Review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) by Chads. — 16 Jul 2009

And now they're old enough to be taught about the birds and the bees. Wizards, witches: they grow up so fast these days, or rather, child actors, some of whom, like the three principal leads in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", are lucky enough to remain relevant on the other side of puberty.

In the process, however, their sexual maturity can be an uncomfortable experience for some. One-time child actress Alyssa Milano, for example, just twelve when she played Samantha Micelli on the defunct ABC sitcom "Who's the Boss", could have been a daughter you'd be proud to call your own.

Next thing you know, she's doing things in Anne Goursaud's "Embrace of the Vampire" that turns you on, but wait a minute, weren't we vicariously experiencing fatherhood through Tony Danza's eyes not so way back? All of nine years when she starred in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", Bonnie Wright(playing Ron Weasley's little sister Ginny), ends up in a unexpectedly suggestive position with Daniel Radcliffe(just twelve in the 2001 Chris Columbus-directed film), which began as an innocent offer to tie the wizard's shoes.

You can be like the Michael Rappaport character in Ted Demme's "Beautiful Girls", who says about the beautiful, young Marty(Natalie Portman), "If she can cut her own food, she's fair game," but such objectification borders on the amoral.

In "Beautiful Girls", Willie Conway(Timothy Hutton) tells a friend, "I was jealous of a little kid on a bike, because he gets to be her age, and I'm this vile old man," but since his relationship with the girl remains platonic, the male viewer never gets to be that "vile old man", diegetically speaking.

But in "The Half-Blood Prince", Wright is indeed subjected to the male gaze, and for added kink, her image is mastered through a virginal wizard's bespectacled eyes.