Saturday, January 26, 2013

BEAUTIFUL GIRLS (1996): Wait Until I'm 18 or Go to the Penitentiary



In Beautiful Girls (1996), 13-year-old Martie (Natalie Portman) breaks up with Scooter and informs middle-aged Willie (Timothy Hutton), “You’re my new boyfriend Willie." 

But she warned Willie that they would have to, "Wait five years. I’ll be 18. We can walk through this world together. [Otherwise] You'll go to the penitentiary, and I'd be the laughing stock of the Brownies."


You're naive if you think that the idea of a 13-year-old nymphet propositioning a middle-aged man is far-fetched. What is far-fetched about this scene is that the nymphet is mature and patient enough to advise an older man to wait until she is of legal age

And if you have any doubts about a teen being sexually attracted to an older man, take Elizabeth Taylor as an example. Porter and Prince related in their book Elizabeth Taylor: There Is Nothing Like a Dame that when Elizabeth was 15-years-old, she made out with 36-year-old [President] Ronald Reagan. Taylore shared:
“Reagan was treating me like a grown woman, and that thrilled me. We sat on his sofa and I could tell he wanted to get it on but he seemed reluctant to make the first move… [so] I became the aggressor.”

Billie JD Porter shared with Vice:

"I lost my virginity to a socially inept drum ’n’ bass DJ who brought our pet goldfish to his sets at Fabric. It died, just like our love, when I fucked a more successful DJ and realised old men > boys." (Note: If you don't remember from math class, > is the greater than symbol.) 

And how about a highbrow (fiction) example from Emma Cline in The Paris Review #artimitatinglife:

"Marion was wearing her shorts over her favorite bright orange bikini, nubby fabric stretched tight across her breasts, her shoulders shining from sunscreen [...] Marion knew she was something pretty in that suit. Men stared at her, and she liked it. When Jack [Marion's father's friend] first came for dinner at the ranch, he would follow Marion with his eyes when she got up from the table. That day, when Jack watched Marion in the barn as he rolled a cigarette for her, I felt a flint of heat in my insides." 

 
Beautiful Girls (1996) Clip: "Wait five years. I’ll be 18." 

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