What kind of terrible parent must you be for your daughter to allude to your death as the title of her first book?
Jennette McCurdy was a popular actress in the 2010s(at least that was when I first got to know her), from the popular Icarly show. It was one of my favourite shows growing up, alongside Bigtime show, Drake and Josh, and Victorious. If you saw me rushing out of school or reluctant to stay back for evening lessons, it’s because of these shows. Jennette was “Sam” in Icarly, and she was an absolute show to watch.
Her character was a tom boy that bullied people to do her biddings, and you wouldn’t think of any other person that would execute the role as perfectly as she did. Now, reading her memoir and finding out that throughout her time in the show, she hated herself. This was a story of a child who had to endure the pressures of life right from a very young age.
She never wanted to become an actress. It was her mum’s idea for her to become an actress to help her live her unfulfilled dreams and also assist with the growing pains of their poverty. She had to shoulder the financial responsibility of her family, especially her mum’s from as early as 6 years old. She didn’t have a normal childhood where she could explore several interests before maybe eventually settling down for acting.
She had to be thrown into the life of rejections, memorising several lines of acting scripts, and pretending to like people you don’t so it doesn’t harm your chances of landing roles. Acting was a matter of survival for her and she hated every minute of it. There was also a calorie restriction habit that negatively impacted how Jennette viewed herself that her mum encouraged.
Calorie restriction is a way to slow down growth by monitoring the kind of food you consume. Growing up meant she would stop getting gigs for children roles and it was somewhat difficult for children actors to transition into adult roles so calorie restriction was a way of slowing down the inevitable to keep putting food on the table. This began her foray into unhealthy eating habits that transcended into bulimia-an act of intentionally throwing up after eating.
There were many instances of her mum emotionally manipulating Jennette to continue acting when she wanted to give up on acting to pursue a writing career. Her mum discouraged her from pursuing the writing passion, and it wasn’t until her mum died of Cancer that she finally came around to pursuing her passion. I don’t know if we should be also glad her mum died else we would not have this book in our hands.
Overall, this was a twisted book for me.
I know actors on tv are acting out scripts but they execute them so perfectly that we get real emotional reactions. Atleast, for me, if a movie is too intense or filled with suspense, I’d stop watching or forward to the end, no be me una go kee with bp. Now, seeing that one of my favourite characters hated her job but executed it so well is sad. Her life was a performance from herself. First, she acted for the audience at home, second, she acted against her true self that hated the job. Her performance was so tight that she did not let any spill into each other in public, but suffered it in private.