Dakota and Elle Fanning push the envelope on the sexualization of young teen girls in the latest issue of fashion bible W magazine. Elle is only 13 and Dakota is 17. Miley Cyrus could never get away with this.
The fashion industry is leading the charge in the sexualization of young teens. A Marc Jacobs perfume ad featuring Dakota was recently banned in Britain for being too sexually provocative.
While the trend is pronounced in Europe, where girls as young as 10 are modeling, it’s also emerging in the United States.
Check out the Fannings photos; click to enlarge.
Elle Fanning has been in the spotlight since she was nine and has a growing resume of nearly two dozen movies along with a handful of fashion shoots.
Notabley, she appeared in the 2009 indie film, “Phoebe in Wonderland,” as a nine-year-old who suffers from Tourette syndrome, and in this year’s “Super 8, a science fiction potboiler about a group of kids who discover an alien presence in a train crash.
She’ll next appear in “We Bought a Zoo,” which will hits theaters Dec. 23.
Dakota’s breakthrough performance came in 2001 in “I Am Sam” with Sean Penn at the age of seven. Elle played her as toddler in the film.
As a child actress, she also appeared in high-profile films such as “Man on Fire,” “War of the Worlds,” and “Charlotte’s Web,” and she’s been working since she was five.
She also had a kissing scene with a boy at seven in Reese Witherspoon’s movie, “Sweet Home Alabama.”
A Marc Jacobs ad featuring Dakota Fanning was banned in Britain
“I think that may be the most intimidated I’ve ever been—having to kiss that 10-year-old boy on the beach in Florida over and over,” she says.
The conservative Parents Television Council has railed against the way underage teens are portrayed on television in shows that appeal to 12- to 17-year-olds. All too frequently, they play sexually promiscuous characters.
The message, the group claims, is that a young teen girls’ worth is based on their sexuality.
The W magazine shoot by top fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti shows the Fannings playing dress up in clothes by Chanel, Dior, Givenchy and Valentino.
The girls talk about sharing everything from clothes to the bathroom, working at such a young age and how fashion-obsessed Elle is already being invited to haute couture fashion shows.
“My sister and I share a bathroom, and when you have a sibling, nothing is actually your own. I’ve never really had anything or any place that was just mine,” says Dakota, who is now attending college in New York City.
Check out their photos.
