More censorship from fundies

Thanatos

[quote=BBC News]Call for ban on 'child rape' film

Twelve-year-old actress Dakota Fanning is at the centre of a row over a new movie that depicts her being raped by a teenage boy.

US religious groups are calling for a boycott, saying Fanning's appearance in the film is tantamount to child abuse.

The protests came as Hounddog received its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah on Monday.

Director Deborah Kampmeier has defended the film, saying issues like child rape need to be discussed in public.

"This issue is so silenced in our society," she said. "There are a lot of women who are alone with this story."

Legal challenge

The criticism began before the film was screened, with the New York-based Catholic League calling for a federal probe into whether child pornography laws were violated during filming.

Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, also believes the rape scene falls foul of the law.

"Even if they're not actually performing the explicit act, we are dealing with a legal issue here," he said.

"Children at 12 do not have the ability to make the types of decisions that we're talking about here.

"If we're offended by some comedian's racial slur, why aren't we offended by somebody taking advantage of a 12-year-old child?"

Fanning herself played down the controversy following the film's premiere.

"It's not a rape movie," she said. "That's not even the point of the film."

Hounddog tells the story of a young girl who is raised by an abusive father and alcoholic grandmother in the American south.

Taking solace in blues music, she sets out to buy tickets for an Elvis Presley concert but is accosted by a teenage boy.

During the rape scene, only Fanning's face, neck, shoulders, hand and foot appear on screen.

Much of the scene takes place in darkness, punctuated only by the sound of Fanning's screams.

The actress said she and writer-director Kampmeier talked about the story for months before the film was shot.

"It's not really happening," she said of the controversial scene. "It's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything.

"And for me, when it's done it's done. I don't even think about it any more."

Fanning has had major roles in films including 2001's I Am Sam with Sean Penn and War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise in 2005. [/quote]
The sad part here is that the twelve year old is the rational one.

Seriously, my favorite part of this story is the line "If we're offended by some comedian's racial slur, why aren't we offended by somebody taking advantage of a 12-year-old child?" Of course we're offended by it! That's the whole fucking point, you fucking asshole douchebag. You're probably offended by the crucifixion of Christ, too, but that didn't stop you from going to see the Passion fifteen times, did it? Jesus. Shut the fuck up.

And wow, does the BBC like their carriage returns.

Incenjucar

Sex=Evil, Bloody Murder=Good.

Duh.

Feral

During the rape scene, only Fanning's face, neck, shoulders, hand and foot appear on screen.

Much of the scene takes place in darkness, punctuated only by the sound of Fanning's screams.

This reminds me of the shower scene in Psycho.

mcc

[quote=Other article]However, Fanning says some of the people who bashed the film's concept "were attacking my family and me, and that's where it got too far.

"Pretty much everybody who talked about it attacked my mother, which I did not appreciate. That was extremely uncalled for and hurtful."
...
Fanning says even if she hadn't been in the movie she would want to see it adding, "I know my mom would take me to see it.

"You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn't rosy."[/quote]
This is an unusually eloquent 12-year-old.

Feral

Have you ever heard Dakota Fanning in interviews?

Her little brain is the best evidence I've ever seen for reincarnation, because there's no way a 12-year-old could be that self-assured and intelligent on her first time around the wheel of samsara.

Elki

Thanatos wrote:

Seriously, my favorite part of this story is the line "If we're offended by some comedian's racial slur, why aren't we offended by somebody taking advantage of a 12-year-old child?" Of course we're offended by it! That's the whole fucking point, you fucking asshole douchebag. You're probably offended by the crucifixion of Christ, too, but that didn't stop you from going to see the Passion fifteen times, did it? Jesus. Shut the fuck up.

I thought he was saying some people are offended by silly things like the n-word, but not by this. But yeah, dumbass.

TroubledTom

It's a shame they aren't channeling that concern about rape into the creation of battered women's shelters, or funding therapy for abuse survivors.

