“Into the Night”, a song by Benny Mardones, gets a lot of heat for being “about a pedophile”. It starts with
She’s just sixteen years old
Leave her alone, they said
And then
If I could fly, I’d pick you up
I’d take you into the night
And show you a love
Like you’ve never seen, ever seen
At sixteen, Ariel, the Little Mermaid, was old enough to get married. His father’s objections were about her going to the surface and loving a human man, not about her getting married. Seen through the mentality of people who say “Into the Night” is about a pedophile, Disney promotes pedophilia. Unless prince Eric is seventeen or at most eighteen (despite looking older than twenty), in which case Disney is only promoting teenage marriage and pregnancy (Ariel has a daughter in “The Little Mermaid 2″).
Among dozens of “he’s a pedophile” comments about “Into the Night”, I found one convincing explanation:
The song is about a young girl who lived in Benny’s apartment building in Spanish Harlem. The father of the girl ran out on her and her mother was never around. Benny felt bad and hired her to walk his dog. The song was inspired to be of a parental love, not a pedophile.
I loved reading that; even if 90% of people who hear the song still think “he is a pedophile”, I can at least silently say “Tut tut, what a dirty mind you have” at them in the knowledge truth is far kinder and more beautiful.
Regardless, if the song said “She’s just six years old” I could understand people thinking that way, but sixteen? Disney says it is perfectly alright. Americans are so terribly paranoid about that – as if girls were pearly white damsels of unscathed purity and innocence until the exact day they turn eighteen. If “Rock and Roll Lullaby” was recorded today, saying “she was just sixteen and all alone when I came to be”, they would say it was an immaculate conception by the Holy Spirit, because a girl of sixteen and all alone could never possibly become pregnant. That, and the Holy Spirit is a pedophile.
I have plenty of trouble telling the difference between a girl of sixteen and one of twenty. If the comparison is seventeen against eighteen, it is virtually impossible. Girls seem to develop earlier nowadays; I have been fooled by girls of fourteen. Pedophiles are not attracted to ID cards showing an age below an arbitrary number that changes between states and countries – they are attracted to undeveloped bodies.
Americans are paranoid about the strangest things.
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funny, just yesterday I was at eph’s forum, reading some of the comments for Seekers regarding the age rating… and as one of her american readers said, “We’re such prudes in this country. All you have to do is say Boobies! and people break into a nervous sweat”. ’nuff said.
A Aurora também se casou com dezesseis anos. Eu percebi que quando as Princesas entraram na minha vida, dezesseis anos era uma idade muito avançada, muito distante de mim. Talvez a última idade que dava pra uma criança se identificar. Se a Aurora e a Ariel tivessem dezoito ou mais, seria muito esquisito pra mim.
Não acho que é pra ser pedófilo.