‘May December’ film about Mary Kay Letourneau ignites discussion of race and class
‘May December’ film about Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau ignites discussion of race and class
In 1997, elementary school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau ignited a tabloid frenzy when she pleaded guilty and was convicted of second-degree child rape of 13-year-old student Vili Fualaau. The case dominated headlines again this month following the release of the Netflix movie “May December,” which is partially based on the scandal.
Letourneau, a 35-year-old white woman from a wealthy political family in California, served seven years in prison. She and Fualaau, who is of Samoan descent, later got married and raised two daughters, both of whom were born before Fualaau turned 16. Sociologists and other academics say the film brings up new angles about how race and class shaped the coverage of the story by the media and may have prevented the public from seeing Fualaau, a Pacific Islander boy from a working-class family, as a victim of rape.
Charles Melton as Joe in a scene from "May December."François Duhamel / Netflix The Netflix movie, starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, loosely adapts the reported facts of the case, including tabloid photos and cable interviews the couple gave. The film’s director, Todd Haynes, told Letterboxd that the title refers to the term “May December romance,” which describes a relationship between two people with a considerable age gap — May alluding to spring and December to winter.
The Letourneau-Fualaau scandal “was presented as a human interest story that normalized the relationship between this adult woman and a child of color,” said Anthony Ocampo, a sociology professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. “The images played a very strong role in normalizing this relationship and erasing the fact that a child was raped.”
In the late 1990s, many tabloids portrayed the relationship between Letourneau and Fualaau as a forbidden romance rather than a crime. A 1998 People Magazine cover, showing a pregnant Letourneau holding her infant daughter, described the scandal as a “bizarre story of obsessive love” that began with a teacher “trysting” with her pupil. Other outlets amplified Fualaau’s claim that he “bet a friend $20” that he’d seduce Letourneau. Letourneau and Fualaau’s marriage lasted more than a decade; they divorced in 2019 and a year later Letourneau died of colon cancer.
Rating: 5