Millie Bobby Brown: The Societal Pressures For A Woman To Stay Young And Beautiful Forever – And How The Scrutiny She Faces Can Be Compared To That Of Michelle Trachtenberg

Millie Bobby Brown just revealed to Chris Pratt, as well as the rest to the world, that her real name isn’t actually Bobby – it’s actually Bonnie, and she changed it for professional purposes for sh*ts and giggles. She told her ‘Thr Electric State’ co-star while promoting their new film, ‘I’ve never told anyone that, you heard it here first.’ Pratt, was of course surprised, and so was probably the rest of the world. But that’s not the only reason why the young starlet made headlines in recent weeks. You see, she walked the red carpet at the Oscars, and she…was scrutinized for her looks. Particularly, for looking ‘old’.

Brown then took to Instagram amid the controversy, criticism, and backlash surrounding her new ‘do’. She said, ‘I want to take a moment to address something that I think is bigger than just me, something that affects every young woman who grows up under public scrutiny. I think it’s necessary to speak up about this. I started in this industry when I was 10 years old. I grew up in front of the world, and for some reason, people can’t seem to grow with me. Instead, they act like I’m supposed to stay frozen in time, like I should still look the way I did on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 1. And because I don’t, I’m now a target. I refuse to apologize for growing up. I refuse to make myself smaller to fit the unrealistic expectations of people who can’t handle seeing a girl become a woman. I will not be shamed for how I look, how I dress, or how I present myself. We have become a society where it’s so much easier to criticize than it is to pay a compliment. Why is the knee-jerk reaction to say something horrible rather than to say something nice? If you have a problem with that, I have to wonder – what is it that actually makes you so uncomfortable?’

Brown went on to call out Matt Lucas, who starred in 2012’s ‘Bridesmaids’. He previously described the actress as having a ‘Mommy makeover’. Following Brown’s post, Lucas took to Instagram to express his apology. He said, ‘Dear Millie, I just saw your post and wanted to respond and provide some context. Nearly 25 years ago I co-wrote and appeared in a sketch show called ‘Little Britain’. There was a character in it called Vicky Pollard, who had blonde hair and always wore a pink top, and in the photo you had blonde hair and wore a pink top so I pointed out the similarity by posting one of her catchphrases. I thought you looked terrific, and I was mortified when the press wrote that I ‘slammed’ you, firstly because that’s not my style, and secondly because I think you’re brilliant.’

Many of her co-stars and friends showed Brown their support and words of encouragement, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Mckenna Grace, and Louis Partridge. Grace, for her part, said as she commended the ‘Stranger Things’ actress, ‘No young woman or person deserves to feel pressure or cruelty for simply existing. You are so well spoken and so beautiful. Very well said, thank you for making this video.’ Brown’s video itself is 3 minutes long. It was a lot to process. And nevertheless, the video is ever so important. It’s not just that the journalists who are the subject of the issue, but us as well, the people who read the publications. Journalists continue to write articles criticizing Brown’s changing appearance because we continue reading them. Numbers just don’t lie.

There could be so much more that could be said about Millie Bobby Brown, such as her working her butt off despite her hearing loss. She was born with partial hearing loss in one ear, which eventually led to complete hearing loss in that ear. Despite this, she has continued her acting career and has not let it hinder her. Of course, she faces challenges due to her disability, but these challenges, Brown has embraced her acting and singing career, demonstrating that hearing loss, or any other disability for that matter, shouldn’t be a barrier to pursuing one’s passions. Brown treats her unilateral hearing loss with a Phonak rechargeable hearing aid, which has allowed her to continue her acting career without interruption. While on set, she often needs an assistant to shout ‘Action’ loudly so she can hear when to start her scene. 

