ON DAKOTA BEING NAKED

On Dakota being Naked . . .
DAKOTA FANNING―the most important child actress of the decade hazards her most dramatic film portrayal to date in Deborah Kampmeier’s shocking indie drama. Set in the rural South against the backdrop of the 60’s “Hounddog” is about a sexually abused girl who finds solace and ultimate redemption in the words and music of Elvis.
     So what’s all this expostulation? . . . Hue and cry? . . . near pandemonium? Just because Kampmeier dares to focus her unflinching camera’s eye on the issue of child sexual abuse? That she chose to depict said abuse in a realistic and graphic manner; that she cast as her actress not an unknown, but none other than child-super-starlet Dakota Fanning. Dakota doesn’t even appear naked in “Hounddog”. There is an implied rape scene. She cavorts to Elvis tunes in her underwear. She shares a couple of fags with a boy in a truck that appears to be about her age. She’s called a “Nigger lover” by another character. She gyrates her hips to a couple more Elvis tunes, sings to a lamp stand. That’s it. That’s the controversy. Talk about much-ado-about-nothing. These are the facts that have riled the tail-feathers of a great many provincial political-correctors.
     It’s all about Dakota. If Dakota were not the actress in question, “HD” wouldn’t even register on the radar. We need to examine more closely the underlying sociological themes that has everyone so exercised. What is it exactly that has caused so many people to have a tizzy over this? That a normal all-American underage girl has the ability to be naked on camera? It’s been done before, the molestation scene and subsequent rape of Jena Malone in “Bastard out of Carolina” (1996) is far more graphic—not to mention Jena’s character is subjected to horrific child abuse. Brooke Shields appears nude, NUDE in “Pretty Baby” (1978), albeit she’s lying in repose on a couch and the scene is static. Kate Maberly appears nude in an innocent bathtub scene in “The Secret Garden” (1993). There is a legitimate nude scene by an unknown actress in the final reel of the movie “The Mission” (1986) it takes place after the Portuguese soldiers have massacred the Indian village. The scene is of a pre-pubertal Guarani Indian girl who cautiously picks through the burning rubble of her village to retrieve a violin before climbing into a canoe with her brother and little sister. The children are all naked, and the scene is beautiful. Jenny Agutter was 15 when she filmed her nude scenes for “Walkabout” (1971).
     The reason for the cacophony? Because we are suddenly faced with the prospects of our innocent pig-tailed Fern, of “Charlotte's Web” being naked, rapped and abused. This violates every rule of our collective parental sub-conscious. The truth is, Dakota is growing up, little innocent Dakota of “I am Sam” no longer exist. It is hard to let go. The fact of the matter is that if Dakota is to strike out on her own and break that mindset of the pure and innocent child. She must do something dramatic.
     In all the hurly-burly, hullabaloo over the prospect of Dakota being naked, nobody, not one person has stopped to consider how courageous and brave Dakota is for taking on this challenging movie role. This plucky little girl has guts; you have to give her credit there. This is a daunting task for Dakota to take off her clothes in front of the all the production crew on a movie set. Even on a closed set, you’re still talking about a minimum of a half-a-dozen people, all fully clothed, all looking at you, pointing cameras and lights and sound booms while you stand there in the breeze clad only in underwear.

      I suspect that Dakota is very comfortable with her body. All 12-year-old girl’s have chests, even our Dakota. Why are we American’s so hung up on the naked human body? Why do we find it so hard to except that all children have “naughty bits.” We see them, we know they are there, but you put them on film and suddenly everyone goes into conniption fits. I suspect it has something to do with our Puritan roots. Its those gosh darn Pilgrims with their funny hats and blunderbusses that’s whose to blame!

     We Americans are a violent people. We were born to violence; our history is one of violence and more violence. Our revolution was violent, we tore our country asunder in 1861 in a great Civil war; we shot ourselves to pieces in the Wild West. We are a violent society. We watch violence on our TVs our movies, everyday. We love violence; we cheer violence with the best of the Roman’s in the coliseum. Yet subject us to a little nudity, a little nakedness and we blush like schoolgirls.
     Maybe “Hounddog” is this year’s “Brokeback Mountian.” We collectively survived the all-American cataclysm of gay cowboys, why not a naked Dakota Fanning?