Inspired by this thread, I was wondering about underage actors in sex scenes. Quite a few people in the thread referenced seem to be of the opinion that there is no harm done to any minor who is involved in a simulated sex scene because it’s just make-believe. I’m not so sure I’m buying that.
Leaving the example of “The New World” aside, because it’s been pretty well established that there is nothing going on with an underage girl that her grandma couldn’t do to her, there have been other movies mentioned where underage actors, usually girls, were involved in some questionable scenes. It seems to me like movies must be pretty vigilant about what goes on with underage actors (they must only work so many hours in a day, they must still get schoolwork done, etc.) that there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for studios to take advantage of an underage actor, so can we assume that any time we see a young person in a movie seeming to do something age-inappropriate, that it is not what the young person actually experienced?
And how about underage people in the acting business, period? It doesn’t seem to have done any favours to many child actors. Maybe we should be less concerned about what goes on on-screen and more concerned about how being in this business as a minor affects a child.
Well, in general I don’t think people should be in simulated sexual scenes with minors. They especially shouldn’t be feeling minors up and etc, as Cartooniverse said you can’t fake that, and he was right on that point. You can’t fake certain things (sadly that had nothing to do with the film he was talking about.)
I have no problem with “implied” sexuality and that’s probably the easiest way to go about it if you’re trying to show a love affair in a historical movie that, historically, happened between a child and a far older person.
You can fake this easily enough with a body double. I can show you nude pictures of Jessica Alba from a movie, but can guarantee you she’s never been nude in one, unfortunate as that might be. Yes, she’s not a minor, but faking it is faking it, and there are plenty of body doubles available that are well over 18 yet have bodies that could easily pass for teenagers, or even pre-teens.
I don’t think we should legalize actual sex scenes with actual minors involved in the sexual activities, even for artistic reasons, but faking it, implying it, or having them participate in the scenes in a non-sexual manner are fine by me. I’m all for artistic freedom, but you also have to take into consideration the child’s best interest. We don’t let them make the call as to when they are sexually mature enough to engage in sex with whomever they please, so we shouldn’t be allowing them to make the call as to whether they can handle it for artistic purposes.
I’m really not too concerned with Hollywood abusing this, as they’re now very protective of young kids, even if it they happen to be that way for selfish reasons, which is quite possible.
I also don’t think Hollywood can be specifically blamed for the problems many young child stars have. I think it’s fame and wealth in general, not Hollywood, that some people aren’t prepared for at a young age. Young sports stars, and children of the wealthy or famous also seem to exhibit similar behavior more frequently than the average kid. This is a tough area, because you can say that the parents need to step in and take control to keep these things under control, but many Hollywood parents, as well as famous parents in general, haven’t shown themselves to have the kid’s best interest in mind, either.
Ever hear of movie magic? Classic case being The Exorcist. When the 12yo Lida Blair has *that * scene with the crucifix, she’s not there at all. It’s her double. It’s not her doing screaming ou “F**k me Satan” it was looped on later by someone else.
Not underage, but how about Brad Pitt in Fight Club? When he’s doing the nasty with Helena Bonham Carter, them’s stunt buttocks. :eek:
I’m a little surprised that any movie that includes the suggestion or simulation of sex (or related activities) with a minor doesn’t include a disclaimer during the credits, akin to the “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” notices one often sees. Or does such a disclaimer exist?
Someone mentioned in the other thread that you also are not allowed to create a representation of a child in a sexual situation (through CGI or cartooning, etc.), and the logical extension of that to me is that you are also not allowed to fake sex scenes with minors by swapping in body doubles, etc. I think the concern with this is that if it looks like a minor is involved in a sexual situation, it stimulates the prurient interest of a pedophile, and that’s not a good thing.
