The British Museum – Playground – social change for the US?
‘Playground’, Libby Spears’ 78 minute expose on the child sex industry, has been aptly programmed in to coincide with the Filmmaking for Social Change: Pakistan series at the next-door Stevenson theatre. The childish cartoon illustrations immediately give way to a damning story of an American who paid to get himself off the charge of child sex offender after opening a child abuse establishment – one of the 25% of child sex tourists who are US citizens. We are then brought back to the US to meet those fighting the shockingly thriving child sex industry there – this isn’t a film about “somewhere else” as many on this side of the Equator presuppose documentary filmmaking to be about, but instead is focussed on the Western world.
‘Playground’ has been famously Executive Produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Steven Soderbergh, and features cartoons by the Japanese Pop-artist Yoshitomo Nara. However, this has not miss-served to overshadow the important content, such as the profile of the child victim of US prostitution, who is no longer most likely to be from a poor household, the way young girls actually post themselves on the internet for sexual purposes – the new “playground for paedophiles” – or just how easy it is to find children being abused – during the film, several are picked up off the street as they are soliciting. The pastel-coloured animated inserts and insert titles commenting on the content or offering shocking statistics are a poignant counterpoint.
Frank interviews with policemen, campaigners, clinical experts, foster parents, all obviously outraged at what they have been investigating and fighting against. The search for Michelle, a girl lost in the child sex industry is particularly saddening, and the further crime of sadistic abuse practiced against young prostitutes. A young female prisoner in Arizona tells an officer, “Everybody’s been through something, but some of us’ve been through more than others.” She thinks she’ll get used to the things that have happened to her.
Some of the descriptions of abuse are just impossible to comprehend, yet interviewed offenders talk about it just being ‘business’. Pictures of the children involved as babies and toddlers are shown…and then it hits you that they were only a few years older when abused. This is an important film, completely sinister and unnerving, and hopefully the hype surrounding its famous backers will only help to widen awareness on this issue that resonates throughout the world.
