Bystanders vs Perpetrators: Who Is More Dangerous? An Op-ed

Child exploitation continues to fester within the entertainment industry as cognizant adults choose to turn a blind eye towards acts of sexual assault to protect their jobs. Nickelodeon stars have shared their stories through the recent documentary “Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kid’s TV”, exposing employees’ ignorance and the implications put upon the victims. If ignorance is continued by the entertainment industry, tolerating sexual assault will become a habit that serves to increase the pre-existing high rates of assault for both men and women. 

When hiring children for the sake of entertainment, there is a very fine line between exploitation and establishing a professional setting. It is the adult's job to advocate for the child since they are unaware of the expectations set by a traditional professional relationship. Far too often do adults abuse their position of power above the young actors, taking advantage of their daily separation from their parents, and acting on their own twisted impulses.

Power abuse in these scenarios is overly common and tends to rear its ugly head in the form of excessively sexual actions. As older adults, we can now look back at television shows we watched as kids and view scenes featuring sexual innuendos that we were oblivious to. 

Directors, producers, and screenwriters actively produced these scenes for their own entertainment, effectively exploiting the actors to play out their sick visions. These crew members are the obvious perpetrators, however, the ignorant witnesses are equally to blame.

There are numerous adult crew members who witnessed inappropriate scenes, sexual remarks, and even sexual actions forced upon the actors, all of whom fail to speak up for the victim. 

By definition, a bystander is a witness to an incident without taking part, but in these cases it’s even uglier because the witnesses are aware of the underlying power abuse that inhibits the victims from fighting for themselves, yet they still turn a blind eye. They enable the abusers by failing to inflict due consequences.

People act as bystanders for various reasons, most of which are strikingly selfish. The majority of polls will tell you that they fear retaliation from their boss, they “don’t know how to help”, or their job is too near and dear to risk. This selfish mentality infiltrates all work environments, productively keeping the same individuals in their position of power and allowing them to continuously abuse their power over others. 

Bystander effect is a psychological phenomenon that aims to explain witness’ willful ignorance toward cruel actions. It states that people are less likely to help a victim when around other people. It is an individual excusing their negligence in the presence of others’ negligence. Essentially it is the equivalent to “But mom, I saw other kids doing it!”

Bystanders create equally as much long term damage as the abusers by setting a precedent of ignorance for the victims. Imagine this - a producer is targeting a specific young actor, starring them in scenes featuring sexual subtleties and generally aiming their intentions on them. The other actors may see the situation for what it is, however, if they don’t see the surrounding adults do anything to intervene, they are trained to think that the inappropriate behavior is normal. 

By constantly enabling power abuse and exploitation, generations to come learn to accept the drastic power dynamics and the ill intentions that come from it. With this, power abuse will only grow stronger, further increasing sexual abuse in the workplace, especially in the entertainment business. Due to their vulnerability, children are the largest targets of power abuse and due to their impressionability, they are most likely to carry these actions in their own lives. 

Bystanders teach children to look the other way when acts of abuse occur, and together, bystanders and abusers teach children that it is acceptable to hurt others as there will be no consequences for such behavior.