Born Innocent

Born Innocent is a made-for-TV movie that I saw when I was a child. It made quite an impression on me, because I'm pretty sure I even went out and read the book. I hadn't seen it since the 70s, and for some reason felt curious about seeing it again. I knew it would be cheesy, but I thought it would be a guilty pleasure kind of thing.

Born Innocent is about a 14 year old runaway who ends up in a state facility for girls. Immediately the culture of the girls is rough and confrontational, and innocent Chris (played by Linda Blair) is not there too long before she is gang raped with the handle of a plunger by a group of her peers. It is a disturbing, awful scene. She is traumatized and ends up telling a teacher at the institution. Though the teacher believes her, the other adult doesn't. In any event, the possibility that girls are gang raping each other is glossed over.

The girls are tough in a ridiculous cartoon way that is hard to relate to, but you sympathize with Chris simply because she has such a youthful, cherubic face. When she gets to go home, it turns out her mother is kind of crazy and her father is violent and they don't want her. Back in the institution, Chris begins to harden. There is a silly food fight, the loss of a baby, and then a seriously violent riot, instigated by Chris bullying the adult supervisor. In the end, despite the efforts of a sympathetic teacher, Chris has lost her innocence and is a tough girl like all the others.

The homophobic undertones and the blase treatment of violence, combined with the adults' wistful, earnest, over-the-top acting was bizarre, and although I did enjoy Born Innocent, I also felt kind of sick while I was watching it.