Skins teens showing too much skin? Scantily clad 17-year-old actors arouse controversy in new Elle photo shoot
What to do when ratings are slipping? If you’re a member of the Skins cast, the answer is easy: strip down to your skivvies and score as much controversy as possible. That’s exactly what several of the show’s young and enviably bodied actors did for a photo spread by Joe Zee and Thomas Whiteside in the latest issue of Elle magazine. Cue outrage from the Parents Television Council. No big surprise, given that the PTC already has a hate-on for Skins and previously blew a gasket over undies-only shots of the Glee cast in GQ (and those actors aren’t even teenagers—they just play teens on TV).
In the case of Skins, two of the six actors involved are actually underage, including 17-year-old Camille Cresencia-Mills, who was just a regular Etobicoke School of the Arts kid before scoring the role of Daisy on the show, which shoots here in Hogtown. Her fellow locally bred cast mates Rachel Thevenard and Britne Oldford are also part of the provocative Elle spread; both are 18 years old. Says PTC representative Melissa Henson: “Even though the poses are less provocative Glee shoot>, the fact that they have these underage girls wearing lingerie is troubling.” Elle is firing back, saying the magazine had the blessing of the actors’ parents. The editor-in-chief, Robbie Myers, also makes a fashion argument: “Innerwear as outerwear has been a trend for decades, and Joe Zee’s point was to make what the actors wear on their show more fashion, less vulgar.”
At the end of the day, this latest firestorm will probably direct more attention to the struggling show—a good thing, we suppose, considering its Toronto roots. But do the photos go too far? Have a look and weigh in below.
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Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
