Dakota FanningAll shook up over Hounddog.
By Meghan O'RourkePosted Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007, at 12:51 PM ET
If all you knew about Dakota Fanning was that she starred as Fern in Charlotte's Web, I suppose it could come as a shock that her controversial new film, tentatively titled Hounddog, isn't a movie about charming canines, but the story of a pre-adolescent girl caught in a cycle of abuse who, in the most talked-about scene, is raped by an older boy. Before the film debuted at Sundance this week, it ignited a firestorm of debate, with protesters registering their distress that Fanning had been exposed to such provocative subject matter. But the truth, as anyone who has recently been to the cinema knows, is that Dakota Fanning has been making dark and creepy movies for years. Over her seven-year career, she has become a small, blond embodiment of America's fond hope that scarred children can be restored to childish innocence. It was only a matter of time before the trauma she faced would be rape.
From the start, Fanning has played the preternaturally mature child who could toe the cold waters of trauma but just as swiftly retreat to the broad sands of innocence—with a shiver, perhaps, but nothing more enduring than that. In films like The War of the Worlds, Hide and Seek, and Man on Fire, she became an emblem of button-cute purity threatened—but not overcome—by the ordeals and evil that are, more properly, part of the adult world. They are roles that enact our voyeuristic curiosity about how far the boundaries of innocence can be extended. In the intensely violent Man on Fire (2004), she is a neglected, love-starved child who is kidnapped for ransom money, and watches her beloved bodyguard (and only true friend) get brutally shot in front of her as she cries his name. She is later rescued, but he dies for her. In Hide and Seek (2005) she plays a troubled 9-year-old whose mother has recently died; terrible things happen, but in the end, she appears to find some relief from her emotional suffering. ("Dakota Fanning is the most SCARY thing i have ever seen," a viewer posted on IMDB, in apparent approval.) In The War of the Worlds (2005), she watches as aliens destroy her world, transforming it into a landscape literally flowing with blood, and her father kills a man in order to save her life, while she sits nearby. She is brutalized and subdued, but by the film's end—when she reaches the cozy brownstone where her mother is—she appears ready to be absorbed again by the consoling rhythms of domesticity; one feels that even her toys are intact.
What complicates the trauma in the Hounddog is Fanning's decision to portray a rape victim at precisely the juncture in her own life we're uncertain how to conceptualize: pre-adolescence. Had the news arrived that a 9-year-old Fanning were flouncing around in her underwear in an upcoming movie, protesters who are alleging that the film is unmistakably "pedophilic" might have had a firm leg to stand on. Had the news arrived that a 15-year-old Dakota were doing the same, her defenders (including her mother and her agent, who are reportedly hoping for an Oscar nomination) might more persuasively have been able to argue that she made the choice with full autonomy, taking it on as a substantive artistic "challenge," as her agent put it. But she is 12. In her press pictures, she still looks like a scrawny child, gap-toothed and big-eyed. (Little wonder, then, that bloggers have posted outdated photos of her, playing up the contrast between her childishness and the supposed brutality of the film.) Protesters of the film may be genuinely concerned that acting out a rape scene in a film is traumatic to Fanning. But what some are presumably also anxious about is that watching Dakota in a rape scene is traumatic to them; in today's world of hypersexualized celebrity adolescence, can a fling with a creep or tawdry table-dancing be far away?
Meghan O'Rourke is Slate's culture critic and the author of Halflife, a collection of poetry. Illustration by Charlie Powell.
Remarks from the Fray:
All child stars seem to start out as prenatural adults to begin with. If Linda, Jodie, Brooke and now Dakota could/will understand the adult sexualities of the characters and scenes they played/will play, its because they are the tough-case players of a business in which little boys and little girls get to know all sorts of facts of life before (some) other kids do.
That we're supposed to be "shocked" by Dakota Fanning appearing in this film is just part of the cynical hype that affects commercial and artistic films alike. But this kid knows the score, and has for a long time.
As great as the movie of "The Godfather" was, Mario Puzo stuffed the book with a fair share of Harold Robbins sex trash to promote sales, little of which made it to the screen.
One scene from the book was shot and cut: visiting Hollywood to negotiate with the studio head over his horse's head, lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) sees a mother spirit her tarted-up little girl into the studio head's airplane for a trip that ends with the little girl decidedly "educated" by the mogul, and getting a starring role in a new movie. It made the horse's head more fitting as justice.
A scene based on reality? I have no idea. Believable? Of course.
--lucabrasi
(To reply, click here.)
What is amazing is how much concern there is for Dakota Fanning, an actress in a movie novel who is raped, and so little concern for the Darfur boys who, in a real life story, survive the genocide in Sudan. Just because there is no sex portrayed in the documentary does not negate the emotional impact of brutality upon real children. There must be dozens of films and tv shows (think Law and Order SVU for example) where child actors are exposed to sexual situations and trauma. Why all the sudden commotion?
I call it another round of social politics that exploits ignorance and fear. A big serving of hypocrisy. Suffer, little children, except when a public figure needs to raise extra cash.
--bookteckie
(To reply, click here.)
Was there "Bastard out of Carolina" outrage? A young, very white Jena Malone portrays a child rape victim, with extremely graphic visuals in full light of a grown man THRUSTING over her. He also hits her in the face hard until her mouth bleeds, and kisses her forcefully long and hard, ALL ON CAMERA.
