Millie Bobby Brown is right, but not in the way she thinks.

"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…"

Catapulted to fame when she was 10 years old, Millie Bobby Brown has spent half her life in the public eye. 

"I grew up in front of the world and, for some reason, people can't seem to grow up with me," she said yesterday in a statement to the media.

"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 one, and because I don't, I'm now a target."

The 21-year-old then directly addressed the headlines that have been circulating about her appearance, including: "Why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown ageing so badly?"; "What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face?"; and "Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone's mum."

"The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, is disturbing," she said.

Watch: Millie Bobby Brown addresses criticism about her appearance. Post continues after video.

Brown comes from a long line of child actresses who have had their appearances dissected for public consumption.

Emma Watson became an archetype of the "good girl" thanks to her portrayal as Hermione Granger. When she began embracing a grown-up public persona, she was criticised for shedding her innocence. Yet, as soon as she turned 18, photographers placed their cameras up Watson's skirt and sold the photos to the English tabloids.

"If they published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal but, because I turned 18, they were legal," Watson previously said at her HeForShe launch.

Years later, when Watson posed for a revealing Vanity Fair photo-shoot at the age of 26, critics were quick to call her anti-feminist. But Watson pushed back, saying: "Feminism is about giving women choice."

Then there's Natalie Portman, to whom Brown is often compared. After her breakout role in Léon: The Professional at just 12 years old, she became acutely aware of how older men viewed her. As a result, Portman deliberately avoided playing "sexy" roles or dressing in a way that might invite further objectification.

"At 13 years old, the message from our culture was clear to me: I felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world that I'm someone worthy of safety and respect," Portman said at the 2018 Women's March.

While Watson worked to reclaim her sexuality, Portman did everything to hold onto her "innocence". Both women were criticised.

"I built a reputation for basically being prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious, in an attempt to feel that my body was safe and that my voice would be listened to," Portman said.

As child actresses grow up, it is damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they embrace femininity, they are overly sexualised and criticised for "growing up too fast". If they reject it, they are seen as prudish.

A young Natalie Portman. Image: Getty

"Disillusioned people can't handle seeing a girl become a woman on her terms, not their own," said Brown in her statement.

"I refuse to apologise 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."

Brown is right; she should not have to apologise for growing up. But she is also wrong; she is not doing it on her own terms, she can't.

The reality is, Hollywood and the patriarchy have likely shaped Brown's choices regarding her appearance, in ways she may not even fully realise.

The pressure to look a certain way — to be polished, glamorous, and "grown-up" in a specific, hyper-feminine way, while still maintaining innocence — exists because of the patriarchy, and is only exacerbated because of the industry she's in.

It's the same system that pressures young actresses to conform to beauty standards in order to be taken seriously or continue booking roles.

Before landing her breakout role in Friends, Jennifer Aniston was advised to lose weight.

Jenna Ortega once considered dyeing her hair blonde "like Cinderella", in the hopes she would land more roles.

Demi Moore, in her Golden Globes acceptance speech, confessed that there are moments she doesn't feel "smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, and successful enough" as a woman in the industry.

A young Millie Bobby Brown. Image: Getty

While some may argue that Hollywood's beauty standards have progressed, I have to disagree.

Sure, we're no longer seeing outright endorsements of eating disorders like heroin chic, but there is a different kind of pressure: the rise of Ozempic, Botox, fillers, and cosmetic tweaks being normalised under the guise of "self-care" or "wellness".

Instead of crash diets, it's about medically induced thinness. Instead of tabloid body-shaming, there's a hyper-filtered social media standard that pushes unattainable perfection. Even the "diversity" in beauty standards still has limits: while more body shapes are accepted, there's still an expectation to be curvy in the right places but thin everywhere else. 

In many ways, it's as though we have repackaged old beauty pressures in a more palatable way.

This is not a critique of those who undergo cosmetic procedures. I myself will most likely get Botox one day (if I was a famous actress, I think I would have got it years ago). But when that time comes, I don't really think it will be completely my choice. Not really, anyway. I don't think it can be, under the patriarchy.

In the same way, how Brown chooses to grow up is only her choice to an extent. Her autonomy exists within a structure that rewards women for looking a certain way, particularly in Hollywood. And while her choices should never be up for public ridicule, it's important to remember they don't happen in a vacuum.

When Millie Bobbie Brown said she wanted to address something "bigger than her", she was absolutely right. But not in the way she thought.

Feature Image: Getty