Cate Blanchett and Andrew Simpson star in Notes on a Scandal (Click to see the trailer.) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) The film stars Cate Blanchett as an attractive art teacher at a state-run secondary school in London, and features Andrew Simpson as her 15-year-old Irish student. The plot has the teen-ager coming on strong to the married woman with lines like, "You don t know how beautiful you are.
" He also tries to stop her from ending their illegal and adulterous relationship. The movie goes much deeper than just being ripped from today s headlines, as Blanchett s fellow teacher played by Judi Dench is apparently a latent lesbian obsessed with the art instructor. She discovers the illicit affair Blanchett s character is having with the teen, and uses it to her advantage.
The subject matter may remind movie-watchers of 1995 s where Nicole Kidman depicted the real-life drama of New Hampshire s Pamela Smart, the former media-services director at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, N.H. Smart now serving a life sentence for persuading her teen lover to murder her husband.
Such films may have some wondering if Hollywood has a love affair with themes about underage boys seeking sex with older women? In 1971, the Oscar-winning featured a youth falling in love with a woman played by Jennifer O Neill as she awaits word on her husband s fate in World War II. In 1983, Andrew McCarthy, a member of the so-called Brat Pack, starred in as a prep-school student having a torrid affair with his roommate s mother, portrayed by Jacqueline Bisset.
The 1999 film celebrated a high-school student scoring with "Stifler s mom," and helped popularize the acronym "MILF," which stands for a "mother I d like to ----." After the prom, Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) attempts to seduce Stifler s mom (Jennifer Coolidge) in 1999 s American Pie (Universal) Even the popular television show featured a teen boy trying to seduce his female English teacher with come-on lines such as "You re a well-put-together knockout of a woman who s feeling a little insecure about hitting 40. So when a young, virile boy such as myself flirts with you, you enjoy it.
...
You entice it, you fantasize about what it would be like to be with that young boy on the verge of manhood, cause it helps you stay feeling attractive ...
." "The idea of men sleeping with a young woman still has the notion of being a dangerous stalking statutory rape kind of thing," Bob Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, told the Associated Press. "In the reverse, it s kind of sexy, every school boy s fantasy.
Both are statutory rape. But the aggressive predatory woman is perceived much more of the stuff of allure and fantasy than the stuff of creepy." Meanwhile, "Notes on a Scandal" is getting mixed reviews from film critics.
calls the movie an "odd hybrid: a highbrow suspense freak-out," saying the 15-year-old student is a "smiling adolescent satyr, as much seducer as victim, and Blanchett s [role as] Sheba is a fool we understand, even as we shrink in disgust." says the "affair with the under-age student is criminally irresponsible and deeply hurtful to her family and the boy s family, but she is not a monster. She s a mess.
" And states, "There is relatively little to recommend in Notes on a Scandal outside of watching Dame Judi Dench pretend to be a dyke and Cate Blanchett pretend to have sex with an underage teen boy." Some of the cases involving women have been chronicled by WND, including: Accused of having sex with a 16-year-old special-needs student in a Houston apartment she rented for the get-togethers. The boy has testified the pair would "have sex, drink beer and smoke weed.
" Though Jennings was initially charged with having sex with a 16-year-old, the counts against the Sturbridge, Mass., woman were reduced to a single charge of disseminating harmful materials to a minor. She reportedly admitted e-mailing naked photos of herself to a former student.
She received no jail time, only two years of probation after pleading guilty. Northwest Indiana woman allegedly had sexual contact, including intercourse, with several students at Hebron High School, and turned herself into authorities, telling police she knew what she did was illegal. Clayton County, Ga.
, woman remarked she didn t think her relationship was inappropriate based on her Internet research, learning the Peach State s age of consent is 16. Education technician was arrested in January 2006 after a 15-year-old boy at the alternative education school in Warren, Maine, told police he had an ongoing sexual relationship with her. Flirting allegedly eventually led to an estimated 200 sexual encounters.
In December 2006, she received three and half years in prison, with all but one year suspended, and four years probation. Inverness, Fla., woman and softball coach at Lecanto High School charged with a lesbian relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
She received no prison time, being sentenced to two years of house arrest and eight more years of probation. Middle-school teacher from Tompkinsville, Ky., fled with her alleged lover, her 14-year-old male student, before being tracked down in Mexico where she reportedly planned to marry the boy.