Target Practice

mcc wrote:

[quote=Other article]However, Fanning says some of the people who bashed the film's concept "were attacking my family and me, and that's where it got too far.

"Pretty much everybody who talked about it attacked my mother, which I did not appreciate. That was extremely uncalled for and hurtful."
...
Fanning says even if she hadn't been in the movie she would want to see it adding, "I know my mom would take me to see it.

"You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn't rosy."

This is an unusually eloquent 12-year-old.[/quote]
I don't know that I agree with her, though. I mean, about taking a kid her age to see a movie like that.

Anyway, long story short, there's some conservative Christians with too much time on their hands. Who cares?

Also, I recall reading that Fanning is actually wearing a "nude suit" during this scene, so she's not actually naked, so the whole child porn argument is completely bogus.

Doc

TroubledTom wrote:

It's a shame they aren't channeling that concern about rape into the creation of battered women's shelters, or funding therapy for abuse survivors.

That would actually be helping people, a cause that the mega churches are more or less apathetic towards.

Variable

I thought this was ridiculous reading that article, having background knowledge of the movie and understand that she was presented naked in the film.

Finding out she isn't presented that way... I mean, what the fuck are they complaining about? That an idea is being shown to us in a way that tells us how disgusting and terrible it is?

god forbid we be aware of things like this in the world.

Target Practice

Come to think of it, that nude-suit thing might've been about a different movie, since according to the article it doesn't even show anything below her shoulders except a hand and a foot.

chaossoldier

Doc wrote:

TroubledTom wrote:

It's a shame they aren't channeling that concern about rape into the creation of battered women's shelters, or funding therapy for abuse survivors.

That would actually be helping people, a cause that the mega churches are more or less apathetic towards.

Unless, of course, you're donating to them.

GoodOmens

TroubledTom wrote:

It's a shame they aren't channeling that concern about rape into the creation of battered women's shelters, or funding therapy for abuse survivors.

Well, it's their fault in real life.

japan

So, are they objecting to the idea that a twelve year old (in the process of acting the scene) is being exposed to the idea of child rape, the act of simulated child rape itself, or the publishing of something that presents itself as film of a child rape?

I can see arguments for and against all three, but I'm not sure what specifically they're objecting to.

electricitylikesme

japan wrote:

So, are they objecting to the idea that a twelve year old (in the process of acting the scene) is being exposed to the idea of child rape, the act of simulated child rape itself, or the publishing of something that presents itself as film of a child rape?

I can see arguments for and against all three, but I'm not sure what specifically they're objecting to.

There is no possible way this will at all effect Dakota Fanning. This is because she is a 30 year old brain transplanted into a 12 year old's body.

Blackjack

electricitylikesme wrote:

japan wrote:

So, are they objecting to the idea that a twelve year old (in the process of acting the scene) is being exposed to the idea of child rape, the act of simulated child rape itself, or the publishing of something that presents itself as film of a child rape?

I can see arguments for and against all three, but I'm not sure what specifically they're objecting to.

There is no possible way this will at all effect Dakota Fanning. This is because she is a 30 year old brain transplanted into a 12 year old's body.

I think they gave her something to stop her from aging, personally.

Gorak

Isn't the Catholic church decrying a movie depicting child rape a little like Hitler complaining about Schindler's List?

corcorigan

"It's called acting."

Classic.

Catholic Church owned by a 12 year old actor.

redx

mcc wrote:

This is an unusually eloquent 12-year-old.

One who's a trained parot, and who's family and family friends(agents) pretty defintly talked to her about it, and talked about it in front of her? Ehh... I disagree. Not saying that she was told to say stuff, but that is how people work.

meh. I think the last bit is bullshit too. That's like taking your kid to see red dawn in case the russians attack(this is infinitly more likely, just saying it does not prepare people for shit, and moveis in no way should be taking the place of parenting).

I hate fundies.

"It's not really happening," she said of the controversial scene. "It's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything.

