‘Quiet On Set’ Team Set Out To Show “There Was Clear Intention Behind The Sexualization Of Children On These Sets” – Contenders TV: Doc + Unscripted

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A few years ago, filmmakers Emma Schwartz and Mary Robertson remember taking note of video compilations from old Dan Schneider series that showed children and young teens “enacting scenes that are arguably sexual in nature.” “One example you see Ariana Grande squeezing a potato, or Ariana Grande — who was then a young teenager — pouring water on her chest and face,” Robertson recalls during a panel at Deadline’s Contenders TV: Documentary + Unscripted event. “And you see Jamie Lynn Spears receiving this squirt of a viscous liquid on her face.

And there were many on social media who were asking, ‘Did I grow up watching these clips?’ ” Their shock over what they found on social media, together with a story about ’90s kids TV in Business Insider, is what prompted the creation of Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

The Investigation Discovery docuseries set out to uncover the toxic and dangerous culture on the sets of Schneider’s Nickelodeon children’s shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s. RELATED: ‘Quiet On Set’: Dan Schneider, Others React To Investigation Discovery Docuseries “I was a kid.

And so the humor, if you could call it humor, went over my head,” Robertson said. “And if these scenes that featured teenagers that were arguably sexual in nature were made on sets with many adults around, which adult said yes and which adult said no?