# Why hasn't Colin Farell been charged with rape? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 20, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861 "2006-01-20T19:07:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/41 "2006-01-20T23:05:48Z")
> [@](#): > > In Interview With the Vampire, an 11 or 12 year old Kirsten Dunst actually did tounge-wrestle with Brad Pitt. Would the OP want to arrest Pitt for that as well? It would seem so. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/42 "2006-01-20T23:07:35Z")
> [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > Taken out of the context of performance, a “murderer” would be seen to hold up a plastic firearm, shoot it at no one and then pretend to react as if they had just shot someone. Taken out of the context of performance, two actors will indeed kiss, and will indeed fondle, and it will all be evident on unedited film. I think in most instances, a “film kiss” is nearly as distinct from a real kiss as a film fight is from a real fight. There’s more to a kiss than labial contact. Anyway, Ms. Kilcher says the movie “leaves you thinking that if anything, the love between Pocahontas and Smith was subtle, perhaps nothing more than a girlhood crush.” It doesn’t sound like she was required to deliver the same sort of “love scenes” as, say, the ones Diane Lane performed in _Unfaithful_. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/43 "2006-01-20T23:13:01Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > \ Isn’t she absolutely beautiful? [Fourteen or not, she’s beautiful.](http://www.moviecrazed.com/images/qorianka2.jpg) Of course, that nas absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand \ I’d hit it. What? ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/44 "2006-01-20T23:13:22Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > But, spare me the “duh, it’s make-believe” crap. Which make-believe scene that I’ve shot should I recount first? Childbirth, death, gunshots, explosions, car crashes, fires, fights, sleeping, and so on. All faked. > > > > With adults. Not children. And if this should go off to G.D., that’s fine with me. > > So, you’re saying that children should appear in any films that feature any of the above? John Travolta did a movie (Face/Off) where his five year old son got killed by a sniper. Are you arguing that there’s something morally wrong with that? Should he, or the studio, or whoever, have been charged with child endangerment? No, this is the one point of his that is legit. Don’t just laugh off his question because “it’s make-believe”. It’s a serious question that deserves a serious answer. Which, aside from this one point, you did very well. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/45 "2006-01-20T23:14:19Z")
Interestingly, it seems that only one person in the whole thread has actually seen the movie. At least that person has indicated that there is nothing even remotely worthy of outrage in the film. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/46 "2006-01-20T23:17:34Z")
Probably for the same reason that Nicole Kidman wasn’t charged with some sort of sex crime against a child for her on-screen interaction with eleven year-old actor [Cameron Bright](http://imdb.com/name/nm1080974/) in the movie _Birth_. Does her nude bathing scene with a child bother you? How about the fact that her character believes his character to be her dead husband reincarnated into an ten year-old boy, and she leaves her fiance for this child? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/47 "2006-01-20T23:20:05Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Your Subject Line borders on slander Well, libel. > [@](#): > > and your OP is ridiculous. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/48 "2006-01-20T23:40:36Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > No, this is the one point of his that is legit. Don’t just laugh off his question because “it’s make-believe”. It’s a serious question that deserves a serious answer. Which, aside from this one point, you did very well. Fucking hamsters. Okay, serious time: Movies are a form of art (stop giggling. I’m being serious.). As such they should be given some leeway. Certainly, a pedophile can use this art as masturbation fodder, but people get off on all sorts of things. Should we ban women’s shoes because someone gets their jollies whacking off to them? How about balloons? Poppers love those. Maybe children should be hidden within homes until they are 18 so that those nasty pervs can’t see them. Silly? Of course, but the way of the OPer leads towards it. I doubt we’d see a Munich style love scene in a PG-13 movie anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/49 "2006-01-20T23:54:53Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > No, this is the one point of his that is legit. Don’t just laugh off his question because “it’s make-believe”. It’s a serious question that deserves a serious answer. Which, aside from this one point, you did very well. Can you expand on that? The whole post seems totally ridiculous to me, and (unless I’m mistaken) **Cartooniverse** doesn’t post to the pit, so I don’t know if he’ll be back in this thread again. What’s legit about his point? How was my response to it not sufficiently serious? Kissing a fourteen year-old girl is not, so far as I know, illegal in and of itself anywhere in the US. Having a romantic relationship with one (if you’re an adult) is, but Colin Farrel isn’t having a romantic relationship with her. He’s _pretending_ to have a romantic relationship with her, much like Nicholas Cage _pretended_ to kill John Travolta’s kid in _Face/Off_. How is my analogy inaposite? