citizens should have the right to “pursue happiness,” the U.S. Constitution does not enshrine such a right to employment.”