01-19-2007, 05:03 PM
I was watching Hannity and Colmes today which is a news program on channel 26. They talked about how producers of a new movie called Hounddog are in an argument with the program's hosts involving its content. I went to IMDB and confirmed that the movie does exist. The movie in question is Hounddog and its spreading contraversy throughout the country. In it, 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning, which you probably know from many of her movies; Charlotte's Web, Man on Fire, Trapped, War of the Worlds, Uptown Girls, Hide and Seek, etc plays a sexually abused girl who finds solace in listening to Elvis hence the film's title.
The real thing that is making people outraged is that in the movie, Dakota is seen partially nude and also in a rape scene. The film's producers claim that the scene was shot above the shoulders with her wearing a body suit with her mother and a welfare worker in the room. Yet in any case I just find this sort of thing to be disturbing. Even if there's no actual illegal material in the scene like the shit you find from the darkest corners of the web studies show that childstars who do sex-related scenes have troubles in life later on. So if it has the same effect as what happens to all those real kids who are sexually abused; them being seriously messed up as adults then why is it legal?
Many can argue that numerous childstars who played in taboo subjects, not even the sex ones have gone on to live rich and healthy lives. Even if this was the case, it doesn't change the moral issues. Being a huge movie buff I've seen many movies dealing with the depraved subject of sex involving children. I don't condone such actions of course. The following is all the movies I can recall seeing involving such material with descriptions.
L.I.E.: A teenage boy. Howie who lost his mother in an accident on the Long Island Expressway ends up lost in a world where no one seems to understand him. He ends up befriending a pedophile. In the movie we see Big John, the pedophile looking at a nude photo of a boy from the waist up. It also deals with a boy sleeping with his sister without protection, Howie's friend being a male prostitute to older men among other aberrant situations and Big John showing an explicit porn movie to Howie also asking him how long his penis is. Its theatrical version in 2001 got an NC-17 rating. It was released in an uncut and R-rated version although the R one only ommits three sex scenes all with consenting adults. in either case both versions are NC-17 deserving in my opinion.
Mysterious Skin: Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a sexually abused teenager who sells his body to men. He ends up befriending another boy who believes he was abducted by space aliens. In the movie we see Joseph receiving oral sex, giving anal sex and even him being raped anally. Also graphic sexual language including dialogue involving abuse and the intiation of sex between minors some of which is off-camera therfore strongly implied.
The Woodsman: Kevin Bacon plays a convicted child molester who is on parole trying to get his life back together. There's disturbing talk of the molestation acts including sexual dialogue, other aberrant discussions and very awkward scenes where Kevin Bacon follows around young girls, one of which leads to a chat on a park bench where he asks one if she'd like to sit on his lap.
Capturing the Friedmans: A documentary that profiles Arnold Friedman who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing numerous boys through his class at an elementary school along with his son who took part in the acts. Horrific subject matter along with some discussion of the sexual abuse that occured from victims.
The Butterfly Effect: A pedophile father puts his daughter and her friend in a basement in front of a camera and tells them to take off their clothes and kiss. The scene is repeated several times with one of them with the child actors being implied nude. The story in the beginning causes the older version of the girl played by Amy Smart to kill her self when Ashtong Kutcher reminds her of the abuse years later.
Running Scared: Cameron Bright ends up in the hands of a pedophile couple who along with two other abducted kids, are forced to put on an implied video of them engaging in some sick act. Cameron himself almost suffocates after the couple tries to kill him until his friend's mother arrives. She ends up finding a collection of CD's with kid's names on them before shooting the couple.
Donnie Darko: Jake Gyllenhaal burns down Patrick Swayze's home and firemen who respond to the blaze inside discover he's the leader of a child porn ring when they locate his materials.
The Night Listener: Robin Williams befriends a sexually abused boy who's dying from AIDS. There's talk of his ordeal of how he's blindfolded and lead into a basement where he was videotapes by his mother and father. This includes a reenactment where nude men and women drink and laugh while we see a blindfolded boy in his underpants in the middle in front of a camera.
Hard Candy: Although it doesn't directly involve pedophilia, it deals with the subject matter as a teenage girl beings a sick, sick, sick tortorous process against a man who she is convinced brought her home to his home to abuse her.
Mystic River: A preteen boy is taken by men posing as cops and is implied abused in a basement. Later discussions relate to the abuse in saying ''they had their fun'' and ''he was sexually abused as a kid.''
The Heart is Decietful Above All Things: I didn't finish watching this one since it didn't interest me but I did see disturbing scenes involving childstar Jimmy Bennett being put into one bad situation after another. There's an implied mention that he was sexually assaulted. But mainly he's just severely, severely neglected which is just as damaging when you think about it.
Bastard out of Carolina: A man forces a 13-year-old into a kiss followed by him dragging her into a room, him fumbling with his pants and her dress followed by an downward view of him moving into her, him on top and you see the whole scene actually occur. This includes audio of her grunts and his. Also you see how the girl is helpless and how much suffering she's going through.
I feel while this is a hard subject to talk about, it must be so we don't forget that these atrocities occur all the time. Basically, I'd like to hear what you all have to say about the latest in these types of movies. Even if the sole reason of such abuse to take place is to add to the plot, I feel its completely unneccesary. You see, couldn't these screenplay writers come up with something else that won't sicken us to our stomachs? Couldn't they find another way to make their stories work out? I'm not totally against it as long as it presents itself in another form. This includes films like 12 and Holding, The Ice Storm and A Home at the End of the World. In those films, its a girl coming on to a man, and kids finding themselves with other kids when no one else seems to care about them.
