What now makes you uncomfortable that didn't at the time

[drinkingwineoutofamug]

As a teenager I like listening to a certain rock band.
Just found their album on iTunes, downloaded and listened.
I was shocked. One of the songs - sung by grown men - ' she's a 13 yr tease , with bleach blonde hair. Let me eat your cookies , let me see your cookies '
Sat in the bath gob smacked. When I was 15 , this never made me question.

Has anyone else come across something that as a younger person it never crossed your mind but now it's a wtf moment

@Newestname001

Bugsy Malone. I watched it recently and felt a little queasy about those very young girls (eg Jodie Foster) slinking down stairs singing in her little girls voice "My name is Tallulah My first rule of thumb I don't say where I'm going Or where I'm coming from I try to leave a little reputation behind me So if you really need to You'll know how to find me"

Or the chorus girls in their little outfits including very short shorts wiggling their way in the dance routines.

It was weird, I'd enjoyed the film in my youth but it made me really uncomfortable as an adult.

Yes to this! I loved the film as a young teenager and thought it was just a brilliant idea. Thinking back now - agh.

Yes to to all the 80s stuff that we thought was totally normal, from old men looking at Page 3 on buses next to young kids; Like a Virgin sung along to by pre-teens; mainstream films with a conceit that would be eyebrow-raising today (Big, etc.) Young teen girls watching Pretty Woman as a fun family film - hello normalising prostitution and horrifically sexist relationships.

In fact the one thing on the thread that isn't awful is Does Your Mother Know That You're Out, where the speaker says she's only a child and sends her home! I always thought of that as kind of a parody of that whole genre of paedophilic 70s/80s pop songs about teen girls rather than actually being one.

Oh and on that note I fricking hate Come On Eileen because that's one of them. Just had to get that out there

As for "Summer of 69" I honestly don't think it's about oral sex! Isn't it just about the end of the 60s? The "summer of 69" is a byword in US culture for the year of Woodstock, the end of the ideal of 60s culture and all that, before the 70s, Nixon, etc. all set in.

I always assumed it's a nostalgic fantasy of the late 80s for that end of the counterculture moment just before the American 1970s arrived. Springsteen used to write similar kinds of lyrics.

It's weird given that Graham Chapman was gay and the other Pythons all knew.

Even weirder when you consider it was actually Chapman who plays Biggles (who shoots the 'Out' Algy). Some serious denial/repression shit being played out in public there.

@Beelzebop

The first Midsomer Murders are really cringey!

The acting is atrocious!

The song 'Don't Stand So Close to Me' by the Police. The fact that Sting used to be a teacher makes it particularly hideous. It even includes the line 'Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov' (Lolita). Ugh.
I adored Sting/The Police as a teenager . Also, he seems to like to portray himself as a sensitive intellectual so ???

HappySwordmaker as the veteran of many Christian camps I am We had talks about avoiding sex before marriage, but never masturbation.

I don't think anyone has mentioned 15 year old Pacey having an affair with his middle aged teacher in Dawson's Creek? It was portrayed at the time as somewhat sexy and cool...

They way her daughter was treated and interviewed 4 maybe 5 times by people who should have been impractical and there to protect the child. It must have been so traumatic for her.

It was Mia Farrow's son who was somehow involved with the beginning of the #metoo movement

I also think Allen marrying Mia's adopted daughter, one who was a child when he was with Mia, is disgusting and he groomed her.

@Gwenhwyfar you are dead right about Fawlty Towers. Sybil clearly wears the trousers in that relationship. And yes @Whitchurch I 100% agree with you. I’m an English Language and Literature teacher and the first module for my sixth formers is Language & Cultural Context for precisely the reasons you outline.

After everything came to light about Ian Watkins from lostprophets all the song lyrics make me feel sick. They had a song called Town called hypocrisy and the video is well creepy, Watkins is a kids TV presenter

I haven't RTFT so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

The song "December '63 (Oh What a Night)" by Franki Valli and The Four Seasons. For decades I thought it was just a very good disco classic. It wasn't until I saw the show "Jersey Boys" that I realised it's actually about loss of virginity.

Similarly (but perhaps less well known) is "Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim, which was popular in the late 70s when I was a student. At the time I thought it was about dancing, but the lyrics could equally well be about sex.

@cakedays

As for "Summer of 69" I honestly don't think it's about oral sex! Isn't it just about the end of the 60s? The "summer of 69" is a byword in US culture for the year of Woodstock, the end of the ideal of 60s culture and all that, before the 70s, Nixon, etc. all set in.

