I haven’t seen the movie so I tried visiting one of the crazy, Christian, rating sites on the web. Unfortunately, capalert.com probably won’t review The New World so I’m stuck with a sane review:
Well, if that doesn’t say rape, I don’t know what does!
Not even a closed lip kiss, not in the version I saw, not with Colin Farrell (Christian Bale is another story). It’s more like when you lightly kiss the corner of someone’s mouth, or the top of the top lip. There is a light kissing of cheek, and a couple of hugs. They touch foreheads and, I believe, cheeks. He never touches her breasts or even begins to touch one (no artful editing is needed). He never touches her thigh. He never touches her waist to make it look like he might be going higher or lower.
I can’t stress this enough:
There’s no sexual touching whatsoever (with Farrell or Bale). Not simulated. Not implied.
As I said, he kisses her bare shoulder (bare because of the costume she wore, not because she took her clothes off), and touches her back. The costume, btw, covers her frontal parts quite adequately. The only time we see any cleavage at all is when she tries on an Englishwoman’s dress.
For the most part they hang out together as friends. They teach each other their languages. Princess teaches Smith about the land and their ways. They obviously fall in love, but it’s not the fumbling, groping kissy/sex version of “love” we’re always spoonfed. It’s much more spiritual (in an earthy way, not supernatural) than that. This is Terrence Malik we’re talking about, not John Hughes.
This is what Ebert says about Princess in his review of the film:
It really is a lovely, medatative movie. This is not an action movie, or even, really, a plot-driven movie. It’s like a moving work of art with bits of plot interspersed. It will bore the tail off of many people, but those who are accepting of its pace and style will be dazzled by its quiet beauty.
And Q’Orianka Kilcher will be the biggest Oscar snub since they somehow left Bjork off the ballot. She was remarkable, especially since her character said very few words. It was all in her eyes and body language.
Just to clarify some of the quotes that Hook found…
That’s not Kilcher’s character. It’s a woman from a tribe encountered when the settlers first arrive, not Princess’s tribe.
He must be talking about her English dress, not the native dress she wears.
These are the same characters. That would be Kilcher and Christian Bale, not Kilcher and Colin Farrell. I only recall one kiss between Kilcher and Bale. There might have been more, but I don’t remember.
Kilcher and Farrell never kiss, not if you’re paying attention.
I would agree that they’re intimate and romantic, but not in a “nudge nudge wink wink” kind of way. We’re not used to seeing this type of “romantic and intimate” encounter in the movies.
Yes, that would be the tribe’s King, Kilcher’s father. Princess (whatever her name is) is his youngest child. An Englishwoman names her Rebecca, btw.
It’s almost like you and Ms. Kilcher are talking about the same film, or something:
I thought I was the only one who was still carrying the outrage over that unforgivable oversight around. 
Why hasn’t Colin Farell been charged with rape?
Because he has committed no crime.
I just saw the movie this afternoon. I can confirm that there are no love scenes between Farrell and Kilcher and only a single, light, closed-mouthed kiss between Filcher and Bale (at a point in the movie where Filcher’s character is in her 20’s and married to Bale’s character (John Rolfe).
The movie does not even really imply a sexual relationship between the Princess and John Smith at all. There’s a close bond, and it’s implied that they are in love, but there’s no implication that it ever goes beyond gazing into each other’s eyes or holding hands.
And what if it showed her body blowing up? Would that make it a crime? It can’t be murder, assualt, or et cetera if it’s a dummy and not a real human body blowing up.
Agreed, there is no faking that. But what’s that have to do with this thread? There is nothing to fake, there’s no touching like you’re talking about in this film (I saw it less than a few hours ago.)
Yes, but a mouth-kiss with a 14 year old isn’t illegal. It’s not the most common thing in the United States, but in a lot of western cultures complete platonic mouth-kisses between relatives of all varying ages is common and definitely not a crime.
When a father bathes his infant daughter that isn’t a case of infant-rape.
Nor would it be considered rape or a crime if the father was bathing a older daughter who was unable to bathe herself. There woud be questions if a father bathed his 14 year old daughter, but not if the 14 year old daughter was severely disabled and unable to clean herself.
Exactly identical forms of touching can carry with them quite different moral and legal ramifications.
If Mr. Smith a high school English teacher makes a video of himself smacking the bottoms of his female students that isn’t going to be received very well. If a parent spanks their child as punishment that’s not considered incest or sexual battery (though some people do oppose corporal punishment to children on moral grounds, that isn’t the issue here.)
Only if you can demonstrate there is any images/film that has been defined as child porn by some form of legal authority in which the most explicit content involves a man’s lips coming into light contact with non-genital areas of a 14-year old’s skin (shoulders, vaguely the mouth area, but not even explicity) in a situation that is not sexual in nature.
A couple of people have pointed out that there is a legitimate seed of debate here, as regards how far a movie can go in showing a minor in sexual ways. Although there’s obviously no longer any question about what happens in this movie, let’s say that the OP’s concerns were actually valid. What if there were a scene where Pocahontas got her breast grabbed? Why is this different from a prosecutable sex offence?
