Dakota FanningAll shook up over Hounddog.
By Meghan O'RourkePosted Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007, at 12:51 PM ETThe strangest thing about the pre-release debate may have been observing Dakota Fanning herself defending her choice with the savvy articulateness of a child raised in Hollywood's echo chamber. In curiously perfect sound bites, she winningly explained her decision to play the part to the New York Times ("The bottom line was, I couldn't not do it," she remarked. "I was the perfect age"). Elsewhere, she pointed out what seemed to her a puzzling failure of logic, noting that Hounddog is "no darker than Hide and Seek or Man on Fire! I still am going through difficult things in those films as well, and nobody seemed to talk about that!" She's right that the new film isn't truly a departure from her earlier work. But it is a resolutely unambiguous extension of her child-actor roles into the realm of the adolescent. And it's this lack of ambiguity that has stirred controversy: She's crossed the sexual Rubicon. Taking on this character is a violation of the subtle enactment of anxieties about survival and innocence that had formerly gone—quite pleasingly—unstated. Whether or not she is fully aware of it, Fanning, the actor, is officially leaving childhood behind in the eyes of the public.
And she may not be fully aware of it. Take, for example, the fact that in the Times she defended her choice to play the role of the young girl, Lewellen, by reassuring her interviewer that Lewellen "is still very innocent, she's still a child, but she's also a little bit wise beyond her years." There's an odd paradox at work. Fanning invokes Lewellen's innocence as a way of comforting us that she herself has not yet reached the realm of sexuality and still stands at the brink of it. But to know to do as much is, in a way, to be out of the garden already. That she comprehends the various dimensions of the role is not reassuring proof of her childish innocence. It only makes it all the more impossible for the viewer to imagine her going back to the cocoon of childhood, rather than moving forward into the trials of adolescence.
From this perspective, whether or not Hounddog is a film about redemption and healing doesn't exactly matter; nor does it matter whether Fanning wore a bodysuit while filming; or whether Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields, two child actresses to play sexually graphic roles in the 1970s, survived their experiences whole. Such niceties are beside the point (and the announcement of them, not surprisingly, didn't reduce the pitch of the protests). The problem for an American audience weaned on this waif, and chock-a-block with repressed feelings about adolescent sexuality itself, is that Dakota Fanning the actress (if not the character she plays) has chosen to take on this graphic a role. She has opened Pandora's box. Once she has become part of the sexual economy of adolescence—about which Americans are so clearly conflicted, living as we do in a hypersexualized era that is also peculiarly hyperprotective of children—she can't go back.
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)