I’d be interested to learn how many of these laws have stood up to a constitutional challenge. (I seem to recall reading that many of these laws have already been struck down, but I don’t have a cite handy.) It’s been well established that you can write about sex with children, and don’t think it’s legal to have different standards of free speech dependent on the medium being used. That is, if it’s legal to write about it, it’s legal to draw a picture of it.
That’s the pretext, certainly, but I don’t think it’s compelling. Again, reading Lolita might be equally “stimulating” to a pedophile, and it remains legal. The standard ought to be (and, so far as I know, actually is) wether a child is actually harmed in the production of the material. A photo of someone having sex with a child is harmful to that child. A photo of someone having sex with an adult, with a child’s head photoshopped over the adult’s head, does not harm that child, and should not be illegal.
To avoid having me read the entire thread, could you elaborate on this, please? Did they mention it, or did they actually cite the statute, and if the latter, would you mind linking to it? It seems to me that half of the anime distributors in this country would be in jail if this were the case.
To be honest, I’m not worried about whether something appeals to pedophiles or not, as we’d not have a lot of movies if we eliminated all of the ones that might appeal to the baser instincts of one subgroup or another.
What are the real dangers of underage(post-pubescent) sexual contact with over-age adults? The major factors, from my point of view, are[ol][li]Lack of emotional maturity in the under-age partner. []Lack of experience in decision-making for issues as important and with as far-reaching consequences/effects as intimate relations for the under-age partner. []Pregnancy, STDs, and other physical side effects which the younger partner may not be financially capable, physically developed, or emotionally capable of handling. Possible emotional, physical, or financial coercion of the younger party by the elder.[/ol]Which of these is present in a love scene in a movie? Aside from X-rated films, I can’t think of any.[/li]
Appearances aside, what aspects of the dangers of overage-underage sexual congress are present in film making? Are there aspects I haven’t outlined which make the difference, if so what are they?
Okay, we need to be identifying exactly what we’re talking about here. Actual, visible sexual contact, meaning direct contact between someone’s genitals and an organ of someone else’s body, is flat-out child pornography, and illegal. Regardless of the medium, if a real child is being used. (Anime artists can do their thing; the kids in their pictures live only in their imagination.)
As for simulations of any sort, whether violence, romance, etc., typically a kid over eight is quite aware of the difference between fantasy and reality, between play-acting and the real thing. And is well aware that if you’re playing a role in a play or movie or TV show, what you’re doing is to pretend you’re living out the character.
Further, taking the kids I’ve known well as a fair-sized sample, most kids are quite well aware that violence, physical romance, and so on exist. They are not going to be damaged psychically by playing the part of a child that gets attacked (whether physical or sexual abuse), particularly if the actor playing the other role goes over with the kid what’s being done first, as is, so I understand, common practice. Although it’s not strictly on point, one example from a comedy may help explain this: Jonathan Harris was a role model and mentor to Bill Mumy when they played Dr. Zachary Smith and Will Robinson in “Lost in Space,” and the two of them would go over the script together ahead of time, and decide together how to make their characters interact better and more humorously. That gave rise to a lifelong friendship between them that ended with Harris’s death in 2002, nearly 40 years later.
A child actor who’s just shared a Coke and a long friendly discussion with an adult actor about how to play out an abuse scene is not going to be traumatized by acting out the scene; he or she knows quite well that it’s acting, not real life.
And that, at rock bottom, is the problem with the whole issue. I can recall reading one interview with a child actor who had done an anti-abuse commercial, in which she said that she was aware that kids did get abused, and was glad to have acted out that short abuse scene in the commercial in order to make people be more aware that it happens. The interviewer asked her if it upset her, and he said she gave him a scornful look, and a response that amounted to “I was acting, playing a role. And if it helps kids that have to deal with that in real life, I’d do it a hundred times!”
Regarding CGI, it forbids such representation as :
Notice: not in ANY sexual context, in an explicit one (My emphasis added)
Regarding drawings, paintings, etc, it forbids those that:
Again, not just ANY sexual context, but an obscene or pornographic one.
