Tuesday, January 23, 2007

"Hound Dog"

I haven't seen this movie, but I am disturbed by reports about the depth and nature of sexual content portrayed by child star Dakota Fanning. She turns 13 years old next month.

13 is practically fully grown in Hollywood. I get that. (If you have any doubts, the movie "Thirteen" will chill you to the bone, but it is well worth it for the great performances by Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter.) But explicit scenes involving masturbation, nudity and rape for a 12 year old actress?

(Other accounts say that some of the more graphic scenes mysteriously disappeared from the cutting room floor when certain child advocacy groups protested the use of a minor actress in such disturbing scenes.)

Is anyone else bothered by reports that that Fanning's publicist and mother were attracted to the project, allegedly, because it had "Oscar written all over it."

For once, let's call a spade a spade. There appear to be good reasons that investors backed out of this film, which co-stars talented actresses Robin Wright Penn (one of my favorite actresses, BTW) and Piper Laurie.

In a bit of a Catch-22, I can't explore just how bothered I am about this without seeing the movie. But do I want to spend $10 to watch a child being exploited?

I'm not opposed to the telling of a great story, depressing or not. Child abuse is a serious problem and the more light shed on it the better. But at what expense? Certainly someone should be watching over Dakota's best interests as a not-yet-teenage child. Comparisons to Jodie Foster ("Taxi Driver") and Brooke Shields ("Endless Love"), who both portrayed sexualized teens don't even seem fair. I've seen both those movies. Both girls were inappropriately sexualized at a similarly early age, especially considering the time periods during which those movies were released. Interesting notion that we've slipped down a slope of expectations in that seeing characters like Tracie in "Thirteen" engaging in sex isn't too unbelievable.

But neither Foster nor Shields was hired, at age 12 and with the consent of her parents, to film an explicit rape scene. And providing the visualization, for the big screen, violence against a child, especially a rape of a young girl, seems unforgivable, especially in the name of art.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It makes me as angry as those people, press included, who are spinning Shawn Horbeck's time of captivity as somehow now, his fault.

Anonymous said...

guess i'd have to see the film before i make a comment . i thought taxi driver was a good film the actress jodie foster had been in prior films and didnt suffer from pretending scenes, with so much crew in a room, it never seems real or frightening