Late in "Towelhead", Jasira(Summer Bishil) is forced to stay with the next-door neighbors to escape her father, who discovers her daughter's porno magazine. While driving the girl home from school, he repeatedly hits Jasira on the upper thigh, leaving a bruise serious enough to call in social services. With lodging provided by this married couple, Jasira is safe, away from dad(Peter MacDissi), and away from the other neighbor, the pedophile(Aaron Eckhart). As Rifat's fist comes down on Jasira's leg, the viewer should be cognizant about the close proximity between the father's blows and the girl's vagina. The admonitory punches of a Lebanese man with his conservative ideas about women, in his own country, would land on its intended target. The Hines will provide a safe haven for Jasira, right? Not all men want to f*** underaged girls. Gil Hines(Matt Letscher) is the hero; after all, he's the one who kept an eye on Jasira after seeing the thirteen-year-old girl get out of Travis' car. His wife Melina(Toni Collette) is showing; as perchance has it, they're expecting a girl. But even Gil is culpable to the influence of our oversexualized culture. In regard to seeing Jasira together with her much-older neighbor, maybe it was jealousy, and not an affront to his moral turpitude, that registered on Gil's squinted eyes and corresponding forehead lines. When the expectant father happens to glance down at Jasira's hitched skirt as she gets up from the dinner table, he notices the bruise, but is that all he notices? Because Jasira is only thirteen, Melina looks only at her chronological age, when she makes the decision that her boyfriend Thomas(Eugene Jones) can stay with the girl, unchaperoned, and left to their own devices. While she naps, Thomas and Jasira have sex. Jasira likes sex. This is what distinguishes the Lebanese girl from someone like Amelia(Roxana Zal), someone like the ABC telefilm "Something about Amelia". Jasira's emotional maturity is way beyond her years. When she admits to her relationship with Travis, "Towelhead" forces the viewer to question Jasira's motivations: Was she traumatized by her neighbor's sexual advances, or does she merely out Travis as a tactic to distract her father from addressing Thomas' used condom in his hand? Following Travis' arrest, Melina comforts Jasira. In her bedroom, she brushes the girl's hair, as they talk about, among other things, the men's magazine Travis gave her. To the older woman, a magazine like Palace(modeled after Playboy) makes her feel like "crap"; but to Jasira, it makes her feel "good". While Melina comforts Jasira in hushed tones and strokes her hair reassuringly, "Towelhead" goes against the automatic presumption that her sexual relationship with the war veteran traumatized her. Is Jasira a victim of sexual abuse, or is she a lolita? Was the sex between her and Travis consensual? Even Thomas underestimates Jasira, who like Melina, handles his girlfriend like a delicate flower. When he suggests that their relationship should go in a more chaste direction, Jasira disagrees; she decides that their relationship should continue in its adult direction. She's one of Larry Clarke's "Kids".
"Towelhead" is an uncomfortable film. But it's important in showing how the mainstreaming of porn rewrites the laws of statutory rape. Theoretically, Jasira isn't ready to have sex, but "Towelhead" seems to say otherwise.
"Towelhead" is an uncomfortable film. But it's important in showing how the mainstreaming of porn rewrites the laws of statutory rape. Theoretically, Jasira isn't ready to have sex, but "Towelhead" seems to say otherwise.