The "Rape" of Dakota Fanning
Part Three of a Multi-Part Series

by Paul Petersen
President & Founder, AMC

When you hire a child to act out your sexual fantasy, even if the sex is merely simulated, you are committing a criminal act. So, why is it different if you hire a 12 year-old actress, fully nude, to actively participate in a rape scene? That's the situation in the movie entitled "Hound Dog" filming out of North Carolina. Reports tell us that the hardened film crew walked off the set when the rape scene was being filmed. If only they had been the crew on "Twilight Zone," the movie that saw the beheading of Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese children filming amidst explosives at Three in the morning when the helicopter crashed and its rotors tore through the necks of the performers. Who is going to speak for children sold into work that is by definition, illegal?

I maintain that criminal conduct involving a child cannot be excused by the dollar-driven professionals of the Entertainment Industry who, on the one hand, earn billions of dollars creating highly manipulative images for the Advertising Industry employing actors whose incomes are significantly dependent on work in commercials, and on the other hand squeal like piglets when people of conscience catch them at their propaganda masquerading as "art," aggressively defending themselves with the pat phrases of "censorship," and disingenuous cries of "it's only a movie" as if intentionally devised images have no impact at all.

Did the creator of this movie "Hound Dog" deliberately mis-lead Dakota Fanning's mother into thinking "Hound Dog" would be filmed with subtlety and cinematic implication. These are the Director's words taken directly from the script:

(DIRECTOR'S WORDS: Dear reader - please note - there is no nudity or explicit violence in this scene. All nudity and violence is implied. Occasional flashes of lightening illuminate the scene but most of this scene is in darkness and therefore the information is heard rather than seen.)

What actually happened on the set, where it counts, is very much different. Here is the "Blueline" report:

"SOURCES, ON SET AT THE TIME, TELL THE BLUE LINE THAT CREW WALKED OFF THE SET BECAUSE IT WAS SO GRAPHIC AND WAS FAR FROM BEING BACKLIT AS DESCRIBED. THE SCENE WAS FULLY LIT AND IT WAS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC. SOURCES TELL US THAT THE VIDEO ASSIST RECORDED EVERYTHING SHOT ON CAMERA. WE WERE ALSO TOLD THAT MISS FANNING'S MOTHER SAT IN FRONT OF A MONITOR WATCHING HER DAUGHTER PRETEND TO BE RAPED."

I ask you, "Could YOU suspend your disbelief watching your 12 year-old daughter simulate a viscous rape for any amount of money?

As I come to the end of Part Three of what will be a continuing series of personal essays on the permissible activities and role of children working in the performing arts and the distressing History of this work, I have to ask a question:

Does anyone care?

"What is the impact on the real-life child submerged beneath these commercial images?" Do you think that twenty years from now the images already captured on film of Dakota's rape scene will go away? What will Dakota Fanning think of that image in 2026, and what will she think of the adults, including her mother, who will NOT be the ones recognized in the super market or find their names in Trivial Pursuit?