In 2017, Brown opened up about her hearing loss to Variety, admitted that she didn’t let it stop her from doing anything she enjoyed. She said, ‘I just started to sing, and if I sound bad I don’t care, because I’m just doing what I love. You don’t have to be good at singing. You don’t have to be good at dancing or acting. If you like to do it, if you genuinely enjoy doing it, then do it. No one should stop you. I know this sounds crazy, but once I find something I want to do, nobody’s stopping me. If I don’t know how to sew, and I really had that passion to sew, that’s it, I’m going to sew. That’s also with acting. So here I am… Acting is like breathing to me.’

There’s so much to be said about Brown’s persistence. She’s a role model for people with disabilities because she has shown that a person’s disability need not stop them from living a full life. She’s resilient, confident, and an absolute warrior. Throughout her career, Brown was youngest person to feature on the TIME 100 list, and was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role in ‘Stranger Things’, her breakthrough role. She also starred in movies such as ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ and ‘Enola Holmes’ After 9 years and 5 seasons, ‘Stranger Things’ is set to end later this year, but Brown’s career isn’t slowing down.

Following Brown’s video, journalist Rosie Green published an article for Hello! magazine titled, ‘I write about women’s looks for a living – but Millie Bobby Brown has made me rethink’. In the article, Green writes how her daughter is now entering womanhood herself, and has given her an insight as to how she should compliment a woman instead of commenting on her appearance, even if it’s a positive comment on her appearance. Instead of saying, ‘Your hair is so lustrous,’ she should compliment a woman on their nature or behaviour instead by saying something like, ‘I love how kind, generous, clever, empathetic, funny you are.’ Brown has done more than just acting. She’s done so much good for the world that goes unnoticed at times, such as participating in the ‘World’s Largest Lesson Live’ virtual event alongside UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore to inspire children and youth to learn about and take action for the United Nations Global Goals. And yet, we still continue to put an emphasis on her changing appearance.

Women are born into a society that lets them know at an early age they’re being watched. With that being said, women are consistently punished for literally anything and everything they might do…and not do. I’m constantly being watched for my physical appearance too, but like Millie Bobby Brown. And by no means am I even comparing myself to her as she’s a big celebrity who’s constantly under a microscope, whereas I’m…not. And yet, I constantly feel like I am every time I leave my house. I constantly feel like everyone around me is looking at me, making assumptions about my life solely based on the fact that my body looks different than the norm. They automatically assumed I was weak because of it. A lot of the times, those feelings are valid.

I remember the first time I met the person who’d eventually, to his dismay, become my father-in-law. My now-husband had been together for a year by that point. I met everyone else in his family already, his mother included, but him. And it was for a fairly good reason. He knew exactly how he’d react. He reacted exactly how my husband said he would; even worse. From the moment I walked through the front door, he was being a judgemental sh*t. He looked at me up and down, shock my hand, and as soon as he saw I shock his hand with my left hand instead of my right, he rolled his eyes at me.

But we had to get through the ‘business meeting’, which became a job interview. The interview was for the job of a girlfriend, and he was asking me questions to see whether I was good enough to be his son’s girlfriend. Obviously, I wasn’t. He was asking me questions like, ‘Do you cook?’, ‘Do you clean?’, ‘Do you go to school?’, ‘Are you working?’ All these questions were of things he didn’t believe I could ask someone with cerebral palsy. I didn’t pass his test. He just couldn’t believe that I could be good enough. He saw me as an embarrassment. He even said in his argument to my husband that I’d be an embarrassment to the family. Little did he know that I already wasn’t.

And I’m not saying this because I want to get some sympathy from you, nor do I want to be seen as a victim in the situation. My father-in-law isn’t even a villain in my story. He was the biggest obstacle in my marriage for years, as well as in my husband’s growth as a person, but I wouldn’t call him a villain. He’s just who he is, and he’s never going to change. There have been consequences, of course, and that’s just something he’ll have to live with; if he even understands that in the first place. I’m only saying anything about him to prove a point, which is that I was judged by someone solely based on the way I looked because it didn’t fit the norm of what a woman’s body should look like, and with that, my womanhood was dismissed. My father-in-law is just one person. It was actually an entire list of individuals who’d questioned my womanhood based on my disability and my appearance, which didn’t fit the norm of what society’s definition is of a woman. Recruiters judged me. Medical professionals judged me. Friends judged me. Random people on the streets judged me. The only people that didn’t judge me and truly saw my worth, it seemed, were my parents, my grandmother, my husband, and my mother-in-law. I’d even add my cat to the list.

