On Dakota being naked, redux

Saturday

12 March 2011

ON FEBRUARY 9th, 2007 I wrote an essay titled On Dakota Being Naked. This has proved to be my most popular article on this blog, receiving on average of fifty page requests per day. I stand behind this article and do not retract a single word written—However, it does trouble me that in lieu of the numerous other enlighten articles to appear on this blog—that the apparent prurient nature of this single essay  attracts so much attention.

     It was never my intent to be salacious or provocative. You should understand, this article was written in the days before the movie HOUNDDOG was even released. A great deal of the information was based on a news release by BLUE LINE RADIO based on purported script excerpts from Deborah Kampmeier’s original script. Much of the most inflammatory and licentious aspects of the script never made it to film, viz. The up skirt shots of a then nine-year-old Isabel Fuhrman ORPHAN (2009). Lewellen forces Buddy and Grasshopper to strip naked and she ties them together forcing them to touch each other. A scene where Lewellen stands in front of the full length mirror takes her clothes off and looks at herself naked in the mirror. Daddy sneaks into Lewellen’s bedroom as Lewellen lays in bed in her underpants. Later on he climbs in her bed nude. Daddy wants Lewellen to sit in his lap, Lewellen asks why and he smiles and says because it “feels so good.” None of these scenes ever happened, and if they were in a draft of the script, they never made it on screen.

     In the context of February 2007 we were faced with the very real prospect that  "Fern,"  our fresh faced pig-tailed Fern of CHARLOTTE’S WEB (2006), was about to take off her clothes in front of the camera. That Dakota Fanning, the most prolific and influential young actress of her generation was on the cusp of doing a nude scene. For the record, Dakota NEVER appears nude; Dakota does however spend a considerable amount of screen time, cavorting about in her underwear.  Go figure.

     So where does that leave us?  No where really, underage girls have appeared naked in American film before.  Keira Kightley was sixteen when she took off her top and exposed her boobies in THE HOLE (2001).  Brooke Shields, although no where near as famous as Dakota at the time, does appear nude, lying in repose, on a couch in Louis Malle’s PRETTY BABY (1978).  Jenny Agutter who was a little bit older, but decidedly under age when she appeared nude in Nicolas Roeg’s WALKABOUT (1971). I don’t see anything wrong with the decision by Jenny to appear nude in this film. Jenny was beautiful, the film was poignant and the nudity was crucial to the story.
 

     The first amendment absolutely protects the depiction of a child nudity on the screen. Even full frontal nudity, is protected as long as the child is not depicted in a salacious or overtly sexualized situation. I think the biggest misconception in the public mind is that child nudity, even full frontal nudity is somehow analogous to child porn. I don't think its so much the actual depiction of  a naked child on screen that upset the public, African children appear naked on National Geographic, on Discovery channel all the time without any discernible outrage. No, I think it's more the idea of a famous child appearing nude, that's what really got the public's knickers in a twist! In February of 2007 we suffered credible reporting that Dakota Fanning was prepared to do a nude scene. This absolutely did not happen, and I apologize to my readers for even the appearance of purporting, perpetuating, or otherwise propagating this rumor as it is patently untrue.
 

 

      Our Dakota is no longer a child, she is a young woman, when I recall the tight little black dress Dakota famously wore on the Tonight Show, I get the distinct impression that  Miss Fanning isn't what you might call a particularly shy girl,  (she knows she looks good), she defiantly doesn't mind us "looking." Dakota turned seventeen last month, whether  or not Miss Fanning chooses to take off her clothes on screen anytime soon is entirely her choice.