A skit on a recent episode of Saturday Night Live was the fictitious Dakota Fanning Show, in which young Dakota (Amy Poehler) acts the pretentious snob. They’ve done it at least twice, AFAIK.
On the skit, Dakota references obscure playrights and talks about esoteric plays as being metaphors for various subjects. She makes fun of her bandleader for being an uninformed Cretin. And when subjects of popular culture come up, she says, “I’m not familiar.” Case in point: Daniel Radcliffe (played by one of the SNL performers) appears on the show, and Dakota brings up his work in the play Equus. She asks what else he’s done, and, looking bewildered, talks about his work in the Harry Potter movies. Says Dakota, “I’m not familiar.”
Does this skit have any bearing on how Dakota acts in real life?
I have no idea, but it seems to me that they are playing on the theme that Dakota Fanning seems to have the composure and acting chops of someone much older and experienced.
I’ve seen Dakota Fanning on a few talk shows and while she seemed a tad more grown up than your average 11-13 year old, she still acted just like a kid would.
In fact, I saw her on Ellen once and I was shocked at how normal she really was.
Ha! I was going to start this exact thread yesterday, but first I tried to see if it had been done already, and then I got distracted by somethins shiny and forgot.
This may be a case of SNL trying to make something more then it is. Remember way back when when Chevy Chase would parody Gerald Ford? He’d do a really bad inpersonation of Ford that consisted of Chevy Chase being Chevy CHase…and then fall down.
Funny stuff true, but it did a great job of creating the idea that President Ford was a clutz who coudn’t stand at a lecturn without tripping and breaking both the lectern and his ribs. Never mind the fact that Ford was an All American athlete in college, all we remember is that Chevy fell down.
The joke behind the sketch is that Dakota Fanning has the general demeanor, diction, and body language of a 55-year-old woman, which generally comes across as creepy and un-kidlike.
She definitely acts like a little girl on her interviews – I think to challenge the perception that she acts older than she is – but you can kind of get the impression that, if she had to, she could tone it down and act older. If you listen to her for a couple minutes, you will notice that she’s a lot better spoken than other young girls her age.
I think the skit is making light of the fact that she seems extremely media- and career-savvy for her age, and even in interviews when she seems like a kid, there’s still the suspicion that it’s as much an act (for calculated effect) as anything she does on screen. This is probably false (or at least not completely true), but it’s not the impression you get with HJOsment or ABreslin or the HP kids so it does come across a little weird.