What do you see as problematic? And please don’t say it’s a song that is about being attracted to little girls.
It’s a song that is about being attracted to little girls, and you didn’t say pretty please.
Perhaps you would like to make your case that it is not really creepy?
Not my onus of proof. Read the lyrics
I am well aware of the lyrics, and I feel no burden whatsoever to “prove” that those immensely creepy lyrics are creepy. If you want to convince anyone otherwise, you’ll have to do better that “not my onus of proof”, however devastating a rhetorical blow you might imagine that to be.
Except for the refrain I didn’t know what the lyrics were. Turns out they’re even creepier than I thought.
In other words apart from saying the lyrics are creepy repeatedly, you are unable to articulate why or how or to provide any parsing to support your view.
Here’s a clue: a song about how thankful one is for seeds because they become vegetables is not about how much one likes eating seeds.
Do you know what the movie Gigi is about? Joyously raising children to be prostitutes doesn’t fly these days.
No, I said I don’t feel any burden to because it’s so obvious.
If I can follow your complex and subtle analogy, the “seeds” are young children, seeds grow into vegetables, and “eating vegetables” is having sex. So singing about how thankful you are that young children are going to become something you want to have sex with is not creepy? Yeah, this “clue” is really not helping.
Seriously you think that’s what I mean?
The songs doesn’t mention sex. I think there is someone here who is sexualising and it ain’t me.
When the song was popular, the overall sense was clearly “little girls grow up to be women, and where would we men be without women?” In today’s hyper-aware milieu, the whiff of sexualization of young girls would be enough to kill it, but it really was just a whiff at the time. There were acres of worse.
Apparently it’s still popular overseas, at least among kids:
from this 2010 article:
Another surprise was learning what amazingly good senses of humor Korean 6- to 11-year-olds have. I learned this after the two-class, “teacher is new, be careful” grace period expired, and my kids started acting like children. I started taking on nicknames like Benjamonkey and bumjae-sunsangneem , which roughly translates into “professor of crime.” Several students were kind enough to introduce me to ddong-chim , which involves making a “handgun,” sneaking up behind the teacher and doing your best to sodomize him with your fingers. The first time that happened I could do nothing more than turn, face the little boy and look amazed. “Did you really just do that?”
I remember a Shirley Temple movie that included a scene set on an airliner. Shirley is singing a song and the male, middle aged or older, passengers are passing her hand to hand as she sang he piece. Cute at the time, mid 30’s perhaps, but maybe not so much now.
Film was Bright Eyes, 1934
Probably would fly today with small changes, mainly the guys keeping their hands off her. The scene was clearly infantalizing Temple, not sexualizing her. Some people would still find it creepy, but they’re the ones still trying to ban dancing.
Agree. I can’t remember ever hearing the song or reading the lyrics before @TriPolar linked to them. Reading those lyrics, I can see why some people find them creepy, but I don’t think they’re inherently creepy; I think the creepiness is in the ear of the beholder, and that the song is from a more innocent time. As such, I think it’s a good example of something that “wouldn’t fly now.”
Another, perhaps similar, example, is the nude or semi-nude photos of children that were taken by Lewis Carroll and others in the Victorian Era. As I understand it, to them, because the pictures were of children, they were innocent and nonsexual. To us, because the pictures were of children, they’re icky and taboo (while we are far more casual about adult nudity).
Could you imagine trying to make Blazing Saddles today?
I can imagine it, but the producer and director would have to be African American.
Of course, then it wouldn’t be Mel Brooks, and it probably wouldn’t be as funny.
I actually went to a Catholic school and saw very little corporal punishment. Once Sister Swampfox (i.e. Francis Marion) threw a piece of chalk* at either Steve Arneson or Henry Murtaugh. But that was the only act I witnessed.
- She played first base on the novitiate softball team, so she could really throw. Also, I saw her later when I was in high school, and she’d quit being a nun.
Thought the movie “Gigi” was disgusting at the time. It’s about Leslie Caron getting the best price for her virginity.
The context of the song is the movie Gigi, showing the life of young girls groomed to be prostitutes. In that context the lyrics are most certainly creepy. Is it was a more innocent time when this kind of behavior wasn’t discussed in the main stream and people believed you could tell the creeps because they always dressed and talked in a creepy manner, not like wholesome Scout Masters and Priests. Television and movies were full of this kind of stuff until the subject of sexual abuse, grooming, pedophilia, and the like began to be discussed without censorship in the mainstream media.
I did not know that; and you’re right that that does make a difference.