Not like media is the average experience either

I haven't watched Tideland, but I have no doubt at all that there are 8 year old girls that know how to cook a heroine shot.

However, that situation, like almost everything else in movies, is just a movie. I don't believe there are Matt Damons tearing CIA conspiracies apart, or Jackie Chans defeating the whole army of a Chinese mafia boss with a hand tied behind his back, or Bruce Willises saving the world in their free time. Movies are supposed to exist at the limits of plausibility, and should be understood as such. I have no idea what they told Ferland about the scene (I know that sexual abuse scenes / situations are usually scripted in such a way that the child doesn't have to know what it is supposed to be happening, for instance - might have been the same here), but even if they really told her what she was supposed to be doing, it's not different from a child that appears in an action movie and is told that their dad in the movie is going to shoot the gun and the car is going to blow up - they *know* it's a movie.

Now yes, I do agree that we are regularly exposing children to far worse things than sex can ever be; and like GirlRobo I am glad you mentioned.

But I don't think that includes the children who perform in movies and television. At least certainly not in the USA - remember, for instance, that there is a watch for children on the stage, like there is for animals; and they certainly wouldn't allow a scene they considered would turn the child into a drug addict, dealer or apologist...