We could even go back to my previous blog entry on Michelle Trachtenberg. She’d been scrutinized by her fans and social media users alike for her changing appearance for at least a year before her untimely death on February 26 at the age of 39. She wrote in response, ‘I’ve received several comments recently about my appearance. I have never had plastic surgery. I am happy and healthy. Check yourself, haters. Realize I’m not 14. I’m 38.’ But the criticism didn’t stop. Even in late 2024, social media users left unkind remarks about her ‘jaundiced eyes’ and ‘chapped lips’. It’s important to note that Trachtenberg had been working in the entertainment industry since she was a mere 3 year old toddler. Her body of work includes ‘Harriet the Spy’, ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, ‘EuroTrip’, ‘17 Again’, ‘Gossip Girl’, and more. And nevertheless, people drew attention to her physical appearance rather than her accomplishments.

After she died, it was Trachtenberg passed away, it was revealed that she’d been sick and undergone a liver transplant months prior, which confirmed social media users’ ‘concerns’. And the reason why I use quotation marks around the word concerns is because these people weren’t commenting about the actress’s appearance because they were concerned. They were doing because they could; because , cc they were sitting behind a screen, and they could. I don’t even understand why, after her death, the people that were close to her, and even those that weren’t, felt the need to say anything at all about struggles when she was so private in her lifetime. Did she ever say that she wanted to make it public knowledge after her death? If the answer is no, then they should all just STFU. They should’ve never even written anything on social media in their tributes to her or said anything to the media in the first place. Her neighbors, people that didn’t even know her personally, as well as workers at a restaurant she dined in a week before her death, spoke to the media following her death. WHY? Why did all these people have to make her feel weaker and less of a woman in death when she tried so hard to be as private as she could in her life?

And suddenly, after her passing, the people that were commenting such mean things about Trachtenberg’s appearance wrote ‘Rest in peace’ in the comments section on her posts. Suddenly, people started looking back at her career and remembering her accomplishments. To that I say, ‘Bullsh*t!’ Where was your kindness when she was alive? We’ve become so obsessed with beauty that anything that doesn’t fit the norm is suddenly of worry and need to comment on. And this has to do with journalism and its culture, where women’s appearances and representation face challenges, including underrepresentation in news sources, a focus on superficial attributes, and societal pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. 

In journalism and media, women are often objectified and sexualized, with their bodies being used to sell products or reinforce certain beauty standards. Women are subjected to being judged for their appearances. If they’re not seeing as sexual beings, they’re seen as wives, mothers, or caregivers, with their primary focus being on the home and family. And they’re not seen as good enough or beautiful enough, we automatically judge them – they look too old, they look too sick, they’re too thin, they’re too fat, and so on and so worth. In politics and business, women’s achievements can be overshadowed by personal details that have little to do with their professional capabilities. It’s the same in media. women as homemakers, victims, or focusing on their appearance rather than their achievements or expertise. 

Millie Bobby Brown looks too old. Michelle Trachtenberg looked too sick. As a result, these two women found themselves having to explain themselves to their entire world. Brown has had to explain herself as to why she’s becoming a blossoming young woman. Trachtenberg had to explain herself as to why she was getting older. Yes, she was sick. But it was none of our damn business. She didn’t want us to know that, and her version of her explanation should’ve been good enough. psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera gave a reason as to why we, as women, over explain ourselves. She said, ‘Over explaining is a habit response where we attempt to rid ourselves of guilt or anxiety by providing a ‘right’ answer to someone. The root of over explaining comes from patterns of fawning or people-pleasing. Many of us believe in order to say ‘no’ or to not do something, we need to provide a reasoning that won’t disappoint or upset others.’ When over explaining, you might notice it feels like you’re out of control and can’t stop talking. LePera explains, ‘This is because of the nervous system and the messaging it’s getting that saying no is a threat or a danger. Many of us learned from a young age that being liked or approved of us is more important than our own limits and boundaries.’