She was indicted for illegal sex acts with a minor and returned to Kentucky. Charges include felony custodial interference, two counts of third-degree sodomy and four counts of unlawful transaction with a minor relating to sexual acts. Delran, N.
J., woman accused of having sex in her apartment with a 14-year-old boy she met in school. She was charged with sexual assault for activity that allegedly took place in August 2004.
She pleaded not guilty in August 2006. Private-school employee from Pownal, Maine, charged with risk of injury to a minor and second-degree sexual assault of a juvenile male at Eagle Hill School in Greenwich, Conn. In July 2006, she was sentenced to 18 months prison.
Daughter-in-law of school-board president charged with molesting a 15-year-old middle-school student. Reports state Sherill allegedly had oral sex with the boy and sent him coded text messages. She resigned her position at Jefferson Elementary School in Farmington, Mo.
, and eventually received 90 days in jail and two years probation, and was forced to register as a sex offender. Special-education teacher from Ferguson, Mo., charged with statutory sodomy involving at least three of her students at Ferguson Middle School.
She reportedly told friends she had performed oral sex on the children on several occasions. Police in Huber Heights, Ohio, say the Wayne High School teacher hosted a party where students were shown pornography. Prosecutors charged her with one count of sexual battery, a felony in Ohio.
Jersey City, N.J., woman received no jail time, but was ordered to pay more than $1,000 in fines, sentenced to a lifetime registration as a convicted sex offender and ordered to attend therapy for having sex with a 17-year-old student in late 2004.
The former Rahway High School instructor was banned from teaching and seeing the student with whom she had sex. Teacher at the Normandy Alternative School in St. Louis County, Mo.
, allegedly took a 16-year-old hearing-impaired male student to her home for sex in December 2005. She was charged with two counts of felony statutory rape and fired by the school district. English teacher at Strongsville High School in Ohio began a sexual relationship with the 17-year-old captain of the football team, Steven Bradigan, in November 2002 and eventually gave birth to Bradigan s son.
Scarlett was fired from her teaching job, but insists nothing improper happened during the time she was Bradigan s teacher. She was never charged with any criminal wrongdoing. Tampa, Fla.
, area teacher received no jail time despite having sex with her 14-year-old male student in a classroom and her Hillsborough County home. In another county, Marion, she was accused of having sex with the boy in an SUV. LaFave claimed at a March 2006 news conference she had a bipolar disorder.
The boy s father said LaFave should have received prison time in her plea deal, noting, "It s a horrible, ugly thing that she s done." Mattituck, N.Y.
, woman was the school psychologist at East Hampton Middle School on Long Island when she was accused of having sex with the 16-year-old boyfriend of her own 13-year-old daughter. She allegedly had intercourse and oral sex with the boy on a number of occasions in May 2005 in her home and car. She was arrested after allegedly secretly visiting her young paramour at his new home in North Carolina.
Donna Carr Galloway, 33: Married mother of two found naked in a car with a 17-year-old student. Elisa Kawasaki, 25: Biology teacher from Fresno, Calif., area, pleaded no contest to sex with a teen boy, and prosecutors dropped four other counts.
Grand Rapids, Mich., teacher at South Haven s Baseline Middle School pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female student she "married" in a pagan ritual in June 2004. Miklosovic is also accused of touching the girl s genitals while camping in public parks.
She told the judge before sentencing, "The entire ordeal has been blown totally out of proportion for something that was innocent, kind and nurturing in nature." She was sentenced to five to 25 years. Tulare Western High School teacher from Fresno, Calif.
, area convicted of having sex with three of her students was sentenced to nine years, but the judge suspended that sentence and gave her one year, followed by five years of probation. She was also ordered to register as a sex offender. Former student at Solomon Schecter School in Newton, Mass.
, said his music teacher took him into an empty classroom where she worked, partially disrobed, and coaxed him into having sex with her in 1998. Garfield was acquitted of all charges in September 2005. Teacher at Leeds High School in St.
Clair County, Ala., faced a possible 20-year sentence, but received one year in jail for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old student. Teacher at Oxford Christian Academy in New Oxford, Pa.
, allegedly wrote erotic messages to a 16-year-old student and had sexual intercourse with him four times in her apartment. She pleaded guilty to corruption of a minor, and received no jail time, just three years of probation in March 2006. Teacher at Wasson High School in Colorado Springs, Colo.
