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Aron, did you see that immigrant Scarlett JOhannsen movie this year (I forget its name)? With Nastassja Kinski and Tony Goldwyn as the parents? Check out the little girl who plays young Scarlett. It's a bigger performance, more important to the film, by an even younger actress and it's WAY better than what Dakota Fanning does.
I agree with you, Dakota did not make me want to wring her neck, which is the common reaction I have to most child stars in HOLLYWOOD movies. The better directors of foreign and indie flicks, however, are usually able to get WAY better performances out of their kids. I don't think Dakota deserves to be trashed. I also definitely don't think she should be commended simply for not sucking. And when she DOES get commended, I think we have to look really closely at WHY she does, and I think it's fucked up. Don't dare tell me that she gave one of the twenty, let alone five best supporting performances by an actress this year. Her nomination is an insult to all of the other legit performances by adult actresses out there. WOrse, Dakota doesn't even give one of the five best (and probably not one of the ten best) performances this year by CHILD ACTRESSES! She gets the recognition, however, because she plays America's fucked up IDEAL of a little girl.
And I strongly believe that the role she played, the pretty little blonde girl who has "the key" that the rest of us lack, along with its well-documented strong appreciation by America at large and the film community in general, is symbolic of a larger trend that really scares and disgusts me. It's this whole Britney Spears feminism, this incredible empowerment of the little girl, both sexually and in other ways, all at the cost of the intelligent, self- respecting adult woman. To me, Dakota Fanning's role and performance is not only not different from, but actually an excellent example of the increasing trend of little waif like generic girls, from Dakota to, say, Claire Forlani, getting leading roles that ought to be written for the numerous incredibly talented, complicated, OLDER (like 36?) actresses out there who in my mind are actually more sexy to boot. Dakota Fanning's nominations contribute to the American woman's growing self-esteem problem, and I take that PERSONALLY because it affects nearly every woman I meet and makes it that much fucking harder to have good, healthy relationships of any sort with them. I also have spent a good amount of time teaching and working with little girls and I see how many of them are suffocated by society's perverted idea of what they should be, a restriction of which boys go almost entirely scott free. Sure these trends have been going on for what seems like forever, but in my mind they're only getting much, much worse, thank you MTV and the shallowness of the American public.
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