"And for me, when it's done it's done. I don't even think about it any more."

ehhh... I find this bit slightly distrubing actually to me it smacks of PTSD type numbing and aversion kind of stuff. Like, kind of shit hookers and victims of long term insest would say.

Course... someone says that kind of stuff if it is true as well. and it is pretty much true in this case. Just sounds slightly off to me. Slight little alarm bells of, well, mabey the kids was a little bothered by it, and having her sit down with a psrink would be better then letting it fester.

ViolentChemistry

Guys, it's not rape that they have a problem with, it's talking about it that's a problem. Rape, especially child-rape, is something that should stay in the home and it's just not right to talk about it. In fundie-communities, I mean. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all, and all that.

Fucking fucked up fucks hiding behind fucking religion as if it's going to protect them from my zankantou...

Fencingsax

redx wrote:

ehhh... I find this bit slightly distrubing actually to me it smacks of PTSD type numbing and aversion kind of stuff. Like, kind of shit hookers and victims of long term insest would say.

I would tend to agree, except that she is an actor.

redx

Fencingsax wrote:

redx wrote:

ehhh... I find this bit slightly distrubing actually to me it smacks of PTSD type numbing and aversion kind of stuff. Like, kind of shit hookers and victims of long term insest would say.

I would tend to agree, except that she is an actor.

yeah, I know. There was more to my post than you quoted.

Still, don't actors normally think about thier work? Getting a lot of press cause of that one little bit, seems odd she seems adverse to thinking about. Not like laying on your back and screaming has a whole lot of technical meriet, so mabey they wouldn't think about it.

I'm obviouse reading a whole lot into it. Just struck me as a little off.

ViolentChemistry

redx wrote:

Fencingsax wrote:

redx wrote:

ehhh... I find this bit slightly distrubing actually to me it smacks of PTSD type numbing and aversion kind of stuff. Like, kind of shit hookers and victims of long term insest would say.

I would tend to agree, except that she is an actor.

yeah, I know. There was more to my post than you quoted.

Still, don't actors normally think about thier work? Getting a lot of press cause of that one little bit, seems odd she seems adverse to thinking about. Not like laying on your back and screaming has a whole lot of technical meriet, so mabey they wouldn't think about it.

I'm obviouse reading a whole lot into it. Just struck me as a little off.

I don't see anything that implies that she's averse to thinking about it. Just that she doesn't. They're kinda not the same thing. Particularly when she's clearly trying to head off the accusation that it's traumatized her, since it hasn't.

itylus

While I don't want to take the side of the fundies on something like this... and believe that awful things ought to be depicted on film precisely in order to bring into people's consciousness the fact that these awful things happen in the real world all the time, and that we need to work at stopping them from happenning...


...there is some history of young girls involved in films with strong sexual content going on to have messed-up lives - see for example Sue Lyons and Maria Schneider. Lyons particularly feels very bitter about Lolita. I don't know. It sounds like Fanning is a very smart and mature girl for her age, and that the people involved in the film went about it in the most sensible and cautious way possible (also, Fanning shouldn't be made to face the kind of ugly personal attacks that the opponents of the film are making against her family, because if there was anything bad in this experience for her, that can only make it worse) but I have to say I'm still kind of hesitant to wholeheartedly endorse this enterprise.

Couldn't they have made a CGI film of this, with adult actors/actresses playing the children? Yeah, I know, not exactly a perfect solution...

edit: Sue Lyon, not Sue Lyons.

ViolentChemistry

itylus wrote:

...there is some history of children involved in films, music and/or television going on to have messed-up lives

Fixed.

Irond Will

itylus wrote:

Couldn't they have made a CGI film of this, with adult actors/actresses playing the children? Yeah, I know, not exactly a perfect solution...

I think that's illegal under the "Kids" law. I mean - over a certain threshold of sexuality anyhow.

