And her mother watches, is it still kiddie porn? *
40 Replies to “If The Child Dresses In A Body Suit”
Yes.
Actors are sometimes forever identified with some role they played and can never live it down. Think of Dearn always being called the guy that shot John Wayne in Cowboys. The guy playing the rapist in this movie might have the same problem. This girl is another Jon Bonet in the making.
I’m not a big fan of Macleans magazine. They sent me a free issue and the cover story showed a ten year old girl dressed like a hooker. The question asked on the cover is “Why do we dress our daughters like skanks?”
Why indeed? Those who do that to their daughters or allow their daughters to dress themselves like that are inviting harm to these precious children. The image of a 10 year old with fish-net stockings, make-up and costume jewelry is so offensive. We blame our courts for some really stupid judgements and sentences but at some point the parents of our children need to step up and take responsibility for the safety of their children.
I raised 3 kids and their safety was my responsibility and I was eager to the task. I’m no hero. Just a dad who knows that bad shit happens and that bad people are out there just waiting to pounce on the innocent. As those who have raised kids I believe that we must be more pro-active in raising these issues with our children who have children of their own and “oversee’ that they take their parental responsibilities seriously as it relates to the safety of thier children, our grandchildren.
I know it is not always easy as we may have children/in-law children, who do not want us to get too involved in the lives of their kids. Its a judgement call. In the end we must do what we can to protect those that are most vulnerable. I would rather suffer the wrath of an unhappy son/daughter’s indignation than to see a grandchild abused in some unimaginable way.
I don’t know about you but I have seen more than enough cases on the news lately about young people kidnapped/abused/and, yes even killed, to much care about the feeling of those who think I should be minding my own business.
I am also absolutely pissed at the bleeding heart liberals who have more compassion for those who commit these horrendous crimes against our vulnerable children than they have for thier victims.
“‘HoundDog’ was one of the best experiences of her life,”
uh.. yeah… right.
And I’m sure all who watch this artsy movie will do so because it’s a story that needs to be told. sick.
My question is this. ‘If society is questioning violence in film and television, is this then an acceptable form of entertainment?’
I think not, and I will not see this latest work of “art”.
I wish ‘bad’ on all those who do.
brooke shields 2.0
3w.imdb.com/title/tt0078111/
or not, I havent seen this one or any of ms shields films.
Why is the opposition stalling the age of consent? How many sicko’s are in the opposition if they do not vote to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16? This movie just points out how sick our society has become. Swingers clubs are legal, they can have 14 year olds in there, and it’s perfectly legal, ohhh, as long as they don’t serve booze.
Why is Michael(nuclear war is under-rated) Coren more outraged by the portrayed sexual assault of children than the actual assault of children by members of the Catholic Church and its subsequent systemic complicity?
Sometimes the arts confront subjects darker than the cinematic equivalent of a bowl of fruit and conservatives are always there to imagine the resultant demise of civilization. I am certain the professionals associated with this production and tasked with ensuring the rigorous child protection regulations are adhered to, have subordinated all others interests to her well being. And while I don’t doubt that Ms. Fanning can distinguish between reality and fantasy, Coren cannot. You should be assured she is not tortured with visions of monsters or murders either, but your concern is appreciated in this instance.
What this portends is so foul, on so many levels. It makes one soul sick & fearful for the human race.
There are major consequences for this type of behavior. Socially, morally, soiling the deepest depths of human spirit.
How much rubbish do we see & absorb or hovel in, before we become landfills?
Let children be kids, not toy’s!!!
joe b:
one needs multiply the seriousness of an actual rape by the number of victims, then compare the total devastation against multiplying the imaginary rape on film by the number of impressionalbe types (who dat?) who see it and arrive at an total imaginary devastation which you then factor in a guesstimate to reduce it to actually real impact. THIS is the crux of the debate: the actual but difficult to quantify devastation brought about by an imaginary rape.
then again, how many gazzilion are going to watch out of some artsy fartsy pseudo-objective curiosity?
ergo Coren makes a quite valid point.
I think that those who perpetrated this, on a twelve-year old, are morally guilty of child pornography and child abuse. Exactly where the law should draw the various boundaries betwen protecting children and freeing consenting adults is beyound the scope of this comment, but in the specific case at hand, I think the law should consider the behaviour of the perpetrators to be punishably wrong.
joebaloni,
In Braveheart King Edward throws his son’s gay lover out a non-first floor window. A whole bunch of gay groups and their liberal supporters got their tails in a knot about that particular scene.
But why? Hey it’s just a movie. I’m sure professionals were present on the set to make sure the young actor landed unscathed in a pile of pillows. Liberals are such uptight people. They should learn to chillax eh?
It is supposed to be a statictial fact that a child molester has abused at least dozens if not more before he is ever arrested the first time, then is let of as a first offender. I would like the term first offender of any crime eliminated and replaced with first time caught offender. And all the things legal mentioned above were put in place by our supreme court, yet Harper was vilified last election when he made a comment about it. Rick Casson, MP, Lethbridge, has been pushing for raising the age of consent from his first campaign, and brought it up many times. I have to wonder how many pedophiles are in the liberal benches that they vote against it all the time. They should be told it could be their child or grandchild attacked next. Would they change their minds.
I totally agree with Vitruvius, it is a
punishable act and the child shouild have been
protected by her mother, not helped to have her child be seen in this movie.
It is a sad world when we cannot trust one another, it is a world where you children have
to be taught very carefully who to speak with and
to run and each family must have a password so
a child will not go with anyone who tries to
trick the child into coming with them, but is it a must!
My five year old grandson was nearly taken in
a park in Calgary, only the fact the friend my
daughter was sitting with as the boys played
with a ball, noticed a van that had gone by
three times. Just as they noticed it, the car
came around, the side door opened and a man
called out my grandson’s name. My daughter
yelled and ran to him just in time. The police
say this is common in Calgary and could not really help them, just told them to make sure
they have their eyes on them at all times.
Not easily done.
We shook for days and trust me, we have a
password and any other safety item we can have.
One thing the police told them was for them to
get whistles and always have them around the
parents neck and the child is taught to respond
instantly to the whistle.
Sad, so sad we must have this fear, but if we
do not, we may see our grandchildren on the
internet, smiling from a porn site.
IT HAPPENS!
Take care
“Brooke Shields 2.0” suggests robertbollocks ( with ref to Pretty Baby, big hoo-hah then, as I recall, banned in Ontario, and Shields saying she wore a body stocking [I’ve seen that movie, she doesn’t] and her pimp/stage-mom right in the thick of it.)
But how about Fanning as Shields 3.0? Anyone not recall Jena Malone in Bastard Out of Carolina? Same situation as far as I can tell, but much less big hoo-haw. I guess because it was a woman director (Angelica Huston) and a movie with “feminist” themes, the child molestation, abuse and rape in that pic was no biggie?
