TOWELHEAD
Written & Directed by Alan Ball, based on a novel by Alicia Erian
Produced by Ball & Ted Hope
Released by Warner Independent Pictures
USA. 116 min. Rated R
With Summer Bishil, Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Peter Macdissi & Maria Bello
 

In an era when the average age of entry into prostitution in New York City is roughly 12, Barely Legal is a bestselling porn magazine, and fashion models get their start at 14, the widespread sexualization of preteen girls is an elephant in the middle of the room. Almost all of us see it happening and understand that it’s a major part of media and society, but almost no one is talking about it, and still fewer people are actually examining it critically.

Towelhead is the story of 13-year-old Jasira (Summer Bishil), whose narcissistic American mother (Maria Bello) kicks her out of the house to live with her conservative Lebanese father (Peter Macdissi) in Houston after finding out that her boyfriend has shaved Jasira’s pubic hair—“It’s all your fault,” she tells the weeping girl at the airport. Jasira’s body bursting into apparent womanhood, she attracts the wrath of her father and the attentions of Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart), the racist reservist next door.

Based on Alicia Erian’s novel, Towelhead is a comedy—a dark comedy that’s so frustrating, it’s more of a horror story. It’s the saga of an innocent who gets exploited over and over again. Almost every adult around—the people to whom Jasira ought to be able to turn to for guidance—is royally messed up, infantile, and hypocritical. Jasira’s father gets violent with her for wearing skimpy shorts to breakfast, and then makes a spectacle of making out with his new girlfriend on a later morning in the same kitchen. Jasira’s mother agrees with her ex-husband and forbids her daughter to date a black boy, then sends postcards of herself, happily cuddling her new black boyfriend. And Mr. Vuoso lectures Jasira against reading his not-so-well-hidden skin magazines because she’s too young and a girl, then takes advantage of her burgeoning sexuality.

Towelhead is set during the Gulf War, and Mr.Vuoso’s role as an Army Reservist is part of what allows him to think of himself as a good man. As she learns about the contradictory, duplicitous, confusing world of adult sexuality, Jasira also starts to consider the politics of race and prejudice. The scales fall from her eyes and she moves, in a few small ways, away from victimhood.

In adapting this material for the screen, Alan Ball (the writer of American Beauty and creator of Six Feet Under, both projects with a spin on the sexuality of young girls) strives to maintain the comic element of Erian’s story without losing the underlying point. Making a movie of Towelhead is a tricky, treacherous project, and sometimes the humor is too broad, rather than slyly satirical. This film could easily be misunderstood or stray into trivializing the material—a flaw I found in the book. It finds its voice, though, horror movie style, pulling the viewer more and more deeply into the perilous landscape of Jasira’s coming of age.

Eighteen-year-old Summer Bishil’s performance as Jasira captures the characters’ clueless naiveté, but however great she is as an actor, her presence doesn’t truly drive home the point of how creepy all the prurient or lecherous adult scrutiny of Jasira’s (or any 13-year-old’s) sexuality really is. For that, a real 13-year-old should have been cast. For obvious reasons, Ball chooses not to reveal Jasira’s body in a titillating way, but in not exploiting the actor, he also skims the surface of the issue.

Erian’s novel, and this film, show how Jasira goes through some sexual hell and survives, finding a family despite all the flaws and problems of the world. Both hold the thesis that Jasira’s exploration of her own sexual feelings is natural and empowering, and that the only problem is adults abusing her or taking advantage. In reality, sexual exploitation during the fragile preteen years twists and mutates natural sexual development, creating a cycle of damage and disturbance. Fear and shame become sexual triggers.  

In the press notes, Ball says that he finds it “refreshing” that Jasira isn’t “damaged for life,” since sexual abuse is such a statistically common experience for young women and men these days.  He likes that she comes out of the experience “more powerful, with a healthy sense of who she is and with her own healthy sexuality very much intact.” For real-life victims of sexual abuse, that sense of increased power is usually illusory, and part of a reliving or reenactment of the abuse. By ending on an upbeat note, Towelhead belies the continuing awfulness of Jasira’s situation. Elizabeth Bachner
September 12, 2008