OK, to be fair, the video of 41-year-old Mariah Carey and 17-year-old Justin Bieber performing “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is, by our current cultural standards, not all that racy.
You might suggest that Carey could have accentuated her behind a little less, but let’s be fair. You could argue similarly about Vera-Ellen in some of the dance scenes from “White Christmas.”
Yet there are people upset and there’s already a backlash.
A nice lady who is a talking head on the ABC TV early, early morning news brought the whole thing to a point Thursday when she suggested that people are upset because the two singers are getting too chummy — sexually — towards the end of the music video that was highlighted on the boob tube this week in a Christmas special.
And then the nice lady talking head went too far.
No body would have a problem if the ages were reversed, she said.
She actually argued that if you had a 41-year-old male singer and a 17-year-old female singer linked, that would be fine to most people.
What?
Really?
Well, if it is it shouldn’t be.
For those of you old enough to remember, picture this — and for those of you who are not, take our word for it — picture Dean Martin and Patty Davis acting like they had a “thing” going on for a TV Christmas special in the early 1960s.
Patty Duke was 16 when she won her Oscar.
Dean Martin was one of the stunning leading men in a time when America knew a little something about sex appeal. He would have been in his early 40s in the early ‘60s.
Seriously.
Ask yourself what would have happened if you’d tried to imply something between the two of them for a Christmas special on TV.
Face it. America would not have stood for it.
That doesn’t mean that our culture was perfect then, or that it is worthless now.
It does point to a concern we ought to have about images our culture presents.
It does address the need to reel in this constant titillation that has contributed to an undertow of moral decay.
This is not an issue of gender equality.
This is an issue of public decency.
It addresses whether we want children — face it, 17 is still a child, even in our culture — to be considered sex objects or not.
Hopefully, not.
And it also addresses how we approach this holiday.
Even if you are anti-Christian, this is nevertheless supposed to be a holiday of “Good Will,” not of “Good Sex.”
— Chuck Smith