And naked kids have shown up in all sorts of other movies, but no one cries kid porn. Eye of the beholder, artistic intent and all that. Pedos, it used to be noted, would get their jollies from the kids underwear ads in Eaton’s catalogue, if that’s all they had.
And little girls have been tricked out like tarts at least since the latter-day invention of the teenager. Before that, children dressed like children, or miniature adults, then they dressed like adults, without any lingering pubescent in-between phase.
A few years ago I heard a psychologist interviewed on the radio. He stated that one of the ways they determine if a pedophile is ready for release is to show him suggestive pictures of children in ‘suggestive’ poses. If he reacts sexually they determine he is at risk to re-offend(not that they keep him locked up). Now, if everyone whose child is raped by a ‘cured and released’ pedophile after this movie is shown would sue the movie makers as the cause of these rapists raping their children that may stop more of these abysmal movies from being made. In the real world this would be child pron, but in our judicial Liberal world this is just artistic merit and comes under the heading of pedophile rights.
joebaloni: Exactly how do you know that Coren is not against the pedophaelia that occurs in the Catholic Church? Has he come out and said this? I rather doubt it.
It just didn’t come up in his article, that’s all. He also didn’t mention the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisitions or anything else, so do you suppose he supports that? What a weak and false argument.
Say, Joe, I’m making a movie…do you have a daughter? Does your opinion change now?
I am sure Fanning will regret it just as Sheilds regrets Pretty Baby.
Parents and agents get paid, kid has to live with it for the rest of their lives
With a comment like this, Joe: “I am certain the professionals associated with this production and tasked with ensuring the rigorous child protection regulations are adhered to, have subordinated all others interests to her well being,” it appears that your moniker is pretty accurate: full of baloney.
Just putting 12-year-old Dakota Fanning in the position of “being raped” on camera, where she has to perform all the vocal responses to such a situation and go through the physical motions, reveals how UNVIGOROUSLY these “professionals” (sic) are ensuring her protection.
No protection here. ‘Just simulated lust and lots of buck$$ for the moviemakers.
Michael Coren is absolutely correct when he points out that “At heart it’s about what we should label ‘shock kudos.’…the shocking of what these patronizing dunderheads [moviemakers] think of as middle North America.”
Most people think, or are stuck in the delusion, that lust-filled, on-the-edge, films make more money than family-type movies. As it turns out, this is crap. Michael Medved, L.A. movie critic, pointed out years ago that the highest grossing movies over time are always family movies, like “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins.” Why? Because no parent hesitates to take their kids and the video or DVD version is either bought to add to the family libray or rented over and over again.
The only reason Hollywood makes movies like Hounddog is for the shock value and so that they can say “Aren’t we brave risk-takers? Aren’t we ahead of the curve?”
Hounddog will not make any money to speak of, certainly not in the long run, but its makers will feel like avant-garde, sexually liberated, and socially aware “artists.” Dakota Fanning will be exposed to ugly and degrading sexually explicit social issues a 12-year-old should be protected from, with psychological ramifications which will only become apparent much later in life–but that’s not the moviemakers’ concern.
Talk about sick and perverted. Fanning will “take care of the adults” by starring in their edgy movie, but the adults won’t take care of her.
That’s the world we’re living in today.
Kyrie Eleison.
Anybody old enough to remember Linda Blair? The Exorcist? Ring any bells?
Being in that movie didn’t do her any good as I recall. Pretty much screwed her up for life.
Then there was Taxi Driver with Jodi Foster. Again, not good results there. John Hinkley Jr., another name to conjure with, eh?
Now we have this Fanning kid. Just one more chunk of meat to keep the big Hollywood sausage mill grinding.
Funny how these oh-so-holy liberal directors make their reputations on the backs of little girls. One more kid with memories she can’t shake, but I get my house in Beverly Hills! Life is good! Linda Blair becomes a booze/drug soaked wreck at 15, but hey it ain’t my kid.
So Joebaloni’s “assurances” fall rather flat I’m afraid. These portrayals are not without their costs for the kids that appear in them. Such costs should never be paid for mere entertainment. That it continues to happen is a disgrace upon all our heads.
By the way Joe, -Miss- Fanning (not Ms., there is zero chance of her being married) is most certainly NOT capable of reliably distinguishing fact from fantasy, because she’s twelve. Twelve year olds can’t give consent for this kind of thing, because they are mentally incapable of understanding what they are consenting to. They don’t know it will hurt them until afterward, when its too late.
That’s why sex with a minor is a crime, you moron. Even the Liberals know that, they put the age of consent at (still too young) 14. What’s your excuse?
If Coren is bemoaning a loss of innocence in kids having access to information on carnal knowledge…well welcome to the info age…get over it….all that matters is that kids have the value systems instilled in them to know right from wrong….children in ages past and the majortiy of the globe’s undeveloped cultures had/have it much worse having adult rolls thrust on them very early as a matter of course… unlike today’s insulated decadent nanny state generations who think this privileged state of being is the “norm”…particularly among the coddled aging boomer gen.
More disturbing to me is the negative social stereotyping in the paly Coren bemoans…. the fact that the entertainment industry of late thinks it chic to portray majority males as A) the village idiot B) inbred child molestors and baby rapers C) vessels of all the world’s social evils.
The sterotyped rolls of the average guy in most movie and stage fare these days is usually a negative one…gone is the romatic chivalrous male hero…males usually play the heavy or the dummy these days …the hero rolls fall to the designated oppressed minority of the month, chosen by the idle navel gazing secular cult that churns out the daily doses of pop culture gruel for mass consumption.
In this reguard, most pop culture from theater to music and literature has descended the rabbit hole of Politically correct distortions of social reality….making modern popular art forms less a mirror of society but a one way billbord advertising the dystopian ideal of the week.
This is not the first time Fanning has starred in a movie that is, in my opinion, inapproprate. Watch “Man on Fire” and see what you think. I’ll be surprised if Dakota Fanning isn’t really screwed up by the time she is an adult…but then again, she’ll fit in perfectly in Hollywood.
Oops, that should have been written as “inappropriate for children.”
“Watch “Man on Fire” and see what you think.”
I watched man on fire. She plays a kidnapped kid, I don’t see the controversy.
>”I am certain the professionals associated with >this production and tasked with ensuring the >rigorous child protection regulations are >adhered to, have subordinated all others >interests to her well being.”
>Posted by: joebaloni at January 21, 2007 01:44 >AM
So, jb… let’s say you have some friends over to your house for a little video-making session. Say a male friend who happens to be a professional pyschologist. And another male friend who happens to be a specialist in pediactrics. Another friend who happens to make and sell videos and CDs. Also there is your wife, to help out where she can.
So… during this *party* your friends film you making believe you rape your very young daughter, while your wife is there as moral support for her. The pyschologist and the pediatrician crowd in for a closer view while assuring you she will be ok, and also making sure your daughter provides the correct motions and sounds that would be expected from such an event.