Also, the Sue Lyon example is a little different - the movie Lolita has as its central theme the fetishization/ sexualization of a young person. All of Kubrick's publicity stills feature Lyon coyly addressing the camera, and the movie (which I thought really missed the central premise of the book) was essentially a pedophilia road trip. Lyon was held up as a public figure, clucked at by moralists and creepily courted by the lascivious. Add to this that Lyon was bipolar and otherwise emotionally unstable, and you have a really different situation than the current one.

Also, I seem to remember some horrible Grisham movie that revolved around the gang rape of a black girl by racists in some hick burg. I don't really remember any outcry over that one. Is this current round of clucking a function of the fact that Fanning is both well-known to the "family movies" crowd and white?

itylus

ViolentChemistry wrote:

itylus wrote:

...there is some history of children involved in films, music and/or television going on to have messed-up lives

Fixed.

Look, sure, we can't wrap the world in cotton wool, a meteor could strike your home, &c, but we make a distinction between letting kids play unsupervised in the backyard and telling them to go play in the traffic. I'd say, given how badly these children seem to have been psychologically affected by being in films about child sexuality, there's a case to be made for drawing a line and saying that what's past that line isn't OK. The case might not be watertight; as was said in the morality thread, these things ultimately have to be based on axioms which are arbitrary & therefore can't be proved "right" or "wrong". But just because there's a continuum of bad effects from "some involvement in local theatre" to "crazy parents pushing kids to be famous" to "involvement in movies about child sex", doesn't mean that impossible for a reasonable person to draw a line somewhere on that continuum and say that the risks are unacceptable.

nexuscrawler

It really depends how the director and producers handled it. It's pretty much a given, even with adults, that the director discuss scenes like this one with thier actors long before the scnee it actually shot. in studio movies any scnee involving rape or nudity is often subjected to motnhs of negotations between the studio and the actors' managers. It don't have any objection to material like this provided Fanning was aware of what she was getting into before and wasn't pushed into it by the studio or her parents.

ViolentChemistry

itylus wrote:

ViolentChemistry wrote:

itylus wrote:

...there is some history of children involved in films, music and/or television going on to have messed-up lives

Fixed.

Look, sure, we can't wrap the world in cotton wool, a meteor could strike your home, &c, but we make a distinction between letting kids play unsupervised in the backyard and telling them to go play in the traffic. I'd say, given how badly these children seem to have been psychologically affected by being in films about child sexuality, there's a case to be made for drawing a line and saying that what's past that line isn't OK. The case might not be watertight; as was said in the morality thread, these things ultimately have to be based on axioms which are arbitrary & therefore can't be proved "right" or "wrong". But just because there's a continuum of bad effects from "some involvement in local theatre" to "crazy parents pushing kids to be famous" to "involvement in movies about child sex", doesn't mean that impossible for a reasonable person to draw a line somewhere on that continuum and say that the risks are unacceptable.

Okay, so since this movie isn't about child-sexuality, you're going to shut up now? Or did you not really mean that post?

Edit: Just because you and the fundies are obsessed with the rape scene doesn't mean it's the whole point of the movie. You know, Swordfish wasn't actually about Halle Berry's tits.

Lanz

it sounds like the intitial reports of hte movie were either wrong or they've toned the movie down and changed the script some, since the initial complaints months ago were:

-That the scene was supposedly rather graphic
-That her mother and agent seemed to be possibly pressuring her into the award, discussing how this would undoubtedly win her an award for the movie
-I think initial reports claim that her character is a victim of incest by the father.

MORPHEUS

I don't really get it. In War of the Worlds her character was exposed to many acts of violence and atrocities. In one scene her character witnesses or is aware of the fact that her father is beating the brains out of a guy with a shovel. Back then I didnt hear any bitching from the fundies.

Irond Will

ViolentChemistry wrote:

You know, Swordfish wasn't actually about Halle Berry's tits.

Might as well have been. That movie blew.

ViolentChemistry

MORPHEUS wrote:

I don't really get it. In War of the Worlds her character was exposed to many acts of violence and atrocities. In one scene her character witnesses or is aware of the fact that her father is beating the brains out of a guy with a shovel. Back then I didnt hear any bitching from the fundies.

