And then there's Hard Candy. I watched this movie on Friday night and have spent all weekend trying to wrap my head around how I feel about it. Part of my reluctance to have an opinion comes out of the feeling that I got from this movie that the filmmakers were very invested in having the audience take sides. To explain that, I have to offer a little summary: basically, this man and a 14-year-old girl are chatting on the internet and decide to meet up for coffee... they wind up at his place and just when he thinks he's gonna get her drunk and fuck her, or take pictures of her, or whatever...she drugs him and unleashes several hours of vigilante-style torture on his ass. Now, I spent a long post rambling on about how I'm filled with dismay at the fear-mongering regarding internet predators that's been going on within the cultural discourse (in particular, as it pertains to Dateline). And, of course, before I go too deep, I feel the need to disavow any notion that I might be condoning molestation of children-- but dammit, 14-year-olds have more agency than 8-year-olds. 14-year-olds are mid- or post-pubescent people with sexual identities that younger kids lack. And yeah, 14-year-olds generally lack judgement and experience, but this insistence that they're still completely child-like is preposterous. This is part of why the whole Mark Foley business just pisses me off. I mean, here's a grand opportunity to begin a discussion about what's amiss in a culture which posits heavily sexualized teenagers in every media venue imaginable and then relishes in smearing a guy who, after a lifetime of being exposed to this sort of pervasive message, thinks, well, yeah, 16-year-old guys ARE sexy. But no, it's easier--and more politically advantageous for Democrats, since Foley happens to be Republican, to reduce to his actions as symptomatic of a Republican-centric "culture of corruption" instead of a nation-wide one. Or maybe we're not all corrupted, but we are certainly conflicted about teenage sexuality. I mean,does it exist? (um, yeah, of course it does) Why, then, are we creeped out by the idea of a 30 year-old-guy and a 16-year-old girl having sex? (I don't rightly know...) Is it wrong to promote that teenage sexuality in a capitalist, consumerist forum (hmmm.. maybe... would take more intelectual discourse than is acceptable in a political arena to find an answer, probably) Is it the fault of the media that adults are sexually attracted to people who are arbitrarily deemed "minors?" ( hmmm...maybe... this might venture dangerously close to the discussion about whether or not the media is as fault for perpetuating eating disorders and negative body images, so it's best if we leave that alone too.)But this is a huge digression. I really do want to talk about some other issues in this movie.
I could also launch into a train of thought that begins with Little Red Ridinghood, wanders through Lolita, makes a detour into Freeway, and then winds up somewhere in this movie but instead, I think I'll go somewhere else.
So, back on track: Ellen Page, the actress playing "Hayley," our antihero, certainly has an on-screen sexual presence. This is undeniable. She has a near-perfectly symmetrical little elfin face with a swollen mouth and enormous liquidy eyes. Her body is lithe and muscular, and even though she's tiny, she's anything but delicate. Her hair is cropped very short-- but I can't imagine that longer hair would do anything to disguise the fact that she has a noteable "butch-ness" about her. And Patrick Wilson, the guy playing the anti-villain, is an awfully cute guy as well. And so, there is a very complicated sexual chemistry between these two. On one hand she's playing coquettish gender-bender... she compliments his body, she flirts, she is consummately provocative... and yet, I can't help but think she's exactly the sort of girl I've always been attracted to... the ones that made guys uncomfortable because they don't even attempt to put on the Feminity Show. And then, the matter of his also being so good-looking also messes with the collective head of the audience, in that, he's so much the type that fills your average teenage girl's head when she's practicing kissing her pillow (do I mean "kissing her pillow" to be code for "masturbating?" Probably.) So, basically, here we have two folks matched up in an adversarial context, who get through life propelled by the sexuality they each wear on their respective sleeves. In the "special features," there was some discussion about the casting of Ellen Page in this role. Apparently, she won the part because she reads as both intelligent and vulnerable on screen-- and she does. But it's like all these men-- the director, the producer, the writer-- didn't want to talk about the fact that they cast her because she's 14-- and she LOOKS 14-- and she's also sexy as hell. They did talk about how they wanted Patrick Wilson to be sympathetic, not a monster (a la Humbert Humbert?)... but they failed to mention that they'd cast an actress who was anything but innocent. And so, these two vibrate off of each other in this completely unnerving way.
Now, as I mentioned before, I think this movie would be easier to watch if you were more willing to take sides. If, perhaps, you think men lusting after teenage girls is tantamount to rape, perhaps you'd let Hayley's anger fuel your own. If, perhaps, you think having a little brat castrate a man and drive him to suicide (oops, spoiler)is spot too extreme, you'll land on the side of Jeff. But I don't want to take sides. I don't think I can figure out a psychologically plausible explanation for Hayley's actions in any real-world scenario. Maybe that's because those actions were written by a man-- I find it to be a real stretch to imagine this girl as anything other than an incarnation of a twisted psycho-sexual revenge fantasy, a limited figment of a male imagination. And Jeff is really just another Humbert Humbert who is sympathetic only because he's so crippled by his own desires that he can't admit to himself that he's a predator. And who doesn't love a sexy self-deluded sad sack, really? Just for the sake of argument, I'd really love to see this sort of subject matter in the hands of women writers and directors. I'd hate to see Hayley and Jeff fall into a more predictable victim/violator relationship but I can't take sides between two characters who never really develop themselves beyond two flipsides of male fantasies. Hayley is the worst fear and the biggest S&M-driven wet dream of plenty of guys. Jeff is the predator rendered human by someone who is reticent to indict all men with the fell swoop of one such character. They, in the end, are just so many more chess pieces in the sexual politics game. And ones that fall short of realism, I think.
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