Later your video friend sells the resulting CDs. The video shows up on YouTube.
Has any law been broken? Should daddy and mommy end up in court? Maybe go to jail? Or, is it OK because it was all make-believe? After all, all the support your daughter needed was there to watch closely, and give advice. A couple of Doctors, a video expert, and HER PARENTS.
I guess I will never, ever be able to understand how the liberal mind works. This lack of ability on my part to be able to comprehend sometimes gives me a headache, and frequently the urge to vomit.
yoop
For centuries, certain progressive elements–let’s call them “artists,” in quotes–have used their “work” to challenge their respective societies’ moral, sexual, and social boundaries, and certain conservative elements of that day and age have responded by condemning them with varying degrees of reason and hyperbole.
This is yet another instance of the same endless cycle. It’s all so very predictable. Proponents will defend the film as an “important comment,” an “courageous and unflinching” portrayal of humanity’s potential for evil. Opponents will link the film–as yet unseen–through some convoluted and hopelessly flawed matrix of causality to actual social problems, and decry the “decaying state of civilization.” Both will talk past each other, the importance of their respective arguments will be overstated, views will be polarized, controversy will ensue, nothing will be resolved, and after the work is released, a bit of self-declared redemption by the proponents and some self-righteous outrage by the opponents, and then the world will go on much the same as before–neither greatly more enlightened nor greatly more depraved.
As far as I can tell, the film is not a slapstick comedy. Presumably, Ms. Kampmeier believes she’s making an important film, Ms. Fanning freely chose to play the role, Mrs. Fanning believes she’s a good mum, no laws were broken, child services was not called in. Watch it, don’t watch it, whatever.
Meanwhile, actual children are being abused as we speak, in your neighbourhood, across Canada, around the world; by human traffickers for profit, by hardened sex offenders, by otherwise upstanding citizens, and by religious officials who use their positions of moral authority as shields. Conflating a film (whether in support or in protest) with actual instances of abuse does an enormous disservice to those real victims for whom we fail every day to protect.
As Coren points out the same liberal thinkers that would be quick to call for caring parents to be jailed for spanking, will claim this is art. Her mom ‘agrees’ and is there watching…??? she’s sick! Parent’s are supposed to protect.This mom is failing.
What good will come out of this? Will the viewers that flock to watch come away all of sudden convinced the child molesters are creeps.? No.. they will get in line for the next best shocker out of Hollywood, and pay for their jollies.
Does the art’s community(and her mom) want us to think this will make things better for the victims, or prevent this? They are in it for the money…and they are banking on immorality.And Dakota is the latest victim of kiddie porn.
We’ve all heard the theory that to be a great actor/actress the performer must “live” their part. So this little girl has LIVED a violent rape. What a swell occasion to add to her knowledge of life’s milestones.
Does it not occur to her mother or any other adult involved that a child might not be able to “get over” the experience? Maybe they just don’t care.
multirec:
There was one scene were someone’s fingers were being cut off and another where a villain gets blown up after having a bomb inserted into his rectum. True, she wasn’t in those scenes, but I’d be surprised if she didn’t watch the movie after it was made. Not really suitable for (at the time) 10 year olds, in my opinion.
Do you remember back in the old days, when thousands of kids would disembark from the buses in LA, hoping to become movie stars?
According to a gossip column for the porn industry, nowadays about a thousand a month head to the San Fernando valley to try to make it in adult films.
A lot of these kids are 18-19 years old and obviously for this to have become an ambition, they have to have had a lot of sexual experience and exposure to pornography before they ever showed up.
Pedophiles have been trying relentlessly to do what gays have managed already to do. They want to desensitize the idea of sexual relationships between adults and children so that the whole thing becomes more socially acceptable.
One of the devices gays have used to enter into the heterosexual marketplace is to use a really good-looking female along with a couple of male performers so that heterosexual men will watch the action because of their attraction to the good-looking female. Then you throw in a lot of drugs to knock out the restriction centers in the brain, and the next thing you know you have a “convert.”
So now pedophiles are trying to worm their way into society through a lot of devices.
As you probably know, NAMBLA is not dismissed by the gay community as an outsider organization (after all, recruiting must go on). And they are developing intellectual arguments to use alongside other devices to gain social respectability.
For example, when they are trying to argue that seduction of a child is a valid activity, they’ll say, “What good is it for a child to say no if they also don’t have the freedom to say yes”?
So as you can see, the same thing that’s going on with “I support the troops but I don’t support the mission” is going with the arguments proposed by people who think others should slap them on the back for screwing children.
They have made quite a lot of headway already, and this movie will be another celebrated milestone, I’m sure. The very fact that so many pedophiles are out trying to rape our kids is an indicator that the perpetrators have often been previously subjected to abuse when they were kids.
There is a huge effort going on to make what was once unthinkable to be acceptable. And naturally, liberals who spend their lives in some idea of hero-as-iconoclast are ready to embrace this movement if it could just get enough purchase on legitimacy.
joebaloni
why do people like you try to deflect with unrelated topics
priests raping young boys is not making a movie about rape, and making a movie about rape is what the topic of discussion is!!
“Not really suitable for (at the time) 10 year olds, in my opinion.”
I agree, the movie is not suitable for children to view.
A final reflection.
When most of us were kids, if someone sexually abused one of the children, the pedophile would have been the one trying to call the cops.
Fathers, big brothers, uncles, cousins, close male friends would have dragged the son of a bitch out of his lair and beat him in an inch of his life. He would be lucky if he didn’t get hung.
No doubt this provided a powerful disincentive for people to keep their demons locked within their psyches.
I think that society has successfully disenfranchised and emasculated the population to such an extent that people now feel enormously constrained from taking justice into their own hands.
The comment section on judges above this one is simply a case in point.
And if anything, Canada has been more emasculated than the United States. It is obvious now to me that placing all authority into the judiciary has been a big mistake. The people have been seduced in a way, too. Seduced into giving their power away to government.
In the US, we have a lot of right-to-carry laws, and as a consequence crime frequently diminishes in the areas where those laws apply. We also have a sterner sentencing record than does Canada.
But we both suffer from government wresting the personal capacity of retribution from us in cases such as child rape, where personal retribution very well may be the only thing that actually works.
A, you remark, “Conflating a film (whether in support or in protest) with actual instances of abuse does an enormous disservice to those real victims for whom we fail every day to protect.”
I don’t see a lot of “conflating” Dakota Fanning’s participation in a faux-rape in this film with “actual instances of abuse.”
I do see a lot of us suggesting that Dakota Fanning has not been exactly “protected” by so-called professionals’ “rigorous child protection regulations” and that the claim that the filming of Hounddog, which supposedly “subordinated all other interests to her well being” is utter hogwash. Since when does ANY film, let alone a film like this one, subordinate all other interests to the well being of ANY of their actors?
