CAN YOU DO WITHOUT THIS MOVIE?
Thoughts from Paul Petersen

On January 18th, a film starring Dakota Fanning is set to debut at the Sundance Film Festival. "Hound Dog," filmed in North Carolina, is getting a lot of buzz because in this movie, 12 year-old Dakota Fanning acted out a rape scene, on camera, and in the script, was called upon to perform mutual masturbation with another actor, a scene which may or may not be in the final cut of the movie. Reports persist that the footage of the masturbation scene was conveniently destroyed. What we know for certain is that a professional movie crew was so outraged during filming of the rape scene that they walked off the set, something we might all wish had happened on the set of "The Twilight Zone." If you've forgotten, "The Twilight Zone" was the 1983 film in which Vic Morrow and two little children (illegally hired) working amidst explosives at three-thirty in the morning were beheaded when a helicopter's tail rotor was blown off by a special effects bomb and it dropped on the hapless trio. Had just one of the highly paid professionals working on the movie walked in front of the camera asking for workplace sanity, cooler heads might have prevailed. Such is the fixation on a movie set to place "ends" over "means." But I digress.

One-third of the professional entertainer's income is derived from Advertising, a multi-billion dollar business that depends on altering consumer's behavior by the use of cleverly crafted images and impressions that re-direct the flow of dollars toward "new" and "improved" products. We are all familiar with commercials, and usually this benign propaganda has little effect. Laser-eyed business executives, however, know that images alter behavior and they spend billions annually to "reach" their often-young targets.

The same professional tools that go into advertising, from concept to realization, are also the tools of filmmakers. Dozens of highly skilled craft persons are utilized to produce the final product we call a movie, the ultimate expression of what I call, the Collaborative Arts. When movies are ennobling and enrich the culture they are wonderful, but when they advance a political or social agenda, real or perceived, they can be dangerous, for the "message" is often deliberately hidden beneath layers of sophisticated imagery and deception. The poorly educated audience of today does not appreciate the manipulative power of the medium, a power once embodied by Leni Reifenstahl working for the Nazis, and Frank Capra creating "Why We Fight" for America's war effort. Everyone used to know the dark power of the cinema.

"Propaganda has only one object - to conquer the masses. Every means that furthers this aim is good; every means that hinders it is bad." Joseph Goebbels.

Children are employed in virtually all of Entertainment these days. In the porn industry, however, the use of anyone under the age of Eighteen is prohibited. There are limits, says the Law, in the uses to which minor-age children can be utilized. In California the pertinent Penal Code is 311.4, which reads, in part: The use of a Minor in… "any manner, any film, filmstrip, or a live performance involving, sexual conduct by a minor under the age of 18 years alone or with other persons or animals, for commercial purposes, is guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, six, or eight years."

Without comment on "redeeming social values," let me state what I hope is obvious: Film is a collaborative medium and not ordinarily protected by the First Amendment, which rightly protects the individual artist, but not the employer of a child who is hired to act out a creative sexual fantasy. No one has the right to permit…or employ…a child to engage in sexual conduct, even simulated, for commercial purposes.

Sundance is the place an independent filmmaker with a movie to sell goes to find a Distributor to market their product. Show Business has come to believe that it is exempt from the restrictions we ordinary mortals suffer, that even when it comes to the exploitation of minors, the Law is a mere inconvenience. Defenders of this movie are already in the field, hoping no one notices that Dakota Fanning is twelve years old.

There is still time for our marketing gurus to decide if they really need to sell Dakota Fanning playing the part of a little girl in 1960 who gets raped while in innocent pursuit of tickets to an Elvis concert.

I'm pretty sure there are lots of Grand Juries out there, men and women good and true, who can spend an afternoon looking at all the footage taken of Dakota Fanning during this production, and not just those carefully sanitized little bits thrown up on a Sundance screen. Grand Jurors who are, say citizens of North Carolina, a state that provides subsidies for filmmakers, just might have a message for all of us.

Dakota Protected?

For those of you who believe the "spin" that Dakota Fanning was protected while filming "Hound Dog" in North Carolina, here is a link you will find chilling: http://www.ncfilm.com/film_labor_laws.asp.

For those of you afraid to know the truth, here's the reality taken directly off the NC Film Commission's website:

Child Labor Laws

The child labor provisions do not apply to children employed as actors or performers in motion pictures, theatrical, radio or television productions. A Youth Employment Certificate must be completed before hiring youth/children under the age of 18. Please visit the NC Department of Labor's YECAUTO page for an online certificate form and other vital information. If you are concerned that your child is in danger of exploitation, please visit the NC Attorney General's Website.

And just to make sure you understand how young performers from Drew Barrymore to Jena Malone to Dakota Fanning are exploited, here's some additional "official language:"

   (g) Youths employed as models, or as actors or performers in motion pictures or theatrical productions, or in radio or television products are exempt from all provisions of this section except the certificate requirements of subsection (a).

Paul Petersen,
Monday, January 22, 2007