Warning: This story includes discussion about sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
If given the opportunity, many of us probably wouldn’t even consider revisiting footage of ourselves as adolescents (just imagine the angst, the awkwardness, the foolishness). That’s especially so if you grew up before social media, when there wasn’t a rolling account of every single misguided thing you said and did that could quickly be subjected to the court of public opinion. But that’s what is so remarkable about Soleil Moon Frye’s documentary, Kid 90. She dares to look at her past through the lens of who she’s become today.
About four years ago, Frye, who rose to fame as the star of Punky Brewster, began reflecting on her formative years in the ’90s, opening, as she tells BAZAAR.com, a “Pandora’s box” by revisiting the myriad home videos she’d filmed herself, as well as her audio and physical diaries, all of which ultimately became Kid 90. In the documentary, she asks, “Are memories real, or are they the stories we want to tell ourselves?” What she discovered throughout this process was a sense of duality that was indicative of the time period and relatable for many teens still today. On one end, she was living a dream: partying with famous friends like Heather McComb and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, losing her virginity to her longtime crush (Charlie Sheen, as a matter of fact), and tripping out on mushrooms somewhere in the Los Angeles desert. But on the other, there was a dark side: Frye recollects her breast reduction surgery at age 15 following years of suffering from gigantomastia and being hypersexualized on-screen, blaming herself for her own rape, and failing to notice the pain friends like Shannon Wilsey and Jonathan Brandis were going through back then. “I don’t think I’ve been living a lie all this time, but I certainly don’t think I’ve been listening,” she says in Kid 90.
Now as a mother of four (with producer Jason Goldberg), Frye—who invites pals like McComb, David Arquette, and Brian Austin Green on this emotional journey captured in the film—looks back at “that pain, the trauma, the light, the love, the joy,” adding that, “every moment of it brought me to now.” Over Zoom from the place where it all started, L.A., she talks about working through her guilt and pain, the power of memory, the lessons she passes on to her children growing up in the social media era, and reclaiming her sense of self at age 44.
How did you know you were ready to revisit this era of your youth again?
As a teenager, I had documented all the world around me and kept the diaries from the time I was five and the audio recording at 12, and these videos. Then, I really locked it all away in Tupperware and in my vault, I think, on a subconscious level. One of the reasons was that I had lost some of the people that were closest to me so young, and I don't think I was ready to look back at it. I just didn't realize that there were so many ghosts of the past in there.
Then about four years ago, I have these incredible kids and I was focused on being a mother and wife. And I also wondered if my life had happened the way that I remembered it. I think part of me had always known that there was this artist inside, but I was so focused on my family that I wasn't really focused on myself and the artist that I once was. So I started going back through these tapes, trying to see if things happened the way I remembered them—and, of course, opened Pandora's box. And in opening Pandora's box, [I] discovered true self-love. It's been the most incredible journey that has been a coming-of-age of both the teen me and the adult me.
I'm fascinated by this idea of memory, which prompted you to revisit this time, and the way that’s explored in the film. For instance, you reflect on your rape back then through an entirely different lens now. Do you think memory helped protect you from certain realities or trauma from your past?
As we speak about some of these painful experiences, there were parts I remember and parts I didn't. For example, when I was drinking the drinks that then had GHB [gamma hydroxybutyrate, a date-rape drug] in them, but I didn't know what GHB was at the time. Do you know what I mean? I had these moments that I could remember being on my doorstep, I remember waking up in a different room, but I couldn't put together the pieces in between. Then, finding that tape and trying to piece it together through this blueprint, and in unlocking certain memories, that led to unlocking more memories and this incredibly deep exploration into my subconscious and my unconscious.
Once I had unlocked so many of these memories, you can't just put them back, nor would I want to, because that was part of the catharsis of this experience. [It] also led me to this incredible, deeper understanding of faith and studying my dreams again, meditating and healing the pain through my faith. I think memory is so fascinating, because once you open one gateway, it leads to another pathway that then leads to another. I spent these years working through them and wanting to really be authentic in showing what my discoveries were and what was there on the page and in the videos. And then, finding forgiveness for the little girl inside that somehow felt like she had to lock it away for all those years.
Forgiveness, including of oneself, for the past is also an interesting theme as your journey concludes in the film. What was your process as you realized, for instance, some of the pain your friends were going through that you overlooked at the time?
I went through so many emotions in the discovery of how much I loved people and how I was loved back and how often we don't always see the love around us. And the feelings around guilt and not seeing when friends were reaching out for help, or when they felt like they needed to be heard. It was such a process of working through all of those emotions and so incredibly cathartic. Because I was able to really live with these incredible ghosts of the past that I feel have been these angel wings wrapped around me every step of the way.
I spent so many hours and days and nights crying, listening to the audio tapes and watching the footage and reliving those painful experiences over and over and over. It was really a form of therapy for me to work through it. Then to come to the realization that all of the experiences that I've had in life, all of the pain from the time I was little, I was taught that you take [it] and turn it into art. So all of that pain, the trauma, the light, the love, the joy, every moment of it brought me to now. I really look at it as all happening for me and not to me, because it brought me to here. It has been messy at times, yet it's been such a beautiful life. And I am so grateful for it.