I think you’ve taken us away from the original suggestion in this thread, which wasn’t the comparing of the filmed abuse with actual child abuse but, rather, whether or not Dakota Fanning hasn’t been exploited by the very people who have suggested that they are concerned with the issue of child abuse.
If she were my 12-year-old daughter, I’d never let her be in a film like this. I would be very concerned about the effects of the rape scene on her physical, psychological, and spiritual sensibilities. Just because the director calls “Cut!” and all the stage lights are turned off, doesn’t mean that the scenes–the dialogue, the physical actions–will stop playing in Dakota’s head.
Beenaround, that’s the thing these geniuses like “A” and Joebaloni seem unable to get. This isn’t art, its abuse of a minor child for money.
Getting a 12 year old to portray an incest victim in a rape scene is abuse in and of itself. Not on the same scale as an actual incest rape, but then few things are. Its my understanding that the loss of a limb is less devestating.
Most 12 year olds (who haven’t been victims themselves anyway) couldn’t even conceive of such a thing, but Miss Fanning can. She knows the whole works. She’s pretended it in detail, multiple times too. Rehersal, dress rehersal, and who know hoow may takes.
That, my dear blockheads, is abuse. For an adult it would be harrowing, but an adult can decide the trouble will be worth it or not on an informed basis. A child of twelve cannot do that. I don’t mean under the law, I mean they are not capable of such a mental feat.
Tell you what, lefties. Let me explain this in terms you can understand. Being a twelve year old is like being so drunk you can’t understand how dangerous it is for you to drive, and the judge lets you off on the murder charge for running over the old lady. Getting it now?
BATB: I don’t see a lot of “conflating” Dakota Fanning’s participation in a faux-rape in this film with “actual instances of abuse.”
By conflating, I meant that people on this thread were treating Ms. Fanning’s participation in the filming of a scene in which her character is sexually abused as though it meant Ms. Fanning herself had been somehow sexually abused, and thus will suffer future psychological harms on par with real victims of abuse. You say you don’t see a lot of such conflating; I beg to differ:
1. Kate’s post in effect makes the claim that “a child dressed in a body suit while her mother watches = kiddie porn”;
2. robertbollocks (02:45 AM) claims that the crux of the debate is to determine “the actual but difficult to quantify devastation brought about by an imaginary rape”, implying that Ms. Fanning’s performance is quantitative but not qualitatively different from actually being raped;
3. Vitruvius (02:46 AM) states that “those who perpetrated this, on a twelve-year old, are morally guilty of child pornography and child abuse”, iimplying that this scene did not involve professionals shooting a film but rather a gaggle of adults sexually exploiting an unwitting child for profit;
4. carole (03:11 AM) agrees with Vitruvius;
5. CMP (04:24 AM) compares Ms. Fanning in this film with Brook Shields’ performance in Pretty Baby and Jena Malone’s performance in Bastard Out of Carolina, which s/he claims was in fact involved real-life “child molestation, abuse and rape” (oddly, CMP didn’t let this depraved exploitation of minors stop him/her from watching both of these earlier films);
6. Polly (03:03 PM) writes, “We’ve all heard the theory that to be a great actor/actress the performer must “live” their part. So this little girl has LIVED a violent rape.”
7. The Phantom (07:41 PM) echoes robertbollocks in writing that “Getting a 12 year old to portray an incest victim in a rape scene is abuse in and of itself [if] not on the same scale as an actual incest rape.”
Throughout this thread, the implicit assumption is that the scene–again, as yet unseen by anyone here–was shot in one long take with a mostly nude male adult actor physically on top of a mostly nude Ms Fanning. Unsurprisingly, this was not so.
The Saturday LA Times reports that “Kampmeier stressed that the rape was achieved in the edit, not on the set. ‘You have a child yelling ‘Stop it!’ and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it’s rape.’ Contrary to reports, there is no graphic nudity, but there are several scenes, carefully shot, where child actors with bare shoulders and legs are presumed to be naked.”
As reported by the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday, Ms Fanning has stated that “”It’s really no different from any other movie I’ve done,” adding that rumours of near-nudity were “blown out of proportion and totally a rumour.”
An article in the NY Times, also published on Saturday, reports that the district attorney in Wilmington, N.C., where the film was shot, watched a cut of the movie and determined that no crime was committed.
In that same article, Ms. Fanning again dismisses the criticisms that she was exploited by the filmmakers: ““You know, I’m an actress. It’s what I want to do, it’s what I’ve been so lucky to have done for almost seven years now. And I am getting older. February 23 is my birthday, I’ll be 13 years old. And I will be playing different kinds of roles. I won’t be able to do the things I did when I was 6 years old when I’m 14. And that’s what I look forward to — getting to play new roles that aren’t too old for me and aren’t too young for me, that are just at the right time…The bottom line was, I couldn’t not do it. It’s all I could think about. I knew I was at the perfect age.”
On the ensuing moral outcry, she says, ““There are so many children that this happens to, every second. That’s the sad part. If anyone’s talking about anything, that’s what they should be talking about.” Smart kid.
Greg in Dallas, You made the point that I was thinking of – kids were not a ‘commodity’ in my day, we were not the center of our parents universe and therefore, in my opinion, we were safe because we were treated as small people not the undeveloped property of adults.
As a child, I knew nothing could ever happen to me because my dad was strong and he kept a loaded shotgun in the stairwell. All of our dozens of cousins and neighbourhood friends who came and went from our place were told never to touch that gun, non of us ever did – I wonder how that would work today?
Dakota Fanning is a good litle actress; she would be more than capable of showing the horror of incest just by the look on her face.
There’s no need to actually *show* the ugliness; indeed, a good director/screenwriter have make more of an emotional impact by *not* showing it.
Orson Welles used to say that if he ever made a movie about the Manson murders, he would simply show the (soon-to-be) victims, then a shot of the murderers advancing on the camera…then fade to black. Brrrr.
Is allowing 12 year old girls to be “pretend raped” for “important issues”, the gateway behaviour to strapping bombs to them for “other important issues”?
the age of consent in Canada is 14, mostly to pander to Quebec. and likely now to pander to the followers of the Koran.
If we followed the Koran or it adherants we would not be having this discussion about 12 year olds.
Get ready for an onslaught of rights lawyers for multimarriages, underaged marriages , duo species marriages, the crack has been opened and the water keeps pouring in.
“As pointed out in the 1984 Badgley Report on Sexual Offences Against Children, Canada has a long history of prohibiting sexual intercourse with young females, regardless of their consent. Only girls under 12 were absolutely unable to consent to sexual intercourse until 1890, when the age limit was raised to 14. With the advent of the Criminal Code in 1892, the strict prohibition against sexual intercourse was retained for girls under 14 (not married to the accused) and the law was strengthened to make an accused’s belief about the young woman’s age irrelevant. That age limit has not changed and remains in place today, with narrow exceptions for consensual activity between young persons less than two years apart in age.” http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb993-e.htm
Yes.