But of course, all this is downright for ‘regular’ women, myself included. I remember the years when I was at my worst in my epilepsy journey. I was having at least 50 seizures a day, everyday, I was struggling emotionally, mentally and physically, and my womanhood was even more fragile than it already was before. Appearing anywhere in public was a struggle for me. I was constantly afraid I’d have a seizure in public, which I have. It was embarrassing. I had no energy to make myself look ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful’ for any public appearances. One day, I was invited to a friend’s milestone birthday. We went to a fancy restaurant. All the women who looked absolutely beautiful. And me…I looked like I was either going to Starbucks. Or better yet, I looked like I just got out of bed and left the house in pyjamas. I might’ve even forgotten to brush my teeth. It was a sad time for me. I was depressed. I was scrutinized and laughed at for getting out of the house and walking out in public in this manner. I remember I didn’t want to go to that party, but felt that I had to in order to support my friend. Years later, that particular evening is still so fresh in my memory. I was probably the ugliest person in the entire restaurant. I tried so hard to be my best and to feel my best at that moment, but it just wasn’t enough. I take that day to heart even now, because no matter how I’m feeling, I always make sure I make myself ‘look good.’ My womanhood, after all, cannot and will not be belittled any further. No one could ever see me ugly, even if my life depended on it.

This has to do with beauty and womanhood, as well as the complex relationship between the two. Often times, it involves societal pressures and expectations that can impact a woman’s self-perception and well-being, as it impacted mine, with the media and beauty industry playing a significant role in shaping these ideas. Many cultures and societies have specific ideas about what constitutes ‘feminine beauty’, which can include traits like body shape, facial features, skin tone, clothing style, and hairstyle. These ideals are often promoted through media, advertising, and fashion, leading to pressure on women to conform to these standards from a young age. The pressure to conform can have negative psychological effects, such as low self-esteem, body dysmorphia, and even eating disorders. We talked about this in my previous post on Selena Gomez, in my mention on how social media and societal pressures led Taylor Swift to develop an eating disorder during her ‘1989’ era.

The media often portrays an unrealistic and narrow view of beauty, often emphasizing youth and thinness, which can contribute to ageism and discrimination based on appearance. One might argue that the emphasis on beauty as a primary function of womanhood can reinforce gender inequality, as women are often judged and valued based on their appearance rather than their character or accomplishments. Millie Bobby Brown and Michelle Trachtenberg are are both the perfect examples of that. So is Ariana Grande who’s recently been in the news for her weight loss instead of her great accomplishments in her role as Glinda in ‘Wicked’, which, by the way, earned her an Oscar nomination. These women are celebrities. Hence, the pressure they’d faced is exemplified. They’d been pressured to conform to beauty standards to succeed from a young age, and they’d also being penalized for doing so. Somehow, womanhood is now defined by beauty. Without beauty, there’s no womanhood.

When I think of womanhood, I think of Lana Del Rey’s ‘Young and Beautiful’. Who could ever her raspiness and despair when she questioned, ‘Will you still love me when I’m no longer beautiful?’ The song and lyrics explore the yearning for a lasting love, juxtaposed with the apprehension that such love might not endure, and the bittersweet beauty of youth and the potential for heartbreak. The song is the exploration of how women can only be loved if they’re young and beautiful, and if they’re neither young and beautiful, then love is under question. But this love doesn’t just have to be romantic love. Love can be in family, friendships, work, and in the case of celebrity, the world.

