Opinion: I saw ‘Romeo and Juliet’ film in school. Now I wish I hadn’t

Editor’s Note: Madeleine Deliee writes about culture, education, entertainment and parenting for The Washington Post, Saveur, Playboy, Shondaland and others. Follow her on Twitter at @MMDeliee. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN.

CNN
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Being a teenager means being vulnerable – physically and emotionally besieged by adolescent hormones and the confusion of no longer being a child but not yet being fully an adult. It’s a time many of us wince to recall, and one I wouldn’t want to undertake again.

As someone who came of age before the ubiquity of social media, I’m grateful that little record of my own experience exists, for the sake of the teenage comments that still make me cringe all these years later and the photos of the uncomfortably changing body that I didn’t yet know how to inhabit. For Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, the then-teen stars of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film “Romeo and Juliet,” that record of adolescence is not only public, it’s also famous, unclothed and, allegedly, exists without their informed consent.

Hussey and Whiting recently filed suit against Paramount with accusations of sexual exploitation and distributing nude images of adolescent children. The complaint alleges that the actors, 15 and 16 at the time, were initially told by Zeffirelli (who died in 2019 and is not named in the suit) that the scene would be done with underwear. Later, they allege he said that “they must act in the nude or the picture would fail.” According to the complaint, the actors were assured that body makeup and specific camera positions would be used and that no nudity would be photographed and released in the film.

The scene that was ultimately included and shown in theaters showed Whiting’s buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts. The actors, who are now in their 70s, are seeking damages of $500 million. The suit was filed now, due to the temporary suspension of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases by the California Child Victims Act. CNN has attempted to reach legal representatives for Paramount Studios and Zeffirelli’s son for comment. On Friday, son Pippo Zeffirelli released a statement calling Hussey and…