Actors are sometimes forever identified with some role they played and can never live it down. Think of Dearn always being called the guy that shot John Wayne in Cowboys. The guy playing the rapist in this movie might have the same problem. This girl is another Jon Bonet in the making.
I’m not a big fan of Macleans magazine. They sent me a free issue and the cover story showed a ten year old girl dressed like a hooker. The question asked on the cover is “Why do we dress our daughters like skanks?”
Why indeed? Those who do that to their daughters or allow their daughters to dress themselves like that are inviting harm to these precious children. The image of a 10 year old with fish-net stockings, make-up and costume jewelry is so offensive. We blame our courts for some really stupid judgements and sentences but at some point the parents of our children need to step up and take responsibility for the safety of their children.
I raised 3 kids and their safety was my responsibility and I was eager to the task. I’m no hero. Just a dad who knows that bad shit happens and that bad people are out there just waiting to pounce on the innocent. As those who have raised kids I believe that we must be more pro-active in raising these issues with our children who have children of their own and “oversee’ that they take their parental responsibilities seriously as it relates to the safety of thier children, our grandchildren.
I know it is not always easy as we may have children/in-law children, who do not want us to get too involved in the lives of their kids. Its a judgement call. In the end we must do what we can to protect those that are most vulnerable. I would rather suffer the wrath of an unhappy son/daughter’s indignation than to see a grandchild abused in some unimaginable way.
I don’t know about you but I have seen more than enough cases on the news lately about young people kidnapped/abused/and, yes even killed, to much care about the feeling of those who think I should be minding my own business.
I am also absolutely pissed at the bleeding heart liberals who have more compassion for those who commit these horrendous crimes against our vulnerable children than they have for thier victims.
“‘HoundDog’ was one of the best experiences of her life,”
uh.. yeah… right.
And I’m sure all who watch this artsy movie will do so because it’s a story that needs to be told. sick.
My question is this. ‘If society is questioning violence in film and television, is this then an acceptable form of entertainment?’
I think not, and I will not see this latest work of “art”.
I wish ‘bad’ on all those who do.
brooke shields 2.0
3w.imdb.com/title/tt0078111/
or not, I havent seen this one or any of ms shields films.
Why is the opposition stalling the age of consent? How many sicko’s are in the opposition if they do not vote to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16? This movie just points out how sick our society has become. Swingers clubs are legal, they can have 14 year olds in there, and it’s perfectly legal, ohhh, as long as they don’t serve booze.
Why is Michael(nuclear war is under-rated) Coren more outraged by the portrayed sexual assault of children than the actual assault of children by members of the Catholic Church and its subsequent systemic complicity?
Sometimes the arts confront subjects darker than the cinematic equivalent of a bowl of fruit and conservatives are always there to imagine the resultant demise of civilization. I am certain the professionals associated with this production and tasked with ensuring the rigorous child protection regulations are adhered to, have subordinated all others interests to her well being. And while I don’t doubt that Ms. Fanning can distinguish between reality and fantasy, Coren cannot. You should be assured she is not tortured with visions of monsters or murders either, but your concern is appreciated in this instance.
What this portends is so foul, on so many levels. It makes one soul sick & fearful for the human race.
There are major consequences for this type of behavior. Socially, morally, soiling the deepest depths of human spirit.
How much rubbish do we see & absorb or hovel in, before we become landfills?
Let children be kids, not toy’s!!!
joe b:
one needs multiply the seriousness of an actual rape by the number of victims, then compare the total devastation against multiplying the imaginary rape on film by the number of impressionalbe types (who dat?) who see it and arrive at an total imaginary devastation which you then factor in a guesstimate to reduce it to actually real impact. THIS is the crux of the debate: the actual but difficult to quantify devastation brought about by an imaginary rape.
then again, how many gazzilion are going to watch out of some artsy fartsy pseudo-objective curiosity?
ergo Coren makes a quite valid point.
I think that those who perpetrated this, on a twelve-year old, are morally guilty of child pornography and child abuse. Exactly where the law should draw the various boundaries betwen protecting children and freeing consenting adults is beyound the scope of this comment, but in the specific case at hand, I think the law should consider the behaviour of the perpetrators to be punishably wrong.
joebaloni,
In Braveheart King Edward throws his son’s gay lover out a non-first floor window. A whole bunch of gay groups and their liberal supporters got their tails in a knot about that particular scene.
But why? Hey it’s just a movie. I’m sure professionals were present on the set to make sure the young actor landed unscathed in a pile of pillows. Liberals are such uptight people. They should learn to chillax eh?
It is supposed to be a statictial fact that a child molester has abused at least dozens if not more before he is ever arrested the first time, then is let of as a first offender. I would like the term first offender of any crime eliminated and replaced with first time caught offender. And all the things legal mentioned above were put in place by our supreme court, yet Harper was vilified last election when he made a comment about it. Rick Casson, MP, Lethbridge, has been pushing for raising the age of consent from his first campaign, and brought it up many times. I have to wonder how many pedophiles are in the liberal benches that they vote against it all the time. They should be told it could be their child or grandchild attacked next. Would they change their minds.
I totally agree with Vitruvius, it is a
punishable act and the child shouild have been
protected by her mother, not helped to have her child be seen in this movie.
It is a sad world when we cannot trust one another, it is a world where you children have
to be taught very carefully who to speak with and
to run and each family must have a password so
a child will not go with anyone who tries to
trick the child into coming with them, but is it a must!
My five year old grandson was nearly taken in
a park in Calgary, only the fact the friend my
daughter was sitting with as the boys played
with a ball, noticed a van that had gone by
three times. Just as they noticed it, the car
came around, the side door opened and a man
called out my grandson’s name. My daughter
yelled and ran to him just in time. The police
say this is common in Calgary and could not really help them, just told them to make sure
they have their eyes on them at all times.
Not easily done.
We shook for days and trust me, we have a
password and any other safety item we can have.
One thing the police told them was for them to
get whistles and always have them around the
parents neck and the child is taught to respond
instantly to the whistle.
Sad, so sad we must have this fear, but if we
do not, we may see our grandchildren on the
internet, smiling from a porn site.
IT HAPPENS!
Take care
“Brooke Shields 2.0” suggests robertbollocks ( with ref to Pretty Baby, big hoo-hah then, as I recall, banned in Ontario, and Shields saying she wore a body stocking [I’ve seen that movie, she doesn’t] and her pimp/stage-mom right in the thick of it.)
But how about Fanning as Shields 3.0? Anyone not recall Jena Malone in Bastard Out of Carolina? Same situation as far as I can tell, but much less big hoo-haw. I guess because it was a woman director (Angelica Huston) and a movie with “feminist” themes, the child molestation, abuse and rape in that pic was no biggie?
And naked kids have shown up in all sorts of other movies, but no one cries kid porn. Eye of the beholder, artistic intent and all that. Pedos, it used to be noted, would get their jollies from the kids underwear ads in Eaton’s catalogue, if that’s all they had.