If you want to talk about the legality of an act, the first thing to ask is, “Is it consensual?” If the girl is on that movie set against her will for any reason, and she’s being prevented from leaving it, then that’s already a crime, even if no one lays a finger on her. We can safely assume that this is not the case for essentially every movie ever made. So, the girl is there consensually, and has agreed to everything that’s happening to her. But, of course, if she’s a minor, she can’t legally consent! She’s not responsible enough to understand the consequences of her actions when it comes to something as potentially life-changing as sexual intercourse. Except… there isn’t any intercourse going on here. It’s a movie set. Her parents are right there. There are grips and gaffers and interns all over the place. No actual sex is going to happen, ever. If the cops bust some guy in a schoolyard with his hands on a girls breast, the assumption is that he was going to, at some point, do more than feel her up. That’s why that’s illegal: because it’s strong evidence of an intent to do something worse sooner or later. There is no “sooner or later” in the case of a movie shoot: there’s no presumption that, because one actor has his hand on an actress’s boob, he’s later going to have sex with her.
When someone is below the age of consent, then by legal definition, the act is not consensual.
Then why talk about whether or not the act is consensual?
It’s primarily illegal but it is in itself a form of sexual assault, and one that can harm or traumatize a child. “The intent to do something worse sooner or later,” is irrelevent.
Seriously… I haven’t seen The New World yet, but it doesn’t sound like it is as explicit assome of the scenes in the 1997 Lolita. The actress in question was probably 16 during filming. (And, ironically enough, was the Archer kid in Face Off.)
Seems to me that the ‘nothing actually happened’ (i.e. no penetration, .: no rape) and ‘not kiddie porn’ (i.e. the movie isn’t just about making love scenes with minors) explanations still apply here. And Lolita made sex with minors much more of an issue, and (I imagine) there were more love/sex scenes in Lolita than in The New World.
-Geek, who is nerviously awaiting to see what the Google ads do now…
You kind of defeated your own argument here. When I was an E.M.T., quite a bit of time was spent in class discussing informed consent. It is not enough to have someone give consent to a medical emergency type for them to deliver care. They must give expressed consent. If they do not, then either they are unconscious ( in which case,
( bolding from original text )
However, the manual which is used as the primary course manual in many states in the U.S.A. goes on to say
I know, this is medical opposed to sexual consent but the seed of the law is the same. Are you mature enough to be - in the eyes of the law - responsible for the acts you say you wish to participate in. In the case of my OP, it is the real core issue for me. A child was “performing sexual scenes or acts”, shall we say, on a film set with an adult.
She is incapable of consent. No argument there? Virginia law is kinda firm on age of consent, and it ain’t 14. Her parents, I fervently hope, are not permitted to consent for her to perform sex scenes on her behalf. If in fact there is legal cite that says that a parent may consent for their underage daughter to act out sexual scenes with an over-21 adult, by all means, show me the cite. For I very much feel it cannot and does not exist.
Telling us how many grips and PA’s ( they don’t use interns on film sets. They use production assistants. They use interns in broadcast television. 
) were standing around is kinda meaningless. Those people are standing around a porn set too, so what’s the point of pointing out witnesses? If her parents felt they were on fine moral and legal ground pimping her out for love scenes with adults, then that makes it legal? And, more to the point, it makes it right for both Mr. Farrell and her parents?
Show me the law, folks. Show me case law that permits legal guardians or parents to consent on behalf of a minor dependant so that they must perform, either in reality or by dramatic presentation, sexual acts. OTOH, it’s not very hard to find objections to owning stories or drawings of child porn. Heck, SDMB has had threads about such cases.
Lest we think that child porn is limited to real-life humans, I cite this article discussing a conviction in December, 2005.
See, if the movie had been shot in Germany, where the age of consent is 14, I would never have started this thread in the first place.
But it wasn’t. So I did.
Cartooniverse, have you missed all the information conveyed in this thread that there ARE no love scenes in The New World? Your entire OP is compltetely invalidated by that fact.
So you’re going to continue ignoring all the people pointing out that in this case there was nothing to consent to? Have you even seen the movie? Are you still carrying on with your comparison of Colin Farrel’s “crimes” to Roman Polanski’s very real ones?
Here is the Crimes against a person section of the Virginia code. Could you point me to the section that you feel was violated?
Oh for crying out loud. In the very first instance, I think it’s safe to assume that if there was anything desperately illegal or actionable about having an underage kid
then the movie studio concerned would have spent some time dealing with that before sinking tens of millions of dollars into the film. It’s not as if this is exactly new territory - kids have been working in the industry for decades and while plenty of people still have issues about their treatment they tend to be about health & safety, earnings, working hours and so on.
And I’ve never heard of a case where any parent has suceeded in agreeing to an enforceable contract for their child to perform an illegal act - whether it is murder or underage sex, any such contract would be laughed out of court. Probably ditto if the contract violates working hours rules etc.
Pretending to carry out such an act, for the purposes of making a movie? No idea, but based on this
So, if I understand “services and earnings” correctly, unless some enlightened court were to strike the contract down for containing something illegal or being likely to traumatise the child, junior is SOL and has to knuckle down to work.
You know, when even DtC is of the opinion that a consensual (non-)act with a child is not abuse, it’s time to pause and reflect.
A fact that he fails to address.
Cartooniverse, did you even see the movie?
I’m somewhat disappointed that Cartooniverse, whose posts I normally enjoy, has not once commented on the posts by the people who have seen the movie. I’m not pitting him, per se, but I would like to see him retract his OP and admit his mistake.
If you had actually seen the movie, would you have started the thread then? Hmm?
I’ve not seen the movie, but I’d like to object to it. :mad:
As the prosecuting lawyer in the obscenity trial of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ said “Would you let your wife or servant read this book?!” :eek:
I’d quote the SDMB motto here, but I don’t know what it is. 