In that sense, in those movies I feel its somewhat okay although still not entirely moral. But if you're going to put a young, innocent girl into an acting scene that she has to act as if she's being raped then I say what's the point? The film is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and I hope it doesn't do well. I have not seen the scene so I can't completely judge it but I do feel that any sort of scene like that can not be tasteful in any way shape or form like the producers try to sell it off as. Dakota is said to be Oscar deserving in this role. I say, can't she get an Oscar another way?
The real thing that is making people outraged is that in the movie, Dakota is seen partially nude and also in a rape scene. The film's producers claim that the scene was shot above the shoulders with her wearing a body suit with her mother and a welfare worker in the room. Yet in any case I just find this sort of thing to be disturbing. Even if there's no actual illegal material in the scene like the shit you find from the darkest corners of the web studies show that childstars who do sex-related scenes have troubles in life later on. So if it has the same effect as what happens to all those real kids who are sexually abused; them being seriously messed up as adults then why is it legal?
Many can argue that numerous childstars who played in taboo subjects, not even the sex ones have gone on to live rich and healthy lives. Even if this was the case, it doesn't change the moral issues. Being a huge movie buff I've seen many movies dealing with the depraved subject of sex involving children. I don't condone such actions of course. The following is all the movies I can recall seeing involving such material with descriptions.
L.I.E.: A teenage boy. Howie who lost his mother in an accident on the Long Island Expressway ends up lost in a world where no one seems to understand him. He ends up befriending a pedophile. In the movie we see Big John, the pedophile looking at a nude photo of a boy from the waist up. It also deals with a boy sleeping with his sister without protection, Howie's friend being a male prostitute to older men among other aberrant situations and Big John showing an explicit porn movie to Howie also asking him how long his penis is. Its theatrical version in 2001 got an NC-17 rating. It was released in an uncut and R-rated version although the R one only ommits three sex scenes all with consenting adults. in either case both versions are NC-17 deserving in my opinion.
Mysterious Skin: Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a sexually abused teenager who sells his body to men. He ends up befriending another boy who believes he was abducted by space aliens. In the movie we see Joseph receiving oral sex, giving anal sex and even him being raped anally. Also graphic sexual language including dialogue involving abuse and the intiation of sex between minors some of which is off-camera therfore strongly implied.
The Woodsman: Kevin Bacon plays a convicted child molester who is on parole trying to get his life back together. There's disturbing talk of the molestation acts including sexual dialogue, other aberrant discussions and very awkward scenes where Kevin Bacon follows around young girls, one of which leads to a chat on a park bench where he asks one if she'd like to sit on his lap.
Capturing the Friedmans: A documentary that profiles Arnold Friedman who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing numerous boys through his class at an elementary school along with his son who took part in the acts. Horrific subject matter along with some discussion of the sexual abuse that occured from victims.
The Butterfly Effect: A pedophile father puts his daughter and her friend in a basement in front of a camera and tells them to take off their clothes and kiss. The scene is repeated several times with one of them with the child actors being implied nude. The story in the beginning causes the older version of the girl played by Amy Smart to kill her self when Ashtong Kutcher reminds her of the abuse years later.
Running Scared: Cameron Bright ends up in the hands of a pedophile couple who along with two other abducted kids, are forced to put on an implied video of them engaging in some sick act. Cameron himself almost suffocates after the couple tries to kill him until his friend's mother arrives. She ends up finding a collection of CD's with kid's names on them before shooting the couple.
Donnie Darko: Jake Gyllenhaal burns down Patrick Swayze's home and firemen who respond to the blaze inside discover he's the leader of a child porn ring when they locate his materials.
The Night Listener: Robin Williams befriends a sexually abused boy who's dying from AIDS. There's talk of his ordeal of how he's blindfolded and lead into a basement where he was videotapes by his mother and father. This includes a reenactment where nude men and women drink and laugh while we see a blindfolded boy in his underpants in the middle in front of a camera.
Hard Candy: Although it doesn't directly involve pedophilia, it deals with the subject matter as a teenage girl beings a sick, sick, sick tortorous process against a man who she is convinced brought her home to his home to abuse her.
Mystic River: A preteen boy is taken by men posing as cops and is implied abused in a basement. Later discussions relate to the abuse in saying ''they had their fun'' and ''he was sexually abused as a kid.''
The Heart is Decietful Above All Things: I didn't finish watching this one since it didn't interest me but I did see disturbing scenes involving childstar Jimmy Bennett being put into one bad situation after another. There's an implied mention that he was sexually assaulted. But mainly he's just severely, severely neglected which is just as damaging when you think about it.
Bastard out of Carolina: A man forces a 13-year-old into a kiss followed by him dragging her into a room, him fumbling with his pants and her dress followed by an downward view of him moving into her, him on top and you see the whole scene actually occur. This includes audio of her grunts and his. Also you see how the girl is helpless and how much suffering she's going through.
I feel while this is a hard subject to talk about, it must be so we don't forget that these atrocities occur all the time. Basically, I'd like to hear what you all have to say about the latest in these types of movies. Even if the sole reason of such abuse to take place is to add to the plot, I feel its completely unneccesary. You see, couldn't these screenplay writers come up with something else that won't sicken us to our stomachs? Couldn't they find another way to make their stories work out? I'm not totally against it as long as it presents itself in another form. This includes films like 12 and Holding, The Ice Storm and A Home at the End of the World. In those films, its a girl coming on to a man, and kids finding themselves with other kids when no one else seems to care about them.
In that sense, in those movies I feel its somewhat okay although still not entirely moral. But if you're going to put a young, innocent girl into an acting scene that she has to act as if she's being raped then I say what's the point? The film is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and I hope it doesn't do well. I have not seen the scene so I can't completely judge it but I do feel that any sort of scene like that can not be tasteful in any way shape or form like the producers try to sell it off as. Dakota is said to be Oscar deserving in this role. I say, can't she get an Oscar another way?