So let’s say you’re a film critic. Let’s say you’re a film critic at a widely distributed publication! That happens to be located in New York, which means that you get to see a LOT of movies, because not only does New York allow you access to all the big blockbusters, but the independent and foreign films actually play there as well, and your publication would actually like you to review them. This seems to me to suggest that you would be exposed to a higher number of thoughtful accounts of experiences that are Not Your Own than the average American male living in, say, the Midwest. This seems to me to suggest that you ought to be capable of a higher level of commentary on a movie about young women than the following:
It’s Fanning’s movie: You can taste the ex–child actor’s relish for playing “jailbait.” But can she be ogled in good conscience? The taste is sweet and sour.
Now, I haven’t seen this movie. But I mean, look. I get that this is a movie in which two young starlets are, among other things, engaging in same-sex making out and possibly sex scenes. I also get that for no reason at all straight men the world over appear to think means they’re doing it so that men in the audience can be titillated as opposed to because, you know, that it’s independently enjoyable for young women THEMSELVES independent of the effect on horny men in movie theatres. I also get, and think very firmly, that young women, even 15 and 16-year-olds, are sexual beings, and that insisting that any portrayal of young women in the media be stripped of all sexual content is not only unrealistic, it is infantilizing.
HOWEVER. Dakota Fanning, as of this very moment, just barely turned sixteen years old. Which means that David Edelstein is asking that we put ourselves in his shoes and ask if it’s totally okay for him, the 40-to-50-something dude in the audience, to be aroused by a fifteen year old girl. Because that is what he means, by “ogling.” And while I could maybe understand taking the tack, in the review, that the movie attempts to engage an audience of 40-to-50-something dudes with the thorny question of whether that sort of thing is appropriate or okay, that’s not his point here. He’s evaluating her performance in terms of whether or not he’s attracted to her body, tee-hee, which is a sweet and sour feeling for him! How very sensitive he is, you guys!
It’s that maneuver that is the massive male-privilege-fail of this sort of thing – the presumption that if the movie is saying she’s sexually attractive and she’s fifteen, that that is an invitation to pronounce, in a national publication, on whether you find her totally hot! (Or “sour,” the sort of mouth-feel evocation of which is kind of titillating too! Awesome!) Even worse, in the Edelsteinium continuum of “appropriate reactions to movies,” this is an invitation that Fanning is issuing herself by her supposed “relish” of “jailbait.” Too right. I can think of nothing Dakota Fanning cared more about, in doing a movie about a legendary all-female rock band, than if the dudes in the audience thought she was hot. And in any case, her ratification of his sweet and/or sour “experience” of her sexuality means there’s no way she would get the creeps when reading this, amirite??? Young women LOVE it when men publish their views on their fuckability in national magazines!
I suppose I shouldn’t expect more from the wordsmith who referred to child sexual abuse as “genital fingering” and Gabby Sidibe’s face as “squashed.” And then in a mealy-mouthed reply to critics said Angela Bassett’s body was “transgressive.” (Yeah, I’d call that a non sequitur.) But I do expect more of the editors of such publications. I mean, Jesus. Do no women work there?
you can taste the ex-child actor’s relish at playing jailbait
No, but I can taste yours, David Edelstein. And it creeps me the fuck out.
I missed the title of the post and as I was reading your description, I kept thinking this sounds like a creepy review of that Britney Spears movie “Crossroads” I read by Edelstein which basically amounted to the same thing–gee she’s awfully young to make him feel all tingly in his bathing suit area and he feels bad about it, but he can’t help it! It’s probably 10 years old, but I remember being thoroughly squicked out by it.
Sound familiar?
http://www.slate.com/id/2062064/
something so vanilla yet so transcendentally sleazy that its target audience seems to be pubescent girls and dirty old priests. “Not a girl, not yet a woman” is code for “jailbait that’s not actionable.”
But there’s a juggling—and jiggling—act running alongside the main scenario that isn’t so progressive. After a brief prologue, the movie segues to its star in her scanties, undulating to a Madonna song while eating a bowl of cereal, as if to say, “teeming with sexual fluids—and also heart-healthy whole grains.”
Then it’s off to high school, where the camera hugs her butt and surveys her cleavage while characters make fun of her virginity. You’re meant to think, “C’mon, Britney, liberate yourself from this unfashionable corset, these oppressive patriarchal values: Show us your tits!”
She’s not extraordinarily sexy—I mean, she’s fine, but so are about 5 million other young American women of her age and build. But she’s photographed as if she’s the most erotic object ever to displace the air; and her anatomy is parceled out in small amounts, a flash of undies and butt cheek here, some thigh and navel there, so that we’re reduced to leaning forward for fear of missing something.
I’m glad I already ate lunch. Clearly this is an obsession.
One word.
Yuck.
Blerg. He also reviews on Fresh Air. Oh Terry Gross…
I just threw up in my mouth a little. Or maybe I’m just “teeming with sexual fluids?” eeeeeep.
Yes, he clearly can’t see she may have relished the role because she gets to play against type or because she simply loves the character or storyline. Or because it’s her first more adult role in which her character shows some agency of her own….
You bring up an interesting point on expecting better from him, however, because he is a film critic and located in NY and is “exposed to a higher number of thoughtful accounts of experiences that are Not Your Own than the average American male living in, say, the Midwest.” I remember my own disappointment at finding out things like this are not necessarily true. Exposure is just exposure – it doesn’t mean you’ve done any work in questioning your assumptions about others. Also, you can live in a large city and only spend time amongst those who share your points of view. A “good morning” in a coffee shop to someone who doesn’t look just like you does not equal a greater understanding of people who aren’t like you – but many big-city dwellers seem to think that it does. It’s a form of regionalism that I find particularly irritating.
PetiteXL you summed up what I was thinking. I don’t know how long a career Edelstein has had. I’m not into researching his past essays – fss. But if you do have a long career reviewing X, do you stop seeing them after a while anyway? Don’t you need to recapture beginner’s eye? Edelstein must, considering what he writes about Britney and Dakota.
and the part about how the enjoyment of the sexuality of the characters can be interpreted as a circle of two: that it’s independently enjoyable for young women THEMSELVES well, we are working towards that, if not there
God, I cannot stand David Edelstein. I avoid him like the plague, and cannot believe his reviews have been included on Fresh Air.
Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t had to fast forward through him on the podcasts recently…is he not reviewing for them anymore? Because, if so, I’d like to send a virtual high-five in Terry Gross’ direction.
Apparently if a dirty old man confesses that he’s a dirty old man in a national publication, he’s redeemed of his dirty-old-manness by virtue of his honesty! What a relief for Edelstein.
Ant that Crossroads review is infuriating. We have to put up with the male gaze in Every Fucking Movie because apparently it’s the only possible way of shooting a film, and then also hear men defend the fact that they reacted to the Male Gaze in exactly the way the movie industry presupposes that they will — in exactly the way that keeps the movie industry inundating us with the Male Gaze — by saying the camera made me do it! Wow. You’re a middle-aged man, take some effing responsibility for your own objectifying.
Ah… Was just reading the Prom (oting) Homophobia thread and realized my brilliant regionalism observations had already been tackled in that thread. :O(
Sigh. Critiques of the virgin/whore dichotomy in pop-culture are best typed with both hands on the keyboard, Dave…