God forgives murderers. But he can't forgive people who don't pretend rape doesn't exist.

itylus

ViolentChemistry wrote:

itylus wrote:

ViolentChemistry wrote:

itylus wrote:

...there is some history of children involved in films, music and/or television going on to have messed-up lives

Fixed.

Look, sure, we can't wrap the world in cotton wool, a meteor could strike your home, &c, but we make a distinction between letting kids play unsupervised in the backyard and telling them to go play in the traffic. I'd say, given how badly these children seem to have been psychologically affected by being in films about child sexuality, there's a case to be made for drawing a line and saying that what's past that line isn't OK. The case might not be watertight; as was said in the morality thread, these things ultimately have to be based on axioms which are arbitrary & therefore can't be proved "right" or "wrong". But just because there's a continuum of bad effects from "some involvement in local theatre" to "crazy parents pushing kids to be famous" to "involvement in movies about child sex", doesn't mean that impossible for a reasonable person to draw a line somewhere on that continuum and say that the risks are unacceptable.

Okay, so since this movie isn't about child-sexuality, you're going to shut up now? Or did you not really mean that post?

Edit: Just because you and the fundies are obsessed with the rape scene doesn't mean it's the whole point of the movie. You know, Swordfish wasn't actually about Halle Berry's tits.

I haven't seen the movie so I won't defend or attack it. I certainly haven't said it should be banned or that I'm against it or that the fundies are right. All I said is that there's a case for exercising caution in making films that might be psychologically damaging for child participants, and that it's *possible* that this film might fall into that category. Is that really so unreasonable? Which post are you asking if I didn't mean?

edit: And Swordfish... I saw that whole movie, and the only thing I remember is the name of the film, and Halle Berry's tits. Not that I mind.

Loren Michael

mcc wrote:

[quote=Other article]However, Fanning says some of the people who bashed the film's concept "were attacking my family and me, and that's where it got too far.

"Pretty much everybody who talked about it attacked my mother, which I did not appreciate. That was extremely uncalled for and hurtful."
...
Fanning says even if she hadn't been in the movie she would want to see it adding, "I know my mom would take me to see it.

"You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn't rosy."

This is an unusually eloquent 12-year-old.[/quote]
that's what i never liked about her, as an actress. she always plays an annoying, dumb kid, but she's too creepily intelligent to play that kind of a 10-12 year-old.

LadyM

What a reaction. She's not even naked in the film, she's fully clothed. What, do they think the director had the other kid ACTUALLY RAPE HER for realism or something?

I'm really mystified by the fundie response. Do they also object to adult women's rape scenes? Or do they just object to all scenes remotely related to sex? (On a sidenote, my sister's kids aren't allowed to watch The Lion King because the lions aren't married.)

DiscGrace

LadyM wrote:

On a sidenote, my sister's kids aren't allowed to watch The Lion King because the lions aren't married.)

Irond Will

LadyM wrote:

On a sidenote, my sister's kids aren't allowed to watch The Lion King because the lions aren't married.

You win Sidenote of the Day!

ViolentChemistry

LadyM wrote:

What a reaction. She's not even naked in the film, she's fully clothed. What, do they think the director had the other kid ACTUALLY RAPE HER for realism or something?

I'm really mystified by the fundie response. Do they also object to adult women's rape scenes? Or do they just object to all scenes remotely related to sex? (On a sidenote, my sister's kids aren't allowed to watch The Lion King because the lions aren't married.)

But isn't that okay since they don't have souls either?

Veevee

LadyM wrote:

On a sidenote, my sister's kids aren't allowed to watch The Lion King because the lions aren't married.

I'd take the kids for a day and have them watch Lion King. But then I like to start trouble with family members that are stupid.

Irond Will

ViolentChemistry wrote:

But isn't that okay since they don't have souls either?

If marriage is good enough for my shoes, it's good enough for cartoon lions.