Hounddog

[_Laurie_]

Dakota Fanning tells "Hounddog" critics she is mad

Wednesday January 24 3:09 PM ET

Precocious 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, star of the kids movie "Charlotte's Web," is as mad as she can be and is not going to take any more criticism about her latest role -- a rape victim.

Fanning saw her newest movie "Hounddog" premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week after months of complaints from religious groups and others who questioned whether her family and the film's maker acted responsibly when asking her to act in a rape scene.

"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad," she said in an interview.

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"I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ... that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.

Since the age of six, when Fanning appeared in an episode of U.S. television program "Ally McBeal," her fan base has grown into millions of people around the world.

She has starred in Hollywood movies ranging from "The Cat in the Hat," based on the Dr. Seuss children's book about a magical cat, to Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," in which she played a young girl on the run from space aliens.

But Fanning is now entering her teen-age years -- she'll be 13 in February -- and like any girl or boy who is growing older and maturing, she finds herself attracted to new stories and roles she finds challenging and thought-provoking.

GOING ON 13

In "Hounddog," Fanning plays 12-year-old Lewellen, who lives in a Deep South town in the 1950s. Her dysfunctional family is poor, and the household is run by her grandmother.

Lewellen loves Elvis Presley, and in order to get a ticket to his concert, she agrees to do her Elvis impersonation for an older teen-age boy. Eventually that scene leads to the rape.

"I loved the Elvis Presley story line. I loved the fact she's born of hard circumstances and is trying to survive those," Fanning said. "I like so many things about it that had nothing to do with being abused, or sexually abused."

"Hounddog" is based on director Deborah Kampmeier's personal history, and she called the criticism of Fanning's decision to take the role an insult to the young actress.

"She should be applauded to the voice she has given to so many silenced women," Kampmeier said.

Kampmeier called the Georgia-born Fanning an "old soul" who understood Lewellen's thoughts and emotions from the moment the actress and director first discussed the part.

Fanning said she would tell her friends to see "Hounddog," with their parents' approval, because it addresses many topics they will either soon face or, perhaps, already have.

"I'm going to be a freshman in high school in September, and I think it would be irresponsible of my parents not to let me know of things that happen and to try not to get yourself in uncomfortable situations," she said. "It's educational."

Fanning said she loves acting and wants to continue to into her teens and adulthood. She added that she does not pick parts with a career plan, such as making the transition from child actor to adult, which is often hard to do successfully

.

As she talks, Fanning tries hard cover her teeth and hide her new braces. When told not to be shy because many adults went through the same issue with braces, she giggles. Then, she quickly brightens as she looks at Kampmeier.

"I know," she says, "let's make a movie about braces."

Edited January 25, 2007 by Guest

[Sweet Jane 61]

I saw an interview about this movie and some scenes from it, not the rape. It does bother me, I know this happens in everyday life more than we would like, but the movie could have been made without any type of rape scene at all. And they have said the scene doesn't show alot, but why show anything at all with a young actress? Many movies about child abuse have been done without having a scene to show the abuse. I think the movie sounds interesting, but I won't see it because of the scene, which one reporter said was hard to watch.

[_Laurie_]

I agree Jane....Things like this do happen in real life, doesn't mean we have to see it....It makes you wonder why someone would want to...very disturbing.

[Sweet Jane 61]

I know, and don't get me wrong, I am all for filmakers to be artistic, but there has to be a line, not censorship really, just a line. Especially in todays world. And yes it is just acting, but I have read many articles where actors say that a part really tore them up emotionaly. I can't imagine doing the scene in this movie, at any age really, and not having any emotional baggage.

[Shawna]

This caused me to think. Which gave me a headache. I hate thinking.

I wonder if, for someone who's never experienced first-hand abuse of any kind, filming a scene that they know isn't real (for them) would have the same effect on them as, say, someone older with more real-life experience and emotional baggage.

For example, when Jodie Foster filmed the rape scene in "The Accused," she was fully aware, as a grown woman with life experience, what it might be like to be brutally attacked that way, and so it had an emotional impact. Whereas, 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, who has probably never known a day of abuse in her life and has virtually no real-life experience (in a sexual aspect) to draw from, would go through the motions but not be impacted personally because she has never been there.

Did any of that make sense?

[_Laurie_]

Make sense to me Shawna...

And I was also thinking....The nerve of them to use the name of a great song, for such a disturbing movie...I don't like that at all!

Edited January 26, 2007 by Guest

[Ombre Vivante]

Man, just think that long ago Brooke Shields was fully nude at around the same age in Louis Malles's Pretty Baby. She doesn't even play a rape victim, but, rather, the daughter of a brothel courtesan who then prostitutes her daughter to the highest bidder. A movie like that would be banned outright. I've seen it and I thought - for the subject matter - it was well-filmed and acted. This is Louis Malle, after all; the same guy who directed Au Revoir Les Enfants and "Elevator To The Gallows." It would be a damn shame if artistic expression was banned outright due to pressure from the brown-shirted puritan critics who see "child pornography" everywhere they turn.

[Ombre Vivante]

If there is a reason to boycott this movie it would because of its flat-out badness. How could I be so naive to think of paring a real tough work of art by Malle and this lifetime-movie terd? Boycott this movie only to spare everyone else the pain of watching this crap and, perhaps, to stop funding the production of crap.