While on the promo trail for his new fantasy film Horns, Daniel Radcliffe had a thought-provoking response to an interviewer who asked him about being an unconventional sex symbol.

"You're kind of becoming a bit of a sex symbol, which for some of your fans is kinda weird, because we've seen you grow up on screen and now here you are... How do you feel about it?," asked the interviewer from the Associated Press.

After doing the standard celebrity blush, aw shucks routine, Radcliffe delved deeper into the real reason why he's asked the question so regularly.


"Around the time of What If - the rom-com - coming out, a lot of people were saying 'You're a really unconventional romantic lead,'" he said. "Eventually, I got bored of hearing that and I kinda picked someone up on it: 'What about me is unconventional exactly? Tell me.' And she said, 'Well, it's probably the fact that we associated you with playing Harry, a young boy, for so long.' My immediate response was 'Well, the male population has had no problem sexualising Emma Watson immediately.'"

And that's where everyone went "YES". Radcliffe's answer touches on the obvious double-standard involved when viewing female and male stars: we get all screwy-faced when talking about male child stars as sex symbols, but have no problem doing the same to female stars as soon as possible (as Mic noted, SNL were already going for the joke years ago in a sketch featuring Lindsay Lohan as Hermione).

As Kat George at Bustle writes, "Daniel highlights not only how quick we are to sexualise young women, but that in questioning the same treatment of men, we’re tacitly perpetrating the notion that men’s careers are somehow more 'serious' or based in merit than women’s, and that digesting the transition from 'child' to 'sexual adult' is only awkward when it’s a dude in question."

High-five to Radcliffe for interrupting the usual promo interview nonsense to raise the issue. Insert appropriate Harry Potter spell joke here. Alohomora! Expecto Patronum! (Sorry, I really didn't read any of those books).

Source: Bustle, Mic