, accused of having sex with a 17-year-old male student. Police charged her with sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, and Cardozo resigned her position in March 2005. She pleaded guilty in July 2005 and received a deferred sentence, meaning no jail time if she remains trouble-free for four years.
Mathematics, science and business teacher at Chatelech Secondary School in Sechelt, British Columbia, had sex with a 17-year-old student. The relationship cost Ingram her job and reportedly led to the breakup of her 12-year common-law marriage to a man four years her senior. Substitute teacher at South Central High School in Winterville, N.
C., was indicted in January 2006 on charges she was having an improper relationship with a 15-year-old student. The case involves some 50 phone calls and text messages exchanged between Garrison and the boy, who reportedly became uncomfortable when things of a sexual nature came up.
Language teacher at Chaska High School in Minnesota, arrested in December 2006, charged with third-degree sexual assault for allegedly performing oral sex on a 17-year-old male student. The victim told police he first noticed Lund staring at him in the school hallway, before she asked him to contact her. Lund allegedly told the boy her husband was away and she was lonely.
Married English teacher from Greenville, N.C., arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old boy.
She taught at South Central High School in Winterville, N.C., and was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child, but found not guilty of the more serious sex charge.
She was not given prison time, and lost her teaching license for at least two years. Teacher at Lumberton High School in Lumberton, Texas, charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student. The victim, Michael Ferguson, alleges: "She just started grabbing me and hormones were on and it just happened.
" Ferguson provided KBTV-TV with an e-mail allegedly sent by White, in which the teacher told him, "I get these cravings for YOU and that s not NORMAL! If I had it my way, I d do you once a week just because it s good." Elementary-school teacher from St.
Augustine, Fla., pleaded no contest to charges she had sex with a 13-year-old boy in 2003. The boy s parents reportedly found more than 50 sexually explicit e-mails and pornographic pictures allegedly sent by Dalecki on his computer.
Dalecki was sentenced to nearly a year in prison. Teacher allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old boy who was in her biology class the previous year. Oakes resigned from her post at Seymour High School in Sevierville, Tenn.
, and reportedly lost her home and even the job she took at a grocery store after resigning from the school system because of the charges. In July 2006, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in jail. Former music mistress at a top private school in Belfast, N.
Ireland, was given a six-month suspended sentence on charges of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Band teacher at Ricker Middle School in Buena Vista Township, Mich., charged with having sex with at least 5 students, one as young as 14.
She was sentenced in August 2006 to at least seven and as much as 25 years in prison. A former basketball star at the College of Staten Island, the gym teacher at St. Paul s School in New Brighton, N.
Y., was arrested in March 2005 for allegedly molesting a 12-year-old girl whose family she had befriended. Saunders admitted to touching the girl s breasts and genital area on several dates in February 2005.
She received no jail time, only probation and registration as a sex offender. The family is now suing Saunders and the Archdiocese of New York, claiming the girl became suicidal and still suffers from "severe emotional shock, trauma, embarrassment, anxiety and other psychological injuries." Sacramento, Calif.
, area woman arrested after police found her having sex with a 16-year-old male student in her car while the woman s toddler was strapped into a seat in the back. She pleaded guilty to four felony counts of statutory rape and was sentenced to a year in jail and five years formal probation. Math teacher at Lincoln Middle School in Passaic, N.
J., sentenced in 2005 to a year in jail for an intimate relationship with a teen student who was 14 when they first met. Saco reportedly gave the boy a key to her apartment.
Des Moines, Wash., teacher did prison time after having sex with a sixth-grade student, Vili Fualaau, in 1996 and eventually had two children by him. She originally had Fualaau in her second-grade class at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Wash.
The couple has since married. Bristol, Tenn., teacher at Virginia Middle School pleaded guilty to crossing the state line into Virginia to have oral sex with a 13-year-old male student.
As part of her plea agreement, Deel agreed never to profit from the crime, as well as have no contact with the boy and his family without court permission. She was sentenced to a year and two months prison. Substitute teacher at Boone County High School in Florence, Ky.
, allegedly had sex with a 15-year-old boy several times during summer break. She was charged with two counts of rape and one sodomy count. In August 2006, Kush was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 30 days on house arrest and five years probation.