While Kid 90 is deeply personal, what you said about redirecting—or perhaps compartmentalizing pain—more broadly reflects how many young people in the decade navigated their emotions. The specific ways we deflected from sexual assault and mental health, and how women are sexualized, are conducive to the time.
Completely. In some way, when I was just trying to be myself, I look at those experiences and how relevant they are today with teens. The amount of objectification that happens on such a magnified scale with social media.
I've seen it through my own daughters’ eyes. I think it is our responsibility as families, media, journalists to share these stories and have this dialogue. Because there are so many young people struggling with mental health for so many reasons. And so much [of that is] driven by the insecurities of living through this unrealistic, filtered world, which they've been subjected to. One size doesn't fit all. We really need to lend support. I hope that in some way, this documentary can raise awareness around mental health and suicide prevention. If I can help one person, then I feel that we've done our job as filmmakers and as a journalist, as artists.
Absolutely. How do mothers like yourself teach your children to engage with or challenge some of the ideas they might see on social media, or even in traditional media, about young women and sexuality?
Well, you try to encourage your kids to love themselves. Then, there is the world that is at their fingertips every day. There are friends, and there's all of the things that I feel are explored in the dark. There's the moment towards the end [of Kid 90] where you hear all these messages to myself: Am I pretty? Am I ugly? All those questions that I felt as a teen, and then seeing how many teens are feeling the same way today. It is a conversation that definitely needs to happen at home. I also think it is the responsibility of the media to recognize this, and more and more documentarians and journalists are sharing these stories. Because we don't know what the long-term effects are going to [be]. Looking at the suicide rates and mental health right now and living through this pandemic and everything else compiled, I really think it's more important now than ever.
On the other end of Kid 90 is a reflection of you as a young woman, whose work earned you a level of privilege many of us have never seen, hanging out with other cool celebrities. Did it feel at the time that you were living a piece of the American Dream? And has that feeling shifted since rewatching this period?
[Laughs.] These tapes … it's so incredible. Because I always felt like I had such a cult. I was so grateful and had such a colorful world around me that I wanted to drink it all in. And because we grew up together at such young ages, it really felt more, like my friend said, our real-life eighth grade. We were a very small group of friends that all hung out together. So it never felt like it was disingenuous. It felt authentic and that we were really amazing, wonderful friends. Different people went on to do different things. And we were just having so much fun.
There were definitely perks. Obviously, there were so many innocent years, and then it was super fun, like, some of the wilder times. Then, when I moved to go to school in New York and do theater, [it] was such a dream. I loved writing and was writing for a magazine and obsessed with skate culture. So I saw a group of kids jumping into a taxi and ran after them. I said, “I’m writing this article, and I’d love to interview you guys.” It happened to be Harold Hunter and Justin Pierce, who had just finished Kids. I didn't know that it was them at the time, and then they became my best friends in New York. So I was so fortunate to constantly be surrounded by such incredible, artistic, inspiring people. And at the same time, some of my close friends since I was a little girl were actors. Some were kids just in school. It was a whole mix of us.
Some were musicians. I saw Brian [Austin] Green yesterday and our friend Will, who we grew up with. So many people know him as Will.I.Am. We were all growing up together, and there was just this support and love. I think it's also the reason why when people tell me that there's so many sad stories that come out of the experience [of growing up] in the spotlight, I can name so many more of us that have come out and grown stronger than ever.
Kid 90 includes footage of you watching the news of the L.A. riots and listening to a message from your dad, who was involved in the civil rights movement. What do you remember about that particular moment in history?
My father was a civil rights activist. He, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and Tony Franciosa had gone to Gadsden, Alabama, to work on equal rights. He was part of the March on Washington. The work that he did around the civil rights movement is the work that he was certainly most proud of. I’ll do these Google searches every once in a while and find photos of James Baldwin, and [my father] is standing in the background. Or him and Sammy Davis Jr. To be able to see that in our DNA is something that I'm so proud of. My mom was an activist. I think that journalistic part of me was born into me, the part of me that was always raised to be of service to others and around justice and what is right and what is our duty. It's something that I really encourage in my children.
I love that you mentioned that moment, because that was my dad's voice and what was going on at the time. Those moments captured the journalistic lens that I was looking at the world through. So there was the internal world of our friends, then there was a world around us—the earthquakes, the fire, all of these things that were going on. I would always grab my camera and pick it up. It was a part of me, and I'm so grateful for that.
The film is titled Kid 90, but it spans both your teenage and young-adulthood years. And you've recently said that you're coming of age again. What does adulthood mean to you, and how has that evolved over the years?
I had associated that spark with youth. I remember moving to New York and feeling so alive and the world was at my fingertips, and those teen years living in Los Angeles. Then, of course, I've had this incredible life and these amazing kids, and I really associated that spark, that kid within, with youth. And through this experience, unlocking these tapes and reliving these experiences and growth and looking within, I rediscovered that spark. And for me, that's what coming of age again, at this stage of my life, has really been. To be in my truth, thy own self, and that incredible discovery of self-love and self-awakening, and to be able to do my art and continue being of service to others and the work. I have the honor of working with CORE [Community Organized Relief Effort], which is so important in my heart, and we've now done over 500,000 vaccinations and over 4.8 million tests across the nation. So, for me, adulthood is about continuing to live with that spark.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Candice Frederick is a freelance TV/film critic living in New York City. You can find more of her work here. Follow her on Twitter.
