Editor's Note: This story contains graphic content that may offend some readers.
Child actress Dakota Fanning, who infamously did a rape scene in the also-ran movie "Hounddog," is taking her career to another level, prompting outrage even from the establishment media in the United Kingdom.
"At just 17, Dakota Fanning is still a year under the legal age of consent in her home state of California, but this trifling fact doesn't seem to concern Marc Jacobs," the report in today's Daily Mail said. "The 48-year-old designer chose to place the teenager in a provocative pose – in homage to a 1950s novel about sex with an underage girl – to sell his new perfume, Oh, Lola!"
The ad campaign uses an image of Fanning, who, according to reports, "tilts back lasciviously."
Donna Miller, a contributing writer for MOVIEGUIDE who was a major critic of Fanning's rape scene in "Hounddog," told WND, "We must remember that the novel 'Lolita' romanticizes a pedophile's sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl.
"Pedophiles, of course, are attracted to children 13 or younger, according to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Manual," she said.
"Marc Jacobs ad campaign for the perfume Oh Lola! is particularly outrageous since he openly states that he wanted to find a 'contemporary Lolita' when casting an actress for the campaign."
The Daily Mail reported that Fanning's image, with the perfume's "signature rose-top … placed provocatively in between the young starlet's legs," was intended, according to Jacobs, "to portray the young woman as a re-boot of the tragic character in Vladimir Nobakov's 1955 novel, Lolita, which tells the story of a young girl's sexual relationship with a much older man, who becomes her stepfather."
"Jacobs is introducing another generation to a rapist's fantasy through the promotion of this perfume, and is using Dakota Fanning to accomplish it," Miller said. "Jacobs sexualizes Fanning even more by placing the perfume bottle in the groin area between Dakota's legs."
She continued, "The Fanning parents and management team apparently have no issue with sexualizing children since this is the continuation of a trend. That trend started with Dakota Fanning starring in 'Hounddog,' the vile film that featured Fanning in a child rape scene."
In a poll at Scoop.Today, 41 percent of respondents said Fanning is "old enough to make these choices and it's tasteful," but another 29 percent said it was too provocative, and 30 percent said it doesn't matter, as there is other material that "is worse."
At the GlobalGrind fashion website, staff writers noted, "Fingers are being wagged in the direction of designer Marc Jacobs and his go-to photographer Juergen Teller after the two men cast teen actress Dakota Fanning, 17, as a Lolita figure."
"In the ad, Fanning holds a phallic shaped bottle with a rose petal top near her crotch."
A blogger at Hibernationnow said, "It just makes Marc Jacobs look like a dirty old man. … Disgusting. Kid porn. Change it or make it go away. There, that's my comment."
Jacobs said in the GlobalGrind report, "When we were speaking about who to use in the ads, I had recently seen 'The Runaways' … I knew she could be this contemporary Lolita, seductive yet sweet."
Dakota Fanning, 15, (left) plays singer Cherrie Currie. Kristen Stewart, 19, (right) plays guitarist Joan Jett in "The Runaways." (photo: IMDB.com) |
WND reported two years ago, when Fanning was 15, on her work in the R-rated "The Runaways."
There, she participated in a steamy lesbian kiss and heavily implied sex scene with a female co-star.
She played the role of Cherie Currie, lead vocalist of The Runaways, an all-girl hard-rock band popular in the 1970s. Former "The Twilight Saga" star Kristen Stewart, 19, plays openly lesbian rocker Joan Jett, the band's guitarist.
Fanning's character cusses, acts out, appears scantily clad in bed with "twenty-something surfer dudes," drinks, uses cocaine and pops prescription pills. At age 15 she is abandoned by her mother, who moves to Indonesia with her boyfriend, and her father is an alcoholic.
Miller, who then was special projects coordinator for Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, expressed concern that Fanning's young fans might glamorize the starlet's shocking behavior.
"That behavior includes a lesbian affair, sexually explicit song lyrics, risqué clothing and a pathetic character in a drugged-out existence," Miller told WND then. "In her interviews at Sundance, nowhere have I seen her denounce any of that behavior as destructive or immoral. In fact, she romanticizes her Cherie Currie character. Fanning indicates the lesbian sex scene is just a natural progression of the relationship."
Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter at that time echoed Miller's concern about the movie's portrayal of the band's dysfunctional behavior: "While the film makes it clear its personalities suffered tremendously for their addictions, it all looks so glam."
As WND reported, another controversial Fanning movie, "Hounddog," sexualized a 9-year-old little girl. At the time, Fanning was only 12 years old when she played the child character who was violently raped. The movie earned a stunningly low $12,500 on its first weekend of release in theaters.
Miller blamed Fanning's mother and campaign manager, Joy, for selecting sexualized roles for her daughter.
Ted Baehr, founder and publisher of MOVIEGUIDE, and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, told WND earlier, "I knew Dakota Fanning when she was just a little girl, and she came to the MOVIEGUIDE awards. Her mother claimed to be a person of faith. They prayed. They talked about Jesus."
Asked what changed, Baehr replied, "I think fame and fortune have corrupted her mother, and they have unfortunately made some bad calls that are getting worse by the second. Those decisions have become abhorrent."