'Potty-Mouth Princess' Director and Child Star's Mom Defend Controversial Campaign

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ETONLINE

If you've been on Facebook lately, you've likely seen "Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism."

It's a viral video featuring young girls in princess costumes speaking out against sexual assault and gender inequality, all while cussing up a storm.

The campaign was created for FCKH8.com, a for-profit advocacy organization promoting sexual, racialand gender equity through the sale of clothing featuring pro-equality messages.

The video has drawn a lot of criticism from various organizations, including the controversial Fox Five opinion panel, who said on Thursday that having young girls swear and discuss sexual assault is akin to child abuse.


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To hear directly from the creators, Entertainment Tonight's Kevin Frazier and Brooke Anderson sat down with the video's director Luke Montgomery, as well as six-year-old Caige, who was featured in the video, and her mother, Brooklyne, to discuss the project.

"The whole idea was using a bad word for a good cause to get people's attention," explained Montgomery. "A lot of people are focusing on that we use the 'F' word in this video… The reason we did use the 'F' word is because we want people to focus on statistics like one out of five women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetime, or the fact that women and men doing the exact same job, the woman gets paid 23 percent less than men. In 2014, that's what's shocking, not the 'F' word."

Montgomery's video has managed to grab the attention of a lot of people across the country, with many critics focusing less on the message and more on the controversial nature of the delivery.


ET
played a video comment for the filmmakers from mom.me editor-in-chief and blogger Anne Marie O'Neill, who said of the video, "I think it is a little bit of a kind of cynical marketing scheme for something that's a really important message. And I think that we're all getting super distracted by, 'Can a little girl drop the F-bomb?' Overall, I think [it's a] great message, not the best delivery."


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Frazier also asked Luke and Brooklyne to respond to claims that the video was "child abuse."

An emotional Brooklyne defended herself and her relationship with her daughter, and revealed the personal reason she let her daughter participate in the video in the first place.

"People who know us know that we are a good family," Brooklyne explained. "And if this didn't mean something to me as a woman who was inappropriately touched at the age of four, I would not have let my daughter do this. But I feel that it is finally something that's going to get people talking. You know, it's an issue for a lot a people. That stat? One in five is too high… It is actually more because I never reported it. I never reported that as a little girl because I felt scared, because it was somebody I knew."


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As Brooklyne choked back tears, Caige began to cry as well.

"Getting a message out like that is so important for me," Brooklyne continued. "And, you know what? It's done in a crazy way, but like I was telling [Luke] earlier, we've been sitting here for decades of people talking about women's rights and where is it?... I don't see the stats that say women are equally paid still, decades after… Or somebody's foundations for getting sexual awareness or sexual help or something like that. Where's [the] charities and people who are doing stuff to educate at an early age? Teen pregnancy! It's out there, these kids know this kind of stuff."

ET's Brooke Anderson responded, "It's pretty awful that something this shocking, though, has to be done to address issues that should be so obvious."

"We 100% agree," Luke said. "If we could get people talking about the inequality that girls and women face, if we could get people talking about that without using the 'F' word? Oh my god, we would. That would be amazing. That would be wonderful. But we used this simple tactic, this four-letter word, this bad word for a good cause, to draw attention."


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"So the work that [Caige] did and the work that all the mothers did, and all the girls that were a part of the video, we're very proud of that," Luke added.

You can watch Entertainment Tonight's full interview with the filmmakers and family on Friday.