I’m a woman in my 30’s. I’m constantly being told that I look youthful. When I was 22 and was asked how old I was at a party, an acquaintance jokingly yelled out, ‘She’s 12!’ That was offensive to me. I was a young, blossoming woman treated like a kid by the people that called themselves my friends, and they told THEIR friends to treat me as such. I was never to be taken seriously. Fast forward to now, and I still get told I have this youthful look. Recently, I posted a photo on my Instagram Stories from the time I was 16 years old, and comments included, ‘You haven’t changed!’ And ‘You still look exactly the same!’ They might’ve just been nice, but it doesn’t change the fact that being older and looking youthful adds pressure to a woman’s self-esteem.

So much has happened to me in the past 20-ish years. I was raped. I got out of two abusive relationships. I graduated college. I started a business. I got married. I survived a car accident. I was diagnosed with epilepsy. And finally, I had a child. So when someone says I look the same as I did when I was a teenager, am I supposed to just erase those years and everything that happened to me in those years; everything that’s shaped me into becoming the woman I proudly am today? With age, comes wisdom. With wisdom, comes grace. With grace, comes courage. With courage, comes confidence. With confidence, comes freedom. And finally, with freedom, comes authenticity.

Maybe I’m saying this because I’m being sentimental, but getting older is a real privilege. With that being said, I’d never want to go back to my 20 year old self – the naive, scared, insecure girl that I was. That scene in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’ where Roxter told Bridget he wished he had a Time Machine was actually more intriguing than one would believe, because it gave a much deeper emphasis on the real entity of getting older. No, I wouldn’t want to go back in time to my old life just to be younger, but I also wouldn’t want to fast it forward just to ‘catch up’. I want to actually…live. I want to take it all in and enjoy every moment that I have in my life, all while having my own definition of beauty instead of living by the pressures of society.

When I was 10 years old, I was busy being a kid. I was obsessed with Barbie, Britney Spears, Pokémon, you name it. Millie Bobby Brown, on the other hand, was already living an adult life by the time that she was 10. She had people watching her every move by that point. People followed her. People cared what she looked like. People were constantly judging her based on her ever so changing body and ever so changing face. We, the public, forget that she’s a blossoming young woman. She’s not a child anymore. She’s not even a teenager. She’s a woman. She’s allowed to change and evolve, even if the rest of the world doesn’t like it. I just wish that the world concentrated more on everything she’d accomplished in her young life instead of her looking older than she actually is. I wish people cared more about her talents rather than what she looks like. We didn’t get the chance to do that with Michelle Trachtenberg. We’re only talking about what a true talent she was now that she’s gone. Let’s not make the same mistake with Millie Bobby Brown. Let’s talk about what a great actress and woman she is while she’s still here. And so, to end this blog entry on a positive note, I’d like you to include a few of Brown’s quotes to truly appreciate the essence of what a remarkable human being she is:

• I have two hands: one for me, one for other people.
• I don’t care what I look like; it’s how people think of me. And I do care how people think of me. I want people to say, ‘Oh, she’s nice,’ rather than, ‘Oh, she’s so pretty.’
• At the end of the day, I just do my job. I love my art. But I genuinely want to change the world. I’m very generous, and I really want people to see that I am – that’s really it.
• Working, for me, is like a gift.
• It makes so much sense to just love what you do and go to work every day to get to get to work.
• I could live without my phone. And one thing I’d love to do is experience having the freedom that kids had back in the ’80s.
• With my platform, anyway, I want to try and do good things and want to help people.
• I’m very generous, and I really want people to see that I am – that’s really it.
• A lot of people say to me, ‘Stay grounded; be humble.’ David Schwimmer was just like, ‘You need to love what you do.’ And I think that’s really nice. Just love your work. My family has given me great advice saying, you know, ‘Don’t work too hard.’ And it’s really nice to have someone like that – you know that they love you.