I caught an episode of Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit over the break (who am I kidding, I love L&O and my folks have satellite, so I caught multiple episodes a day). This particular episode dealt with a girl that has Turner’s Syndrome, so she’s (more-or-less) stuck in a girl’s body even as she ages into young womanhood. She’s a 17 year old character that looks like she’s 12 or so. No older than 13 or 14.

In the story, she gets romantically involved with a gopher for her daddy that has a history of romantic involvement with underage girls (the guy seems to be in his young 30’s). At the end of the episode, the 30-something creep and the pre-teen-looking girl share a passionate kiss. I was curious about the ethics of such a scene, assuming that they had a 12 year old girl or so playing the 12 year old looking character and thinking how odd it must be as an actor kissing such a young girl.

Turns out that the actress herself (Betsy Hogg) was roughly 17 at the time of the shooting. So the episode featured a 17 year old actress playing a 12 year old looking girl that was actually 17. That’s kind of trippy…


Category: Theater

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2 Responses to The Young Girl

  1. Lynne says:

    That episode didn’t do too well in accurately portraying Turner syndrome. Yes, women wit TS are small and look young. Many are seriously bullied, and are socially awkward, but most are very shy and reticent with men. A Turner girl of 17 would not be likely to seek out a man of 30.

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