Sorry if this is discussed elsewhere, but search was being uncooperative.
Saw an article in the paper the other day about some folk who wrote new lyrics to the song Baby It’s Cold Outside to remove the “date-rapey” elements. Characterized the original as simply unacceptable today.
Never crossed my mind. So whaddya think?
I think such an attitude is silly. What next - Deck the Halls is about some homosexual named Donald?
Also sorry if this is better suited somewhere other than CS. I thought that since it concerned a song…
Yes, it’s been discussed here before, and I agree with those who say that the song has not aged well. I love the song, mind you, but it definitely doesn’t play as well in the 2010s as it did in the 1960s.
Here’s a funny attempt to make it a little less creepy to modern sensibilities: - YouTube
I really can’t stay
Baby, I’m fine with that I’ve got to go 'way
Baby I’m cool with that
… I wish I new how to break this spell
I don’t know what you’re talking about
… The neighbors might think
That you’re a real nice girl Say, what’s in this drink?
Pomegranate La Croix
No. It’s obviously just fun play with plausible deniability (“At least I tried…”)
She wants to nail him as much as he wants to nail her but the morals of the day prevent her from saying “Yeah, let’s screw” so they play this little game and use the weather as an excuse for her to overnight at his house.
The only problem I have with the song is that the core idea here is that a woman’s protestations don’t need to be taken seriously as they don’t actually mean them. The song itself is playful banter but it normalizes in a small way bad social behavior.
That being said, I think the reversioning that is making waves right now is terrible.
Right. How this seems to go over peoples’ heads is beyond me. It’s one of my favorites and I pray I never have the misfortune to hear whatever pussified (yep, I said it) version some idiot came up with.
Perhaps if more singers covered it (and this song seems to be the most covered Christmas song in recent years) with reversed gender roles it might again be perceived as the playful back-and-forth it once was.
FTR, I have no problem with the song as it is, but I do see how it could be taken the wrong way in certain light with a bit of squinting.
It used to be you could tell when the Christmas season was here by the Salad Shooter and Singing Santa commercials. Now it’s when the discussion of this song reappears on the Dope.
To me, it’s the line “Say, what’s in this drink?” that really opens the song to a creepy, “date-rapey” interpretation in today’s post-roofie, post-Cosby society.
The song’s harmless. It’s just trying to portray exactly what **Jophiel **says, in a sort of cheeky way, and the protestations are meant to be cheeky as well. Not in a “don’t take no for an answer” kind of way, but in a playful banter kind of way.
Today’s PC crowd make it sound like people are expected to go out on dates, go back to someone’s apartment and the following happens:
Man: “My dear, would you like to engage in coitus?”
Woman: “Why, indeed I do! Let me fellate you with great alacrity first!”
<couple shakes hands and starts taking clothes off>
as if there’s no ambiguity, or wooing/winning to be done, just clear, concise unsexy language.
A few days back I was shopping in a local non-chain grocery store that always plays Christian music over the sound system. They played Baby It’s Cold Outside. I thought it was pretty funny–like the people who play Born in the USA as a patriotic song.
Well, yes, of course the original song is supposed to be playful and coy. That’s why it’s so charming. I don’t think anyone misunderstands the intent. No one is saying “boy, they were a lot more tolerant of date rape back then!” (Maybe they were, but that’s not what’s going on in the song as has been correctly pointed out).
But, a dry reading of the lyrics today - out of the context of the time in which it was written - contains certain unintentional triggers. The “what’s in this drink” is one, but so is the man’s constant attempts to redirect the conversation from her leaving to her staying.
When I say “date-rapey” I want to emphasize that I know it’s not really a date rape song. It’s fun and charming. But if that song originally appeared in 2014 instead of 1944 (I just looked it up), it would raise a few eyebrows.
I think the “updated” version I linked to above is funny the same way that it’s funny to take profanity-laden clips from move and replace all the swear words with cheesy G-rated euphemisms. Not because there was something wrong with the original, but because the cleaned-up version is so hilariously earnest.
This song is one for the list of works of art that have changed their meaning irrevocably through time passing and events intervening, so even though it was an innocent song about flirting when it was written, it isn’t that anymore.
Another example is the Marx Brothers book burning scene, which at the time was just meant to evoke a gleeful anti-establishment attitude, but in the wake of events of only a few years later, it’s almost impossible now to not be jolted out of the comedy.
