I find it really disturbing that Cate Blanchett, a 37yr old woman at the time, kissed, simulated sex, and simulated oral sex with a 16yr old boy, at the time. Were there body doubles? Why didn't they use a twenty-something year old guy who looked like a 16yr old like with the woman in Hard Candy?
how about "lolita" (1997)?
In Dominique Swain and Jeremy Irons sex scenes they didn´t use body doubles in all the scenes!!
"Since actress Dominique Swain was only 15 at the time of filming, a pillow had to be placed between her and Jeremy Irons' lap during all their scenes together."
"As Dominique Swain was under age 18 when the movie was filmed, an adult body double had to be used for some of the sex scenes."
I think the insiuation that it is "distubring" because the two actors had such an age difference is really insulting to the intelligence of Andrew Simpson, and all other 16-year-olds. Maybe if you're a 65 year old virgin like Barbara in the movie you could find this shocking. But anybody that actually remembers being 16 knows that playing a part like the part in this film would in no way be damaging psychologically or emotionally for a younger actor. He's of an age where many people have already actually had sex, certainly one would be able to act and film a brief love scene.
By all accounts sex scenes aren't erotic in the slightest and most actors discribe them as akward and funny to film.
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well, a student teacher relationship could be rather disturbing. But the original poster presented this thread as an assertion that filming this was inappropriate...which I find rediculous. Any well adjusted 16 year old is mature enough to understand the differences between acting and reality, and mature enough to handle filming a movie like this.
Also, this is hardly the worst example of a young co-star in a scene like this.
I mean things like Dakota Fanning filming rape scenes at 12, or Cameron Bright filming a bathtub scene with Nicole Kidman when he was 10. Even something like Sarah Michelle Gellar getting cast as a 28-year-old on All my Children when she was 15 and having to do sex scenes with a 30-year-old.
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Interesting. I'm an American and I watched this movie on pay per view with a group of friends. Not one of us questioned the the scenes in question. As a matter of fact, we discussed just about everything except those scenes.
Now I see that others HAVE questioned it and I can't help but be amazed that there are people alive who actually believe that a sixteen year-old male actor would know nothing about sex and completely lose his innocence on a set kissing Cate Blanchett and simulating a clothed sex scene.
Maybe British boys are just horribly naive, but my guess is that Andrew Simpson was not doing anything that rest of us weren't aware of at the same age--age of consent or not.
... Oh, the horrors of art. Perhaps we should resort to cleverly disguised little people in the future!
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i wouldnt call it completely disturbing... but it did make my toes curl in a way. the boy looks so young, though i assumed he was in his 20s. when i read he was 16... it was shocking. the point is sex between a 16 and 37 year old just isn't right, plus woman tend to be more mature than boys. especially high school boys. Im sure it was incredibly awkward.
shareActually Asanal, you are incorrect. Andrew (the actor) was born January 1989, he was 17 1/2 nearly 18 when they began filming the moving in late 2006. Then he turned over 18 in January of 2007. In europe, this is allowed and actually, in American it would have been also.
He just "played" a 15 yr old in the movie. I am a proud American, but this country is very prudish. We allow gore, slasher films, violence like no other, but when it comes to showing the naked body or sex, we turn away. I HATE this. Sex is a natural animalistic thing we ALL do... so be it.
I really liked the acting in this movie and was thought provaking, but it was slow in parts and a little too much of Judi Dench. She is an extraordinary actress, but a bit too saturated in movies and this one also, but she did act it well. And Cate? That goes without saying..... outstanding....
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I certainly understand your concern, though I do wonder if you believe 16 y.o. males aren't aware (and haven't already engaged in) sex? I also find it a bit sexist to be concerned about his age and not that he has already learned a sort of sexual predator mentality at that "tender" age, by lying about his situation to play on the sympathies of a lonely, rather insecure woman. What will his tactics be as a "mature" adult?
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I brought Steven up BECAUSE the original post did not and people generally blame the woman, which IS sexist, since they assume that they are the weaker and yet still evilly seductive sex, as is done when it is assumed she was "taking advantage" of Steven. How about she gave in to him, it was what he seemed to "need" from her. Chronological age rarely correlates with emotional maturity. She did what women have done for centuries. Even in cases where there are two "adults", a majority of men AND women assume the woman is "stupid" or a seducer, just as we see in modern middle eastern laws where the adulteress suffers corporal punishment, but the man usually does not (as do female rape victims as well). These have been societal "values" since Biblical times (both east and west) and even into modernity, and so she gave the only thing that society deems her value--pleasing a man (that and having a particular man's children). While your points are well taken, email really isn't the forum for good intellectual conversation, and that is why I usually avoid it and will do so in the future.
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It's true... when a female teacher takes "advantage" of an underage student, everbody is so eager to say lucky kid. What about when it's a 40 year old man taking "advantage" of an underage girl?
Are feminists and people in general so eager to say... luky girl? It's plane hipocrisy.
It's true... when a female teacher takes "advantage" of an underage student, everbody is so eager to say lucky kid. What about when it's a 40 year old man taking "advantage" of an underage girl?
Are feminists and people in general so eager to say... luky girl? It's plane hipocrisy.
Calm down.
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What a silly debate.
<<the legal age of consent is 16 in the UK? thats preposterous! that is not moral, a child will listen to his hormones and his lust, he wont think rationally, its up to the responsible adult to prevent such behavior. freaking pedophelia man, thats just not moral! in the US, 16 is still a minor, sex with a minor is illegal.>>
i strongly disagree. i think if a 16 year old (like myself) isn't brought up to presume he's ignorant, and rather knows himself and his limits, then he can know what he should and should not do. there are plenty of 16 year olds plenty mature enough to make the decision of whether to wait or not or who to have sex with. just as there are plenty of 18+ who are completely immature and view sex in the light of a mature-ish 12 year old.
also, sex with a minor is illegal, but in America extremely circumstantial. my girlfriend is turning 18, and i'm turning 16, if we were to have sex, do you think she'd go to jail? no. you'd be surprised how circumstantial that particular page of the lawbook is.
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