Are Industry Insiders Turning on Quiet on Set?

“When something is as popular as Quiet on Set is, there’s bound to be some negative reaction,” filmmaker Mary Robertson recently told Vanity Fair. “But we’ve been overwhelmed by the extent of the positive impact that the film has had on the people who participated.” Weeks after its release, however, Robertson and Emma Schwartz’s blockbuster Investigation Discovery docuseries about racism and abuse behind-the-scenes of the kids’ network Nickelodeon is facing claims of perpetuating the same type of exploitation that it chronicles.

In recent days, multiple figures with tangential ties to the doc, as well as former child stars, have spoken out against Quiet on Set as larger criticism of the documentary has begun to percolate.

The first to cast aspersions on the project was Marc Summers, former Nickelodeon game show host, who said he was “ambushed” into participating. “They never told me what this documentary was really about,” he claimed on the Elvis Duran Show in early April. “And so they showed me a video of something that I couldn’t believe was on Nickelodeon. And I said, ‘Well, let’s stop the tape right there. What are we doing?’” He continued, “They asked me what I thought of Nick, and the first 10 to 12 seconds, from what I understand, in this documentary is me saying all these wonderful things. But they did a bait and switch on me.” Robertson and Schwartz previously responded to Summers’s account in a joint statement to NBC News provided by Investigation Discovery. “We are clear with each participant about the nature of our projects,” they said at the time.

The Amanda Show alum Raquel Lee Bolleau, who agreed to appear in the documentary, denounced the series in an April 11 TikTok. “Let me tell you what my problem is with this industry: Quiet on Set did the same thing the industry always does—they get what they want from you and then they’re done,” she said regarding not being included in an event on the documentary. “Never did they think that I’d want to be part of a discussion like that.” In her video, Bolleau accused the filmmakers of misleading her about the documentary’s focus. “First of all, you don’t even tell me what type of documentary that I’m going to be a part of. You never questioned whether or not this is going to be triggering for me.” She added, “This industry has done nothing but hurt me, left and right, since I was a child.”

The following day, financial reporter Chelsea Fagan aired her grievance with the series in her own TikTok. Fagan claims that a clip of an interview she conducted with a former child actor, who she does not name “out of respect” for that person, was used on the series without her or the actor’s consent. She says that when a production company asked to license a clip from the 2022 interview for an “unnamed documentary about child actors,” Fagan reached out to the star’s rep, who confirmed that the actor “unequivocally did not consent to have that content used in this documentary.” Fagan says she told the documentary team that since the actor declined to participate in the project, usage of the clip would be “highly unethical.” The reporter says she and the actor have “pursued legal channels” for removing the clip. Fagan concluded that she was “frankly disgusted to be associated” with the docuseries.

This week, Disney Channel alum Christy Carlson Romano, star of Even Stevens and Kim Possible, was quoted saying that she declined to participate in a similar kind of doc for Investigation Discovery, although she didn’t know if it was what became Quiet on Set. Her fellow former Disney actor Alyson Stoner, Romano says on an upcoming episode of Mayim Bialik’s podcast (via Entertainment Weekly), impinged upon her “the importance of understanding trauma porn.”

“We know that the art of montage and the collision of images is going to incite a certain kind of emotion,” Romano reportedly continues. “That is what documentary filmmaking in social movements is meant to do. And so we’re so manipulated by media, and we have so many little cut-downs of misinformation and things being thrown, that the echo chambers, to me, are not helpful.” For these reasons, Romano felt “there’s no hope being inserted into the narrative” by getting involved with a documentary on the subject.

Romano, who has not seen Quiet on Set, goes on to express her discomfort with the fact that the documentarians do not understand the realm of child stardom from a firsthand perspective. “These are people who don’t belong to our community,” she says. “These are outsiders. And maybe they, maybe if they knew where to put money towards [fixing] a problem, they would, but again, a lot of this has been perceived in a way that’s — it’s outside baseball. It’s not inside baseball, it’s outside baseball. These are trauma tourists.”

Vanity Fair has reached out to Investigation Discovery, Robertson, and Schwartz regarding the claims made by Bolleau, Fagan, and Romano.