And little girls have been tricked out like tarts at least since the latter-day invention of the teenager. Before that, children dressed like children, or miniature adults, then they dressed like adults, without any lingering pubescent in-between phase.
A few years ago I heard a psychologist interviewed on the radio. He stated that one of the ways they determine if a pedophile is ready for release is to show him suggestive pictures of children in ‘suggestive’ poses. If he reacts sexually they determine he is at risk to re-offend(not that they keep him locked up). Now, if everyone whose child is raped by a ‘cured and released’ pedophile after this movie is shown would sue the movie makers as the cause of these rapists raping their children that may stop more of these abysmal movies from being made. In the real world this would be child pron, but in our judicial Liberal world this is just artistic merit and comes under the heading of pedophile rights.
joebaloni: Exactly how do you know that Coren is not against the pedophaelia that occurs in the Catholic Church? Has he come out and said this? I rather doubt it.
It just didn’t come up in his article, that’s all. He also didn’t mention the Holocaust or the Spanish Inquisitions or anything else, so do you suppose he supports that? What a weak and false argument.
Say, Joe, I’m making a movie…do you have a daughter? Does your opinion change now?
I am sure Fanning will regret it just as Sheilds regrets Pretty Baby.
Parents and agents get paid, kid has to live with it for the rest of their lives
With a comment like this, Joe: “I am certain the professionals associated with this production and tasked with ensuring the rigorous child protection regulations are adhered to, have subordinated all others interests to her well being,” it appears that your moniker is pretty accurate: full of baloney.
Just putting 12-year-old Dakota Fanning in the position of “being raped” on camera, where she has to perform all the vocal responses to such a situation and go through the physical motions, reveals how UNVIGOROUSLY these “professionals” (sic) are ensuring her protection.
No protection here. ‘Just simulated lust and lots of buck$$ for the moviemakers.
Michael Coren is absolutely correct when he points out that “At heart it’s about what we should label ‘shock kudos.’…the shocking of what these patronizing dunderheads [moviemakers] think of as middle North America.”
Most people think, or are stuck in the delusion, that lust-filled, on-the-edge, films make more money than family-type movies. As it turns out, this is crap. Michael Medved, L.A. movie critic, pointed out years ago that the highest grossing movies over time are always family movies, like “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins.” Why? Because no parent hesitates to take their kids and the video or DVD version is either bought to add to the family libray or rented over and over again.
The only reason Hollywood makes movies like Hounddog is for the shock value and so that they can say “Aren’t we brave risk-takers? Aren’t we ahead of the curve?”
Hounddog will not make any money to speak of, certainly not in the long run, but its makers will feel like avant-garde, sexually liberated, and socially aware “artists.” Dakota Fanning will be exposed to ugly and degrading sexually explicit social issues a 12-year-old should be protected from, with psychological ramifications which will only become apparent much later in life–but that’s not the moviemakers’ concern.
Talk about sick and perverted. Fanning will “take care of the adults” by starring in their edgy movie, but the adults won’t take care of her.
That’s the world we’re living in today.
Kyrie Eleison.
Anybody old enough to remember Linda Blair? The Exorcist? Ring any bells?
Being in that movie didn’t do her any good as I recall. Pretty much screwed her up for life.
Then there was Taxi Driver with Jodi Foster. Again, not good results there. John Hinkley Jr., another name to conjure with, eh?
Now we have this Fanning kid. Just one more chunk of meat to keep the big Hollywood sausage mill grinding.
Funny how these oh-so-holy liberal directors make their reputations on the backs of little girls. One more kid with memories she can’t shake, but I get my house in Beverly Hills! Life is good! Linda Blair becomes a booze/drug soaked wreck at 15, but hey it ain’t my kid.
So Joebaloni’s “assurances” fall rather flat I’m afraid. These portrayals are not without their costs for the kids that appear in them. Such costs should never be paid for mere entertainment. That it continues to happen is a disgrace upon all our heads.
By the way Joe, -Miss- Fanning (not Ms., there is zero chance of her being married) is most certainly NOT capable of reliably distinguishing fact from fantasy, because she’s twelve. Twelve year olds can’t give consent for this kind of thing, because they are mentally incapable of understanding what they are consenting to. They don’t know it will hurt them until afterward, when its too late.
That’s why sex with a minor is a crime, you moron. Even the Liberals know that, they put the age of consent at (still too young) 14. What’s your excuse?
If Coren is bemoaning a loss of innocence in kids having access to information on carnal knowledge…well welcome to the info age…get over it….all that matters is that kids have the value systems instilled in them to know right from wrong….children in ages past and the majortiy of the globe’s undeveloped cultures had/have it much worse having adult rolls thrust on them very early as a matter of course… unlike today’s insulated decadent nanny state generations who think this privileged state of being is the “norm”…particularly among the coddled aging boomer gen.
More disturbing to me is the negative social stereotyping in the paly Coren bemoans…. the fact that the entertainment industry of late thinks it chic to portray majority males as A) the village idiot B) inbred child molestors and baby rapers C) vessels of all the world’s social evils.
The sterotyped rolls of the average guy in most movie and stage fare these days is usually a negative one…gone is the romatic chivalrous male hero…males usually play the heavy or the dummy these days …the hero rolls fall to the designated oppressed minority of the month, chosen by the idle navel gazing secular cult that churns out the daily doses of pop culture gruel for mass consumption.
In this reguard, most pop culture from theater to music and literature has descended the rabbit hole of Politically correct distortions of social reality….making modern popular art forms less a mirror of society but a one way billbord advertising the dystopian ideal of the week.
This is not the first time Fanning has starred in a movie that is, in my opinion, inapproprate. Watch “Man on Fire” and see what you think. I’ll be surprised if Dakota Fanning isn’t really screwed up by the time she is an adult…but then again, she’ll fit in perfectly in Hollywood.
Oops, that should have been written as “inappropriate for children.”
“Watch “Man on Fire” and see what you think.”
I watched man on fire. She plays a kidnapped kid, I don’t see the controversy.
>”I am certain the professionals associated with >this production and tasked with ensuring the >rigorous child protection regulations are >adhered to, have subordinated all others >interests to her well being.”
>Posted by: joebaloni at January 21, 2007 01:44 >AM
So, jb… let’s say you have some friends over to your house for a little video-making session. Say a male friend who happens to be a professional pyschologist. And another male friend who happens to be a specialist in pediactrics. Another friend who happens to make and sell videos and CDs. Also there is your wife, to help out where she can.
So… during this *party* your friends film you making believe you rape your very young daughter, while your wife is there as moral support for her. The pyschologist and the pediatrician crowd in for a closer view while assuring you she will be ok, and also making sure your daughter provides the correct motions and sounds that would be expected from such an event.
Later your video friend sells the resulting CDs. The video shows up on YouTube.