I think some people do not realize that there is a process to filmmaking in which the actors really are VERY detached from the final image that hits screens. I read a long article about the making of "Bastard" and for those scenes there are MANY adults protecting the child (mother, manager, psychologist, child welfare reps) and that despite how it looks, the child is very well separated from the man. For example, while "thrusting" over her, there was actually heavy pillows between them, so what you thought you saw was actually Jena being shoved around by heavy pillows. It's a very careful process, and she speaks of the experience just fine to this day. There are some child actors who have the advanced intellect to distinguish the process from reality, and they are scrutinized very carefully by psychologists before they are cast.
I think we can trust that these movies really are made very, very carefully. Perhaps it's intimidating for us to admit that there IS a process that we have NO part of...maybe it bothers us that we are being so well fooled and we want to think we know the inner workings of every professional child in this society better than their own parents know them. So people throw out the "messed up former-child star" stories, but really, there are millions of "messed up non-former-child-stars" aren't there?
--BZL
(To reply, click here.)
1 - Child molesters have a hard enough idea controlling themselves already (this is actual self-testimony of convicts and parolees) . . . we don't need to be tempting them with bad ideas
2 - Just because a topic is "challenging" as the director puts it, it doesn't mean its a good topic for a movie. Besides child rape, other challenging topics might include: insulting Islam with unflattering film depictions of the prophet Muhammad; a documentary film of a fetus undergoing an actual abortion; how to make a nuclear or biological weapon; etc. they don't have an Oscar category for "over the top" or "absurdly dangerous", even if the topics I mentioned above are protected by first amendment rights.
3 – It's emotionally crushing to think of inducing a 12 year old (presumable) virgin to act in a rape scene.
4 - No one has yet explained to me what the "purpose" of this film is . . . the only things I've heard relate to the rape controversy. Does it have a purpose, or is its sensationalism the sole reason it exists? Especially since it won't be coming to the local cineplex at your mall anytime soon . .
--baltimore_aureole
(To reply, click here.)
(1/25)
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Remarks from the Fray:
All child stars seem to start out as prenatural adults to begin with. If Linda, Jodie, Brooke and now Dakota could/will understand the adult sexualities of the characters and scenes they played/will play, its because they are the tough-case players of a business in which little boys and little girls get to know all sorts of facts of life before (some) other kids do.
That we're supposed to be "shocked" by Dakota Fanning appearing in this film is just part of the cynical hype that affects commercial and artistic films alike. But this kid knows the score, and has for a long time.
As great as the movie of "The Godfather" was, Mario Puzo stuffed the book with a fair share of Harold Robbins sex trash to promote sales, little of which made it to the screen.
One scene from the book was shot and cut: visiting Hollywood to negotiate with the studio head over his horse's head, lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) sees a mother spirit her tarted-up little girl into the studio head's airplane for a trip that ends with the little girl decidedly "educated" by the mogul, and getting a starring role in a new movie. It made the horse's head more fitting as justice.
A scene based on reality? I have no idea. Believable? Of course.
--lucabrasi
(To reply, click here.)
What is amazing is how much concern there is for Dakota Fanning, an actress in a movie novel who is raped, and so little concern for the Darfur boys who, in a real life story, survive the genocide in Sudan. Just because there is no sex portrayed in the documentary does not negate the emotional impact of brutality upon real children. There must be dozens of films and tv shows (think Law and Order SVU for example) where child actors are exposed to sexual situations and trauma. Why all the sudden commotion?
I call it another round of social politics that exploits ignorance and fear. A big serving of hypocrisy. Suffer, little children, except when a public figure needs to raise extra cash.
--bookteckie
(To reply, click here.)
Was there "Bastard out of Carolina" outrage? A young, very white Jena Malone portrays a child rape victim, with extremely graphic visuals in full light of a grown man THRUSTING over her. He also hits her in the face hard until her mouth bleeds, and kisses her forcefully long and hard, ALL ON CAMERA.
I think some people do not realize that there is a process to filmmaking in which the actors really are VERY detached from the final image that hits screens. I read a long article about the making of "Bastard" and for those scenes there are MANY adults protecting the child (mother, manager, psychologist, child welfare reps) and that despite how it looks, the child is very well separated from the man. For example, while "thrusting" over her, there was actually heavy pillows between them, so what you thought you saw was actually Jena being shoved around by heavy pillows. It's a very careful process, and she speaks of the experience just fine to this day. There are some child actors who have the advanced intellect to distinguish the process from reality, and they are scrutinized very carefully by psychologists before they are cast.
I think we can trust that these movies really are made very, very carefully. Perhaps it's intimidating for us to admit that there IS a process that we have NO part of...maybe it bothers us that we are being so well fooled and we want to think we know the inner workings of every professional child in this society better than their own parents know them. So people throw out the "messed up former-child star" stories, but really, there are millions of "messed up non-former-child-stars" aren't there?
--BZL
(To reply, click here.)
1 - Child molesters have a hard enough idea controlling themselves already (this is actual self-testimony of convicts and parolees) . . . we don't need to be tempting them with bad ideas
2 - Just because a topic is "challenging" as the director puts it, it doesn't mean its a good topic for a movie. Besides child rape, other challenging topics might include: insulting Islam with unflattering film depictions of the prophet Muhammad; a documentary film of a fetus undergoing an actual abortion; how to make a nuclear or biological weapon; etc. they don't have an Oscar category for "over the top" or "absurdly dangerous", even if the topics I mentioned above are protected by first amendment rights.
3 – It's emotionally crushing to think of inducing a 12 year old (presumable) virgin to act in a rape scene.
4 - No one has yet explained to me what the "purpose" of this film is . . . the only things I've heard relate to the rape controversy. Does it have a purpose, or is its sensationalism the sole reason it exists? Especially since it won't be coming to the local cineplex at your mall anytime soon . .
--baltimore_aureole
(To reply, click here.)
(1/25)