Contributing editor LEILA LATIF has something to say…
Alot has changed since the 90s: our phones are much smaller, and the threat of them turning against us in an AI apocalypse is much greater. But while we can debate if that is technically progress, thankfully the current culture is unlikely to have reacted to the case of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, who inspired Todd Haynes’ masterful May December, in quite the same way. For those who haven’t heard of them… brace yourself.
Letourneau was a 34-year-old teacher who was charged with the second-degree rape of a 12-yearold student called Vili Fualaau. Their first child was born while she was awaiting sentencing in 1997. Released after just three months in prison, she violated her probation with 14-year-old Fualaau and subsequently had their second child in prison. When released, they were permitted to have contact and the pair sold their wedding footage to Entertainment Tonight for a reported half a million dollars and became quirky Z-listers, hired to do photo shoots and host ‘hot for teacher’ club nights, which may be the most depressing sentence I’ve ever written.
Looking back at the reporting and light sentencing, what’s so striking is how Fualaau, who is of Samoan heritage, wasn’t viewed as a child, but seen by many to be old enough to consent to theall-American blonde Mary Kay. In May December his equivalent character is played by Korean-American actor Charles Melton but many of the details remain the same, and now in his 30s, he is coming to terms with how his relationship with Julianne Moore’s Gracie began. Natalie Portman further stokes the fire as Elizabeth, an actor researching a film about the pair.
Todd Haynes is able to look at that age gap and abusive dynamic with clear-eyed perspective; that the 90s viewed young boys of colour as virile adults, while on screen it was the odious period of the teenage-girl seductresses with Drew Barrymore and Alyssa Milano manipulating unsuspecting middle-aged men into sex. Worst of all was The Crush, featuring Alicia Silverstone as a 14-year-old doggedly pursuing Cary Elwes in a story writer-director Alan Shapiro openly claimed was based on events from his own life.
While sexualis
