This film is likely to be considered child pornography.
I will respond to a couple of prior posts in this thread.
First off, someone said that it won't be considered child porn if it has serious artistic merit. That is actually INCORRECT. The laws regarding child pornography differ from laws regarding other "obscene" materials in the respect that, while another type of work can be considered as having serious artistic merit, and therefore not obscene, and that the work must be considered as a whole, not for one or two moments taken out of context; whereas in terms of child pornography, the laws explicitly state that in that case the work as a whole need NOT be considered. In other words, if there is one frame of child porn, it is illegal. Regardless of the entire rest of the piece.
Secondly, as a previous poster explained, but I'll further elaborate on: child nudity is not automatically considered pornography. It is again explained in the law that child nudity is not illegal, but EROTICISED or sexualized nudity IS illegal. If there is a particular emphasis on the genetalia, or there is erotic posing, or there is REAL OR SIMULATED sexual activity being depicted, it is considered child pornography. It need not be hardcore, it need not be actual, it need not show penetration. It can be completely simulated, and still be child porn. In this film, as I understand it (I have never seen the entire film), there are instances of focusing on the little girls' genetalia. There is also fairly graphic softcore/simulated sexual activity shown, as well. If this film were made with adults, it would likely be considered softcore porn (a la "Emmanuelle" or "Young Lady Chatterly"), and since it is, not just minors, but little, pre-teen children, it would be considered child porn. And since there is an emphasis on the young girls' genetalia, but NOT on the young man's, it makes the filmmakers seem even more like heterosexual paedophiles.
Also, the act of an of-age young man fondling, groping, kissing on a pre-teen girl's nude breasts is itself a criminal act. Even IF they didn't actually have sex, and even if she is fully cooperative, and it is all staged, he is STILL sexually molesting this little girl. And these adults are standing around telling him to do it, and observing and filming it. The very act of making the film is illegal child molestation. Put it this way, if you have a little girl daughter of 11 years old, and a 17-18 year old young man felt on her breasts, you would consider him as having molested your daughter.
If you took all of the graphic nudity and sex out of the film, THEN you would have a brutal coming of age film in a censored form. But with those scenes included, I'm sorry, it IS child pornography.
And before anyone else starts on this anti-American thing, it has been banned in Germany, and a guy got into trouble in the Netherlands for it. Europe thinks it's child porn,too.
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ebailey140
13 years ago
Oh, there's plenty of penis focus. First scene, in fact.
The issue, for me (I haven't seen the whole thing, mind you) isn't the nudity, but the sexuality.
I'll grant that the actresses are physically mature for their age. I'll grant that it was a different time and culture from my own. I'll even grant the movie has artistic merit. I'll go so far as to grant that young people that have reached that level of physical maturity are sexually curious. I was that age, once, so I remember.
That doesn't make it OK to explore the subject this graphically. That particular life stage can be explored, quite beautifully, with no nudity or sexual content at all. A couple of recent American examples are Peter Pan and Let Me In.
I've never been able to get past the WTF stage to be genuinely morally outraged. I'm just bewildered. I just can't see how the actresses' parents OKed this. I can't see how this film got greenlighted. I can't see how it was such a major production to get the level of promotion that it did. I can't see how the whole Eva Ionesco thing happened, period. Little fact: Eva's first movie was directed by Roman Polanski. Make of that what you will.
OK, cheap shot, I admit...
I just really want to know what the people involved were thinking. Was there a belief that girls that age that had reached a certain physical stage were ready, psychologically? This was a time that, in America, we had the 13 year old Brooke Shields doing blue jean commercials saying "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins," and at 14 joking with George Burns about the possibility of them being romantically involved at the Oscars. That was considered an appropriate joke for the Oscar telecast.
Maybe we just know better, now.
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13 years ago
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teawoman_2000
13 years ago
Child's "free will" is not considered free will. Is not considered mature enough to give his informed consent.
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teawoman_2000
13 years ago
Actually, Louis Malle's La Petite (which you've probably heard of, shot a few years before those Calvin Klein ads) was inspired by Eva Ionesco's "career" as a yound nude model (starting at the age of four!)
The whole Eva thing happened because her own mother started it. Eva Ionesco ran away from home when she was around 11 or 12 and I believe social services declared her mother an unfit mother.
My Little Princess, Eva Ionesco's movie recounting those years, is out in France this week. I am definitely going to watch it. And I don't work for her or her distributor or her production or anything. Nor have I seen la Petite or Maladolescenza. It just blows my mind that any of this could have happened. And it reminds me how scared of the 1970s I was as a child. It's the blatant sexuality everywhere that scared me. It's just not appropriate for young audiences.
As for Polanski, he was dating Nastassja Kinski when she was 14, and again, the young girl who he drugged so he could have intercourse with her when she was 13 and he was in his forties (writing this seems crazy), this young girl had been sent by her own mother to do pictures with him. Some parents purely and simply sell their children. Does that make them unfit parents? Sure.
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