Foster has spoken about how uncomfortable she was making the film. She cried at the costume fitting as they made her wear v tight hot pants with no underwear. She had never not worn underwear before. She was desperate to finish filming & not have to wear the “iconic” outfit again https://twitter.com/philanthropygal/status/1304144273470828545

Scorsese would burst out laughing when directing Foster to do overtly sexual things like “unzip his fly”. He knew what he was doing was wrong. Foster says De Niro would have take over direction to tell her what to do & he was also uncomfortable doing it.

Foster is very obviously exploited in Taxi Driver. Fact she, her costars & the director were lauded for the film does not make this ok. It just proves how little protection child actors had then & sadly clearly still lack now.

Hollywood has a lengthy history of destroying child actors, often through sexual exploitation both on & off screen. Lives have been devastated again & again. If we don’t say this is wrong nothing changes.

You’d think people would be more alert to this after Weinstein. But too many people are obliged to defend the indefensible in the name of art, ambition, & coercion. It’s like any other multi billion $ industry. It protects itself.