Has any law been broken? Should daddy and mommy end up in court? Maybe go to jail? Or, is it OK because it was all make-believe? After all, all the support your daughter needed was there to watch closely, and give advice. A couple of Doctors, a video expert, and HER PARENTS.
I guess I will never, ever be able to understand how the liberal mind works. This lack of ability on my part to be able to comprehend sometimes gives me a headache, and frequently the urge to vomit.
yoop
For centuries, certain progressive elements–let’s call them “artists,” in quotes–have used their “work” to challenge their respective societies’ moral, sexual, and social boundaries, and certain conservative elements of that day and age have responded by condemning them with varying degrees of reason and hyperbole.
This is yet another instance of the same endless cycle. It’s all so very predictable. Proponents will defend the film as an “important comment,” an “courageous and unflinching” portrayal of humanity’s potential for evil. Opponents will link the film–as yet unseen–through some convoluted and hopelessly flawed matrix of causality to actual social problems, and decry the “decaying state of civilization.” Both will talk past each other, the importance of their respective arguments will be overstated, views will be polarized, controversy will ensue, nothing will be resolved, and after the work is released, a bit of self-declared redemption by the proponents and some self-righteous outrage by the opponents, and then the world will go on much the same as before–neither greatly more enlightened nor greatly more depraved.
As far as I can tell, the film is not a slapstick comedy. Presumably, Ms. Kampmeier believes she’s making an important film, Ms. Fanning freely chose to play the role, Mrs. Fanning believes she’s a good mum, no laws were broken, child services was not called in. Watch it, don’t watch it, whatever.
Meanwhile, actual children are being abused as we speak, in your neighbourhood, across Canada, around the world; by human traffickers for profit, by hardened sex offenders, by otherwise upstanding citizens, and by religious officials who use their positions of moral authority as shields. Conflating a film (whether in support or in protest) with actual instances of abuse does an enormous disservice to those real victims for whom we fail every day to protect.
As Coren points out the same liberal thinkers that would be quick to call for caring parents to be jailed for spanking, will claim this is art. Her mom ‘agrees’ and is there watching…??? she’s sick! Parent’s are supposed to protect.This mom is failing.
What good will come out of this? Will the viewers that flock to watch come away all of sudden convinced the child molesters are creeps.? No.. they will get in line for the next best shocker out of Hollywood, and pay for their jollies.
Does the art’s community(and her mom) want us to think this will make things better for the victims, or prevent this? They are in it for the money…and they are banking on immorality.And Dakota is the latest victim of kiddie porn.
We’ve all heard the theory that to be a great actor/actress the performer must “live” their part. So this little girl has LIVED a violent rape. What a swell occasion to add to her knowledge of life’s milestones.
Does it not occur to her mother or any other adult involved that a child might not be able to “get over” the experience? Maybe they just don’t care.
multirec:
There was one scene were someone’s fingers were being cut off and another where a villain gets blown up after having a bomb inserted into his rectum. True, she wasn’t in those scenes, but I’d be surprised if she didn’t watch the movie after it was made. Not really suitable for (at the time) 10 year olds, in my opinion.
Do you remember back in the old days, when thousands of kids would disembark from the buses in LA, hoping to become movie stars?
According to a gossip column for the porn industry, nowadays about a thousand a month head to the San Fernando valley to try to make it in adult films.
A lot of these kids are 18-19 years old and obviously for this to have become an ambition, they have to have had a lot of sexual experience and exposure to pornography before they ever showed up.
Pedophiles have been trying relentlessly to do what gays have managed already to do. They want to desensitize the idea of sexual relationships between adults and children so that the whole thing becomes more socially acceptable.
One of the devices gays have used to enter into the heterosexual marketplace is to use a really good-looking female along with a couple of male performers so that heterosexual men will watch the action because of their attraction to the good-looking female. Then you throw in a lot of drugs to knock out the restriction centers in the brain, and the next thing you know you have a “convert.”
So now pedophiles are trying to worm their way into society through a lot of devices.
As you probably know, NAMBLA is not dismissed by the gay community as an outsider organization (after all, recruiting must go on). And they are developing intellectual arguments to use alongside other devices to gain social respectability.
For example, when they are trying to argue that seduction of a child is a valid activity, they’ll say, “What good is it for a child to say no if they also don’t have the freedom to say yes”?
So as you can see, the same thing that’s going on with “I support the troops but I don’t support the mission” is going with the arguments proposed by people who think others should slap them on the back for screwing children.
They have made quite a lot of headway already, and this movie will be another celebrated milestone, I’m sure. The very fact that so many pedophiles are out trying to rape our kids is an indicator that the perpetrators have often been previously subjected to abuse when they were kids.
There is a huge effort going on to make what was once unthinkable to be acceptable. And naturally, liberals who spend their lives in some idea of hero-as-iconoclast are ready to embrace this movement if it could just get enough purchase on legitimacy.
joebaloni
why do people like you try to deflect with unrelated topics
priests raping young boys is not making a movie about rape, and making a movie about rape is what the topic of discussion is!!
“Not really suitable for (at the time) 10 year olds, in my opinion.”
I agree, the movie is not suitable for children to view.
A final reflection.
When most of us were kids, if someone sexually abused one of the children, the pedophile would have been the one trying to call the cops.
Fathers, big brothers, uncles, cousins, close male friends would have dragged the son of a bitch out of his lair and beat him in an inch of his life. He would be lucky if he didn’t get hung.
No doubt this provided a powerful disincentive for people to keep their demons locked within their psyches.
I think that society has successfully disenfranchised and emasculated the population to such an extent that people now feel enormously constrained from taking justice into their own hands.
The comment section on judges above this one is simply a case in point.
And if anything, Canada has been more emasculated than the United States. It is obvious now to me that placing all authority into the judiciary has been a big mistake. The people have been seduced in a way, too. Seduced into giving their power away to government.
In the US, we have a lot of right-to-carry laws, and as a consequence crime frequently diminishes in the areas where those laws apply. We also have a sterner sentencing record than does Canada.
But we both suffer from government wresting the personal capacity of retribution from us in cases such as child rape, where personal retribution very well may be the only thing that actually works.
A, you remark, “Conflating a film (whether in support or in protest) with actual instances of abuse does an enormous disservice to those real victims for whom we fail every day to protect.”
I don’t see a lot of “conflating” Dakota Fanning’s participation in a faux-rape in this film with “actual instances of abuse.”
I do see a lot of us suggesting that Dakota Fanning has not been exactly “protected” by so-called professionals’ “rigorous child protection regulations” and that the claim that the filming of Hounddog, which supposedly “subordinated all other interests to her well being” is utter hogwash. Since when does ANY film, let alone a film like this one, subordinate all other interests to the well being of ANY of their actors?
