Following in the footsteps of Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields, Dakota Fanning, Hollywood’s newest up and coming young star, is tackling a role of violence and rape -nothing short of controversial.
The film, called “Hounddog”, will be released at the Sundance Film Festival this coming Monday, contrary to what advocates and self-proclaimed protectors of Hollywood youth want.
In the movie, 12-year-old Fanning plays a 1950s girl who lacks the naivety of most children her age.
Instead, her awareness of sexuality gives way to several shocking scenes in which her character, Lewellen, has encounters with her father and a prepubescent boy before being violently raped.
The other characters within the film have similar construction – that of repression, abandonment and self destruction.
This portrayal, honest and disturbing, has everyone wondering whether or not Fanning should have the opportunity, much less the decision, to make such a film.
Some of those who oppose the film’s release are even going as far as to call this film a thing of child pornography and not art.
Did Hollywood ignore the law books in order to create simulated sex with a minor or has the media, and conservative minds, taken this too far?
Fanning defends her work by saying simply that the film is not about rape, “because that has happened to her, it does not define her.” Intelligent words for such a young girl, I would think.
She was clearly treated respectively, having never actually been naked on film or during shooting, and knowledge of her age was kept in the forefront.
Perhaps America is too happy with the type-cast idea of who Dakota Fanning should be. Some of her previous films, “Charlotte’s Web”, “War of the Worlds” and “Cat in the Hat”, allowed very little room within her characters for mental or emotional growth.
Instead, she has been locked within a biased idea of what someone her age should be doing with an acting career. Evidentially, she’s no longer conforming. Fanning’s professional demeanor in and out of character, shows that her work is important.As she ages, she should be free to experiment with roles that are appealing in any sense that she finds.
This film, unlike Shield’s “Pretty Baby”, does not appear to be about shock value. The harsh reality is that girls, ones in the age demography of Fanning’s character, have experienced rape. To say otherwise is obviously ludicrous.
By hiring an actor over the age of 19 to play this part, as many of today’s sappy-Aaron-Spelling-wannabe films do, the viewers would lose what is most desired in film: empathy for the characters. With the loss of empathy, the idea of walking a mile in this little girl’s shoes , is nothing short of pornography. Yet, with it . we are saved.
The development of character, and insight into a life of a motherless girl, gives us a chance to see past, to paraphrase Fanning, that which we define her by.
There are no references to cherry popping here, as in “Pretty Baby”, – nor are there any pedophilic connotations for perverts.These ideas are a stretch in the wrong direction and God help us if a 12-year-old handles them with more maturity than us.
Remember, whether or not you approve, this is still beauty and art, so leave your Bible and morals somewhere else, because as Han Suyin once said, “Moralists have no place in an art gallery.”
Agree? Disagree? Just tired of me seeing the light of print? Write me at dontpanicds@gmail.com

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