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/50 "2006-01-20T23:55:13Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > Fucking hamsters. > > Okay, serious time: Movies are a form of art (stop giggling. I’m being serious.). As such they should be given some leeway. Certainly, a pedophile can use this art as masturbation fodder, but people get off on all sorts of things. - um. photos are also considered a form of art. HOwever, I’m quite certain that fact 'twoudn’t matter in the matter of “Possession of child pornography” (ie that the medium can be considered in an artisitic manner doesn’t factor into the question of 'is this specific instance an instance of child porn"). wrt the entire issue of ‘rape’ ‘but they didn’t have intercourse’. at least in Michigan (My jurisdiction) the crime charged is never ‘rape’, but “Criminal Sexual Conduct” in one of 4 degrees. the difference between the charges involve “was there penetration” vs. “touching of the genitals, thighs, buttocks or breasts”, and other factors (such as age of victim, relationship between victim and perp, weapons used, other crimes involved etc.). so a touch of the breasts can be chargeable depending on other factors. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/51 "2006-01-21T00:08:00Z")
IMHO, the only child abuser anywhere near this story is the person who named a child Q’Orianka. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/52 "2006-01-21T00:14:14Z")
> [@Steve Wright](#): > > IMHO, the only child abuser anywhere near this story is the person who named a child Q’Orianka. I do believe she is of Peruvian decent. [Ah yes:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q'Orianka_Kilcher) > [@](#): > > Q’Orianka Kilcher (born February 11, 1990 in Schweigmait, Germany) is a singer and an aspiring actress, raised in Hawaii and later Los Angeles. Q’Orianka’s father is from Peru and he belongs to the Quechua/Huachipaeri, while her mother is of Swiss descent. So yeah! Let’s make fun of the people with ethnic names! Your name better actually be Steve or the rest of us with silly, non-American sounding names are coming to kick yer ass. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/53 "2006-01-21T00:23:53Z")
> [@wring](#): > > - um. photos are also considered a form of art. HOwever, I’m quite certain that fact 'twoudn’t matter in the matter of “Possession of child pornography” (ie that the medium can be considered in an artisitic manner doesn’t factor into the question of 'is this specific instance an instance of child porn"). Saw that coming. The hamsters ate the second half of my post in which I noted artist’s intent as a factor in this. How do you judge an artist’s intent? Good question. Could a pedophile go as far as to create an entire movie for the sole purpose of filming a child and an adult having sex? Possible. Then we return to the point that I and others in this thread have raised: Who cares? Assuming that it _is_ an explicit love scene as seen in Munich (which it isn’t) who gets hurt? The child and her parents have to consent to it and there’s no actual pentration. Who’s being harmed there? Of course, no studio would ever fund a movie with a scene like that, but whatev. > [@](#): > > wrt the entire issue of ‘rape’ ‘but they didn’t have intercourse’. at least in Michigan (My jurisdiction) the crime charged is never ‘rape’, but “Criminal Sexual Conduct” in one of 4 degrees. the difference between the charges involve “was there penetration” vs. “touching of the genitals, thighs, buttocks or breasts”, and other factors (such as age of victim, relationship between victim and perp, weapons used, other crimes involved etc.). so a touch of the breasts can be chargeable depending on other factors. Did ee cummings steal your shift key? Could someone translate that for me? Hate to be a dick, but I really can’t understand that. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/54 "2006-01-21T00:29:21Z")
I assure you, I’m entirely eponymous. And even if it is an authentic Peruvian name, there’s got to be a better way than that of spelling it in Roman script … IMHO, you should only have an apostrophe in your name if you’re a character in an Anne McCaffrey novel. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/55 "2006-01-21T00:31:49Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > Fucking hamsters. > > Okay, serious time: Movies are a form of art (stop giggling. I’m being serious.). As such they should be given some leeway. Certainly, a pedophile can use this art as masturbation fodder, but people get off on all sorts of things. Should we ban women’s shoes because someone gets their jollies whacking off to them? How about balloons? **Poppers** love those. Maybe children should be hidden within homes until they are 18 so that those nasty pervs can’t see them. Silly? Of course, but the way of the OPer leads towards it. > > I doubt we’d see a Munich style love scene in a PG-13 movie anyway. Is that what I think it is…? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/56 "2006-01-21T00:51:56Z")
Just think, if she was an adopted Mormon as well as a “victim of child porn”, Cartooniverse’s knee would have jerked so hard it would have knocked off his head. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/57 "2006-01-21T00:55:15Z")