In pieces using actors, it specifically exempts scenes between two people over 18 playing minors.
Laws already in effect did forbid using any part of an image of a real minor, whether cut-and-pasted or morphed, in a sexually explicit image. This was sustained because even if no material sex crime was committed against the minor, it’s still in violation of a real person’s rights to use their image in such a manner. You can’t have any image or part of image or morph of image of a minor in a sexually explicit scene, period.
**NOT sexually-explicit ** situations, OTOH, are a different case, and as long as measures are taken to protect the integrity and safety of the minor they do not come under the legislation. Dept. of Family and Child welfare agents may ask to take a look to ensure that nothing funny’s going on, but as long as they’re satisfied it’s so, then… [Master Thespian]“that’s ACTING!”[/MT] The marketplace generally takes care of any mainstream film that portrays too ooky a situation.
Putting aside that many of the “findings” section 501 are major exercises in begging the question, the approval of PROTECT Title V is the latest in a sequence of previous legal maneouvres:
The first laws that forbade even the appearance of a minor in even the appearance of a sexual situation, in the 1990s, were thrown out in the courts in that decade because that was too damn broad, and it would allow every Podunk prosecutor in the land to haul Blockbuster clerks into jail and the Sex Offender Registry for stocking The Tin Drum, Porky’s, Lolita or The Blue Lagoon (OK, some of these are quite bad, but hardly criminal).
The ones that came after that were thrown out in 2002, on account that they were still not properly focused; that if the purpose of the law is to protect children, it can’t be the same crime if NO children are used; and that it is up to the prosecution to prove a crime happened or was attempted, not that “it could, possibly, in the worst case scenario, maybe someone will copycat it for real”.
Oh, and DMC, virtually all the Hentai Anime licensed for US distribution have a disclaimer to the effect that all characters in sexual situations are over 18; and are edited to remove references to young ages in dialog and subtitles and sex scenes with obviously-prepubescent characters. It helps that a lot of the conventions of Anime/Manga art cause a character that is supposed to be 14 to not look that much different, developmentally, than one of 18.
Thanks for the informative posts. I got a kick out of this one, by the way, as it sounds an awful lot like “All of the 14 year olds in our movie are being played by drawings of 18 year olds.”
I tend to think of restricting minors in sexually explicit situations in CGI and cartooning to be somewhat ludicrous. All of our drawings are over 18? They were drawn 18 years ago? There is definitely a ridiculous element here.
I can see where the argument against sexual minor cartoons comes from, that a form indistinguishable from a child should not be used for a sex scene, but the bottom line becomes why not? Who is harmed when someone draws a cartoon of child in a sexual situation? I can draw a cartoon of a kitten with its head chopped off; I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but what makes it a bad thing?
I guess I didn’t clarify what I was saying. I’m saying if you have an >18 year old actor feeling up an <18 year old actor, there’s no faking the fact that it’s an adult feeling up a minor. It’s not real sex nor is it really what I would call porn, but I was just spekaing in the same veing as Cartooniverse was, if there’s actual contact there’s no “faking it” involved. Just like you know, when you see Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry going at it in a Bond movie, the two actors don’t actually have intercourse with each other, but they do actually come into intimate contact. The sex doesn’t happen, but the touching is real. Obviously if you have a body double that’s a different issue.
I can almost see the writing on the wall on this one. Enforcement will be the last line of defense. When it becomes technically possible for a CGI minor to be completely indistinquishable from an actual minor, law enforcement will insist that it’s not possible to verify every single instance that exists, if the one is found legal and the other illegal. I have no clue if they’ll have a legal leg to stand on, but I can see that argument being made in the future.
But with all of the potential issues surrounding this, why wouldn’t they always use a body double in this situation? No parental consent, no potential criminal liabilities, etc. I guess if some director made some argument about the “integrity” of the scene, it might come up, but wouldn’t we just roll our eyes at that director?