I think you’ve taken us away from the original suggestion in this thread, which wasn’t the comparing of the filmed abuse with actual child abuse but, rather, whether or not Dakota Fanning hasn’t been exploited by the very people who have suggested that they are concerned with the issue of child abuse.
If she were my 12-year-old daughter, I’d never let her be in a film like this. I would be very concerned about the effects of the rape scene on her physical, psychological, and spiritual sensibilities. Just because the director calls “Cut!” and all the stage lights are turned off, doesn’t mean that the scenes–the dialogue, the physical actions–will stop playing in Dakota’s head.
Beenaround, that’s the thing these geniuses like “A” and Joebaloni seem unable to get. This isn’t art, its abuse of a minor child for money.
Getting a 12 year old to portray an incest victim in a rape scene is abuse in and of itself. Not on the same scale as an actual incest rape, but then few things are. Its my understanding that the loss of a limb is less devestating.
Most 12 year olds (who haven’t been victims themselves anyway) couldn’t even conceive of such a thing, but Miss Fanning can. She knows the whole works. She’s pretended it in detail, multiple times too. Rehersal, dress rehersal, and who know hoow may takes.
That, my dear blockheads, is abuse. For an adult it would be harrowing, but an adult can decide the trouble will be worth it or not on an informed basis. A child of twelve cannot do that. I don’t mean under the law, I mean they are not capable of such a mental feat.
Tell you what, lefties. Let me explain this in terms you can understand. Being a twelve year old is like being so drunk you can’t understand how dangerous it is for you to drive, and the judge lets you off on the murder charge for running over the old lady. Getting it now?
BATB: I don’t see a lot of “conflating” Dakota Fanning’s participation in a faux-rape in this film with “actual instances of abuse.”
By conflating, I meant that people on this thread were treating Ms. Fanning’s participation in the filming of a scene in which her character is sexually abused as though it meant Ms. Fanning herself had been somehow sexually abused, and thus will suffer future psychological harms on par with real victims of abuse. You say you don’t see a lot of such conflating; I beg to differ:
1. Kate’s post in effect makes the claim that “a child dressed in a body suit while her mother watches = kiddie porn”;
2. robertbollocks (02:45 AM) claims that the crux of the debate is to determine “the actual but difficult to quantify devastation brought about by an imaginary rape”, implying that Ms. Fanning’s performance is quantitative but not qualitatively different from actually being raped;
3. Vitruvius (02:46 AM) states that “those who perpetrated this, on a twelve-year old, are morally guilty of child pornography and child abuse”, iimplying that this scene did not involve professionals shooting a film but rather a gaggle of adults sexually exploiting an unwitting child for profit;
4. carole (03:11 AM) agrees with Vitruvius;
5. CMP (04:24 AM) compares Ms. Fanning in this film with Brook Shields’ performance in Pretty Baby and Jena Malone’s performance in Bastard Out of Carolina, which s/he claims was in fact involved real-life “child molestation, abuse and rape” (oddly, CMP didn’t let this depraved exploitation of minors stop him/her from watching both of these earlier films);
6. Polly (03:03 PM) writes, “We’ve all heard the theory that to be a great actor/actress the performer must “live” their part. So this little girl has LIVED a violent rape.”
7. The Phantom (07:41 PM) echoes robertbollocks in writing that “Getting a 12 year old to portray an incest victim in a rape scene is abuse in and of itself [if] not on the same scale as an actual incest rape.”
Throughout this thread, the implicit assumption is that the scene–again, as yet unseen by anyone here–was shot in one long take with a mostly nude male adult actor physically on top of a mostly nude Ms Fanning. Unsurprisingly, this was not so.
The Saturday LA Times reports that “Kampmeier stressed that the rape was achieved in the edit, not on the set. ‘You have a child yelling ‘Stop it!’ and only when you put that next to an image of a boy unzipping his pants do you see that it’s rape.’ Contrary to reports, there is no graphic nudity, but there are several scenes, carefully shot, where child actors with bare shoulders and legs are presumed to be naked.”
As reported by the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday, Ms Fanning has stated that “”It’s really no different from any other movie I’ve done,” adding that rumours of near-nudity were “blown out of proportion and totally a rumour.”
An article in the NY Times, also published on Saturday, reports that the district attorney in Wilmington, N.C., where the film was shot, watched a cut of the movie and determined that no crime was committed.
In that same article, Ms. Fanning again dismisses the criticisms that she was exploited by the filmmakers: ““You know, I’m an actress. It’s what I want to do, it’s what I’ve been so lucky to have done for almost seven years now. And I am getting older. February 23 is my birthday, I’ll be 13 years old. And I will be playing different kinds of roles. I won’t be able to do the things I did when I was 6 years old when I’m 14. And that’s what I look forward to — getting to play new roles that aren’t too old for me and aren’t too young for me, that are just at the right time…The bottom line was, I couldn’t not do it. It’s all I could think about. I knew I was at the perfect age.”
On the ensuing moral outcry, she says, ““There are so many children that this happens to, every second. That’s the sad part. If anyone’s talking about anything, that’s what they should be talking about.” Smart kid.
Greg in Dallas, You made the point that I was thinking of – kids were not a ‘commodity’ in my day, we were not the center of our parents universe and therefore, in my opinion, we were safe because we were treated as small people not the undeveloped property of adults.
As a child, I knew nothing could ever happen to me because my dad was strong and he kept a loaded shotgun in the stairwell. All of our dozens of cousins and neighbourhood friends who came and went from our place were told never to touch that gun, non of us ever did – I wonder how that would work today?
Dakota Fanning is a good litle actress; she would be more than capable of showing the horror of incest just by the look on her face.
There’s no need to actually *show* the ugliness; indeed, a good director/screenwriter have make more of an emotional impact by *not* showing it.
Orson Welles used to say that if he ever made a movie about the Manson murders, he would simply show the (soon-to-be) victims, then a shot of the murderers advancing on the camera…then fade to black. Brrrr.
Is allowing 12 year old girls to be “pretend raped” for “important issues”, the gateway behaviour to strapping bombs to them for “other important issues”?
the age of consent in Canada is 14, mostly to pander to Quebec. and likely now to pander to the followers of the Koran.
If we followed the Koran or it adherants we would not be having this discussion about 12 year olds.
Get ready for an onslaught of rights lawyers for multimarriages, underaged marriages , duo species marriages, the crack has been opened and the water keeps pouring in.
“As pointed out in the 1984 Badgley Report on Sexual Offences Against Children, Canada has a long history of prohibiting sexual intercourse with young females, regardless of their consent. Only girls under 12 were absolutely unable to consent to sexual intercourse until 1890, when the age limit was raised to 14. With the advent of the Criminal Code in 1892, the strict prohibition against sexual intercourse was retained for girls under 14 (not married to the accused) and the law was strengthened to make an accused’s belief about the young woman’s age irrelevant. That age limit has not changed and remains in place today, with narrow exceptions for consensual activity between young persons less than two years apart in age.”
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/prb993-e.htm