Dakota Fanning might be only 12-years-old, but that isn’t stopping her from playing a little girl that gets raped in the Sundance premiered Hounddog and it isn’t stopping her from taking on the media after they have taken a couple of cheap shots at her mother in regards to the role.
Hounddog premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the midst of controversy due to complaints from religious groups and others who questioned whether her family and the film’s maker acted responsibly when asking her to act in a rape scene. Suffice to say, Dakota didn’t take kindly to the criticism.
“When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent … my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad,” she said in an interview. “I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that’s really bad in my opinion … that’s an attack, and that’s not fair. They hadn’t seen the movie.” Uh, like I am so sure!
Approaching her 13th birthday on February 23 the young actress seems to want to branch out from the numerous youngster roles that have garnered her so much attention. Then again, it isn’t like Man on Fire, Trapped or even War of the Worlds were aimed at young audiences.
As for Hounddog, well, that is one that certainly sets itself apart. Fanning plays 12-year-old Lewellen, who lives in a Deep South town in the 1950s. Her dysfunctional family is poor, and the household is run by her grandmother.
Lewellen loves Elvis Presley, and in order to get a ticket to his concert, she agrees to do her Elvis impersonation for an older teen-age boy. Eventually that scene leads to the rape.
The Hollywood Reporter reiterates the point that the film is based on director Deborah Kampmeier’s personal history, and she called the criticism of Fanning’s decision to take the role an insult to the young actress. “She should be applauded to the voice she has given to so many silenced women,” Kampmeier was quoted as saying.
The best quote of the article however comes at the end when Dakota says, “I know, let’s make a movie about braces.” Ouch, even 12-year-old Dakota Fanning is taking these religious know-it-alls to task. That’s gotta hurt.
For more on Hounddog click here. The film is currently still without a distributer.