British woman from Sheffield, England, given a 12-month suspended jail sentence after she seduced a 16-year-old student and began a 19-month affair. Former model and beauty-pageant contestant also taught at Centertown Elementary School in McMinnville, Tenn. She was arrested in February 2005 for allegedly having a three-month sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy.
She resigned her teaching position and was charged with 15 counts of sexual battery and 13 counts of statutory rape. Originally sentenced to 270 days in August 2005, she got in additional trouble in April 2006 for sending text messages, nude photos, and sex videos of herself to the same boy while using her father s cellphone. In July 2006, she was sentenced to seven years for violating her probation.
Ex-substitute teacher from Geneseo, N.Y., admitted having sex with a 16-year-old boy she met at a local riding stable.
After pleading guilty, Vantucci agreed to surrender her teaching license and register as a sex offender. Redwood City, Calif., woman gave birth to a baby last year and DNA test results gave prosecutors enough evidence to prove the father is Boicelli s former student, who was 16 at the time of conception.
She was sentenced to two years in prison. Social-studies teacher at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services in Manhattan, N.Y.
, allegedly began a 10-month sexual relationship with an 17-year-old player on the school s basketball team, and reportedly gave birth to his baby. The teen boy even introduced Ellis to his parents, never indicating she was his teacher. Teacher at Silver Bay Elementary School in Toms River, N.
J., engaged in kissing, and inappropriate conduct and conversations with two sixth-grade boys, ages 11 and 12, in 2003 and 2004. She was sentenced to 364 days in jail with psychotherapy, must register as a sex offender, will be under lifetime supervision and must surrender her New Jersey teaching certificate.
English teacher at Central York High School in York, Pa., allegedly had sex with a 17-year-old boy after giving him alcohol. Authorties accused her of five alleged sex acts during October and November 2005.
She pleaded guilty as part of a deal, and was sentenced to two to 23 months in jail. Guidance counselor at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services in Manhattan, N.Y.
was fired after school bosses learned she was having sex with a teenage boy. She denies the allegations, attributing them to rumors gone wild. English teacher at Christian Brothers Academy, an all-boys school in Albany, N.
Y., allegedly had sex three times with a 16-year-old male student in May 2005, including once on school grounds in the football stadium s press box. Originally indicted in September for three counts of third degree rape, she pleaded guilty to a single count of rape and was sentenced to six months in jail, and ranked as a Level 1 sex offender, the lowest risk.
Teacher s aide from Cherokee County, Texas, was arrested in June 2005. Allen was charged with sexual assault of a child and faces a possible 20 years behind bars. Geography teacher in Britain had been engaged to be married before she kissed a 15-year-old student on at least three occasions.
She avoided jail, but received 12 months community service. Middle-school language-arts instructor in Buttonwillow, Calif., originally arrested in January 2006 on suspicion of engaging in lewd acts with a 12-year-old male student, a felony that involves sexual contact.
She pleaded not guilty to two counts of annoying or molesting a child under 18. Volleyball coach and teacher at Floresville High School in Texas six years ago, pleaded guilty to all charges for molesting a 16-year-old female student. She was sentenced to 10 years probation, and required to register as a sex offender.
First-year teacher at J.D. Meisler Middle School in Metairie, La.
, was arrested in December 2006 on charges of molestation and indecent behavior with a 12-year-old male. Police say the acts were captured on videotape, recorded by Ryan Mapes, 18, who was babysitting the boy. Giambelluca allegedly disrobed to her underwear, performed a suggestive dance for the boy and performed oral sex on Mapes in front of the young student.
The eighth-grade science teacher at Blanchard Middle School in Lowell, Mass., was sentenced to serve 18 months for having sex with one of her students in the back seat of her car. Clickner had been accused of luring the 14-year-old during the summer of 2005 into the back seat of her car and molesting him.
He later told his parents, who notified police. She also was ordered to register as a sex offender. Susan Eble, 35: Former teacher s aide is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy.
Tara Lynn Crisp, 29: Police allege she had sex with a student at least three times beginning when he was 14. Middle-school teacher in Braxton County, W.Va.
, confessed in 2005 to having sexual intercourse with three juveniles a total of four times and oral sex with one of those juveniles and another juvenile a total of four times. She reportedly described herself as a "monster" when she pleaded guilty. She resigned, surrendered her teaching certificate, and was given consecutive sentences of one-to-five years on four counts of third-degree sexual assault.
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