Re-airing any sort of exploitative or sexually explicit materialâeven for the purpose of exposing a predatory systemâis a slippery slope, and itâs one Quiet On Set subjects Raquel Lee Bolleau and Alexa Nikolas say the documentaryâs producers didnât handle well. âAfter watching the show, I saw that it was not at all what I signed up for,â Lee Bolleau, who had recounted her traumatic time on The Amanda Show and subsequent passion for protecting other young performers for the documentary, told IndieWire. âI also saw that I was surrounded by people who have one agenda, and that one agenda is their own success. Itâs a horrible word to even use in this context: success.ââŻ
When it released its first four episodes last month, Quiet On Set instigated a massive wave of conversation about the abhorrent behavior of former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider and the ethics of child stardom in general. But Lee Bolleau and Nikolas (who appeared on Zoey 101 before pivoting to full-time activism), accuse the seriesâ co-creators, Emma Schwartz and Mary Robertson, of using their stories as an excuse to re-air inappropriate material from the shows they starred in as kids, effectively exploiting them all over again.
âThey made me feel like my story was going to be heard and it wasnât,â Nikolas said. âThey were more interested in resurfacing that awful footage than listening to survivorsâ experiences.â (For what itâs worth, Nikolas and her organization, Eat Predators, have also been accused of mishandling survivorsâ stories.)
In hindsight of the seriesâ premiere, Lee Bolleau and Nikolas have also come to see the documentaryâs two-year production window as an intentional âsiloingâ of its subjects that kept them in the dark about the documentaryâs overall structure and âmanufactured consentâ that made it harder to critique the project. âThey pieced together a story and a narrative that they had on their own,â Lee Bolleau said. âThe reason they kept us all apart and from knowing specifics was because they knew if we all got together, we would start sharing and exchanging experiences and figuring out what this really is and what it means for us.â
Lee Bolleau also alleged to IndieWire that the producers âkept trying to push Brian Peck [and other criminal allegations] on meâ in her interview, even though she personally had no experience with him and only wanted to speak to her own story. âI dare them to air my entire interview now,â she continued. âThere is a part in my interview where I stop Emma in the middle of the interview and I said to her, âHey Emma, what is this about?… You need to help me understand because your questions that youâre asking me right now are not lining up with what weâve been talking about over the past year.ââ (Robertson and Schwartz denied these claims in a statement to IndieWire: âWe are clear with each participant about the nature of our projects.â)
Recently, the series also had a large press event and panel in California that neither Lee Bolleau nor Nikolas were invited to. âQuiet on Set did the same thing that the industry always does: They get what they want from you and then theyâre done. Never did they think that I would want to be at a discussion like that or a part of a discussion like that. Like, really?â Lee Bolleau said in a TikTok video posted after learning of the event. âIâm telling you, the level of betrayal that I feel from these peopleâif you want to wash something till thereâs nothing left, that is exactly what this has done for me,â she said to IndieWire later. âIâm really, really, really done.ââŻ