Let’s go by parts: (a) Facts, as reported by **drm** : the “love scene” is innocuous PG-13 and it’s left to the viewer’s imagination to do all the work, thus apparently there was NO contact between the actors that would have been “inappropriate” among ordinary civilians, except for the kiss. (b) To finish with the Thread title: Under the law in most U.S. states, 1st-degree sexual battery, AKA “rape”, requires penetration. No penetration, no “rape” charge. © Under the law in the US as interpreted by the SCotUS, to count as “kiddie porn” it must involve an actual live minor (check) and count as “porn” (appeal to prurient interest, etc.) (not check). \* It need NOT involve full nudity or explicit sexual contact… \* but NEITHER does it include ANY portrayal of a minor in a suggestive situation. NOW… the US Congress DID attempt to pass laws saying “anything that even remotely looks or sounds like a minor in anything that even looks or sounds like a sexual situation sexual situation is KP whether or not there’s actually a minor in it” several times over, and SCotUS repeatedly knocked them down. Call it an “art excuse” or a “make believe excuse”, or a case of the court calling upon the well-known dictum “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it,” but a distinction is made. (d) Again, in most US jurisdictions, the crime of “lewd and lascivious conduct” (with or without the “…with a minor” tag) includes the element of the motivation of the alleged perp, i.e. that he’s doing it for kicks. Why all the legalese? Because “charged with rape” and “kiddie porn” ARE legal concepts. Thus done with the legalities, the argument becomes one of whether it’s “moral” or appropriate to do such a protrayal or have a minor engage in such a performance. This would imply asking if it should be considered ethically permissible to film this movie unless you cast Pocahontas as an 18-year-old and call it 16 in the script (ditto for Lolita, or Claudia in _Interview with the Vampire_, Jodie Foster’s character in _Taxi Driver_, etc.). If the reports are accurate and there was NO actual sexual fondling or groping and only a _staged_ kiss, I see no inappropriate or unethical exploitation of the minor. Now, I _will_ agree that if we’re going to see any action beyond PG-13 standards, so that there would be erogenous touching and nudity, the producers and director should be creative and avoid putting a minor in that spot. But a staged kiss? Fine. > [@](#): > > In Interview With the Vampire, an 11 or 12 year old Kirsten Dunst actually did tounge-wrestle with Brad Pitt. Ah, yes, many brains needed some prolonged application of Brillo after that one. According to a contemporaneous interview, at the time Kirsten thought of it as “silly-gross” conduct. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/58 "2006-01-21T01:01:21Z")
> [@Wolfian](#): > > Saw that coming. The hamsters ate the second half of my post in which I noted artist’s intent as a factor in this. How do you judge an artist’s intent? Good question. Could a pedophile go as far as to create an entire movie for the sole purpose of filming a child and an adult having sex? Possible. Then we return to the point that I and others in this thread have raised: Who cares? Assuming that it _is_ an explicit love scene as seen in Munich (which it isn’t) who gets hurt? The child and her parents have to consent to it and there’s no actual pentration. Who’s being harmed there? > > Of course, no studio would ever fund a movie with a scene like that, but whatev. don’t know that artists intent is considered in possession of child porn cases. Does matter if the person involved is the photographer, but not for the possesor. nor, I think, would it matter if there was another participant in the photo op - but I admit I"ve not seen a case related to that. > [@](#): > > Did ee cummings steal your shift key? Could someone translate that for me? Hate to be a dick, but I really can’t understand that. ??? I used caps. “wrt” = with regard to. The rest of my post responds to the concept that as long as there wasn’t sexual intercourse, there wasn’t a crime (ie rape). In MI, the crime is called “criminal sexual conduct”. there are matters of degrees (ie Criminal Sexual Conduct 1st degree, CSC 2nd, CSC 3rd, CSC 4th). all define rather specifically which actions can be charged. in two of the 4 cases, some act of penetration is necessary (attempted or completed). that is that some part of one person must go inside a part of the other person (oral copulation of other genitals, penetration of others genitals or anus w/object, finger, penis for example). in the other two of the 4 cases, mere touching of the others breasts, buttocks, thighs and/or genitals (with or without clothing) is sufficient for the charge. so, yes, depending on other factors, an adult man touching the breast of an underage female could indeed be charged as a form of Criminal Sexual Conduct (commonly referred to as rape) in this state. clearer? Since I haven’t seen the film involved, I have no opinion on ‘did it rise to that level’, furthermore there may have been a body double would have been used. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/59 "2006-01-21T01:24:21Z")
[aside] Actually, \*_wring_, in most states with a multi-degree “Criminal Sexual Conduct” or “Sexual Battery” statute, it replaced a multiplicity of other preexisting crimes that were statuted under specific terms – I know the SB statute here covers what until last year used to be the three different crimes of Incest, Nonconsensual Sodomy, and Rape. The Michigan CSC statute as you describe it seems to extend it also to what in older Penal Codes was called “Lewd and Lascivious Conduct” (still distinct in our Code). I’d be surprised if any more than a tiny minority of the population would consider a groper is a “rapist”. [/aside] ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861/60 "2006-01-21T01:33:36Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > In Interview With the Vampire, an 11 or 12 year old Kirsten Dunst actually did tounge-wrestle with Brad Pitt. Would the OP want to arrest Pitt for that as well? No she didn’t. It was a chaste peck on the mouth. Of course, **Cartooniverse** would say otherwise, I’d bet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-colin-farell-been-charged-with-rape/340861.md?page=4)