I always assumed it's a nostalgic fantasy of the late 80s for that end of the counterculture moment just before the American 1970s arrived. Springsteen used to write similar kinds of lyrics.

But he was only 9 in 1969!

@SpringtimeSummertime

Not to mention that awful film where John Cleese plays a headteacher who runs around with a 6th former... What’s it called.

Clockwise, I think.

@legosnowqueen

Not so long ago - I can remember 'respectable' radio DJs counting down until Charlotte Church would be 16 & therefore legal...remember cringing at this...

I remember the same thing with the Olsen twins! So gross. They’re my age and it really grossed me out that adult men were acting like this when I certainly didn’t feel like I wanted adult male attention and if they were looking at the Olsen twins like that maybe they were looking at me like that too. Really made me feel gross.

I'm really sorry to break up the party but I feel I have to reiterate what Whitchurch said a few pages ago now. Art - including pop music lyrics - is not just a verbatim repetition of an individuals story - it is a fantasy. The Beatles never really lived in a Yellow Submarine and Bryan Adams wasn't a young adult male in 1969. He was writing a song that touched all the classic American tropes around rock and roll and young love. I get that times have changed but I'm absolutely staggered that so many people seem to think that 70's and 80's culture was so warped. Individual crimes by sleazy bus drivers and teachers was yes probably more prevalent as it hadn't been (rightly) criminalised but not every piece of popular culture had a cynical subtext.

@Standrewsschool

Is it Seven Brides or another musical whereby a trader sells/auctions his wife?

Are you thinking of "The Mayor of Casterbridge" by Thomas Hardy?

Seven Brides is where they kidnap the seven girls and end up marrying them isn't it?

@SirVixofVixHall

Why was Bill Wyman not prosecuted for that ? The revolting comment “she was a woman at 13” No she wasn’t Bill, she was a child. I have a DD this age, she has just turned 14. She is still sleeping with teddies, has a lot of growing to do, she is in no way “a woman” . My 16 year old isn’t “a woman” either. I remember their wedding, she was 18 and he was in his fifties. Mandy all frills, huge eyes and masses of rollered blonde hair, next to this ageing man who looked like her Dad. She reminded me of a doll I’d had when I was little, Mary Quant Daisy. She looked so fragile, the whole thing really horrible to witness.

After reading your above post, I typed "Mandy Smith Bill Wyman" into YouTube And got the TV news report of the wedding. They show Wyman at the reception saying "We've had some trouble along the way but everything's fine now" to the large assembly of adoring guests. Then there are quotes from the guests. "He's done very well for himself", "I hope he'll be very happy" etc. All the time, Mandy Smith is in the background. . .like an object.

A totally mainstream news report. Having said that, a lot of people felt that was wrong at the time too, totally creepy and inappropriate.

In her Wikipedia entry she is described as "having had a romantic relationship" with Bill Wyman from when she was 13.

If you can bear to click on a Daily Mail link, this is quite interesting reading about how Bill Wyman groomed Mandy Smith, ingratiating himself with her mother who was unwell at the time and seemed to see him as a potential protector for her daughters

It's weird given that Graham Chapman was gay and the other Pythons all knew.

Maybe it was some kind of in-joke and their idea of satire. They did have a lot of sketches that were, presumably, meant to be intellectual (or just their group's) in-jokes that, if we're honest, were only actually considered funny because it was Python and we were told that 'Python is funny'.

They also had a sketch about an architect designing high-rise flats for less privileged people in the community and the 'joke' was that the architect naturally assumed his brief was to find a way of killing off the 'undesirable' people who would be housed there - building catching fire, flooding, basement full of starving crocodiles etc - rather than providing them with a safe (if not luxurious) place to live. The 'joke' was that he was incredulous to learn that the plan wasn't automatically to murder poorer folk. Hilarious, I'm sure - especially nowadays, in the light of the Grenfell tragedy.

My first 2 bosses! Now I would be horrified but taking the 21 year old to the pub, plying with drinks then hugging? Trying to kiss? Inviting back to theirs? So wrong and it happened in 2 different jobs when I was a temp. All the managers and it staff were make, all the juniors were female and at least half were sleeping with bosses or it

Married bosses I though add behind their wives backs who were out in the country like good wives

@Maggiesfarm

That was in 1986!

Michael Barrymore. There's a clip of him going around Twitter today, singing with a bunch of schoolkids and going to some really dodgy, racist places. And that clip of him looking up Susan Boyles skirt

I was never a fan of him when he was an ITV big name but as a 16/17 year old was more interested in going out with my mates so wasn't his target audience. I don't remember noticing anything particularly uncomfortable about him. My parents loved him and thought he just a bit cheeky.