Everywhere I look these days, I see Will Smith and his 8-year-old son, Jaden. The pair is traveling the globe, promoting the shit out of their first film together, “The Pursuit of Happyness.”
Is it just me, or do you find it creepy when actors drag their kids into their films, too? They always say the kids ‘wanted’ to act. They’re all ‘naturals'. In Jaden Smith’s case, despite having zero acting experience, he was classified as a straight-up, “remarkable, intuitive” actor.
“I was in his corner, but I didn’t have his back,” Will Smith recalled, of his son’s audition, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. “He earned the job himself, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Despite Jaden's difficulty filming emotional scenes, he was apparently good enough in auditions to convince the film’s director to bring him on board, and change the age of his character from 2 to 5, that the 8-year-old could realistically portray him.
Wow! He must be one of those kids with 'natural' star power. A regular Dakota Fanning. That, or he's got a man on the inside.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I have not seen “The Pursuit of Happyness.” Nor do I intend to. So I’ll never know whether or not Jaden Smith’s got the goods, or whether he’s just a chip off the ol’ blockhead. But here’s what I do know: if there’s anything I hate more than a cheesy rapper-cum-actor, it’s a tearjerker "family" film, into which the star has dragged, his underage, albeit uncommonly cute, child, thus making it more marketable. It just feels wrong.
Do not the spawn of Hollywood’s elite have enough to contend with, what with Scientology, kindergarten paparazzi, and the mere existence of La Lohan? Do not their parents heed the lessons put forth by generations of children pimped out before them?
All one has to do is look at former child stars like Michael Jackson, Tatum O’Neal, Macaulay Culkin, or those Olsen ghosts, to come to the conclusion that immaturity + large sums of money – lack of formal education + long work hours portraying characters they don’t fully understand = Charlie fucking Sheen.
Do we really need more of those? Gah.
