Baby, It's OLD Outside

As predictable as a red Starbucks cup groundhogging its way into a collective yearly pants shitting, so, too, has popped up the annual argument over Baby, It's Cold Outside.

Only this year, in the shadow of the Me Too hashtag, the song is now actively being banned in places.

As I have received many an email asking for my view on this controversy, I decided to weigh in and say upfront, I do not have a problem with the original version of the song.

But I do see both sides.

Hear me out.

Baby, It's Cold Outside was written back in 1944 by songwriter Frank Loesser.  He wrote it as a ditty he and his wife could sing at parties.  A light, flirtatious crowd pleaser - no harm, no party foul intended.  In fact, for a full year it was their ticket to all the parties.

He sold it to MGM, which in turn used it in the movie Neptune's Daughter - sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban (Yes, of Fantasy Island, rich Corinthian leather, and KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN fame.) and then role reversed and sung later in the movie by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett.  Watch. 

Playful, not scary.  And frankly, when the tables are turned and a woman is singing the "host" role, guffaws galore. 

Context and intent is everything.  The song was written to be fun, a little funny, yes, a bit risque.  (People did actively flirt, make out, and go all the way back then.)  And it included axioms of the time like "What's in this drink?"  No, it did not mean a roofie.  It also was built around the societal conventions surrounding a woman and any level of lust being instantly reciprocated.  (It's actually ultimately empowering for the woman in the song, who holds her own, makes her decision, and stays - which she wanted to do all along.) Think it's not of the time it was written?  Think again.  Or at least tell me when the last time you used a descriptor like "maiden aunt's" or asked for a "comb" for your hair.

Seen through the year in which it was scripted and sung, the song is simply what it was intended. (For the record, Loesser's wife adored singing it so much that when he announced he had sold it to MGM she is on the record as saying, "I felt as betrayed as if I'd caught him in bed with another woman.")

Fast forward through the decades and myriad covers by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Pearl Bailey to Dean Martin to Tom Jones to Lady Antebellum to Lady Gaga, my personal disdain for it is rooted in how many times it gets redone - at least 61 times so far.  And if you looked at the list of artists, there are some very progressive, thoughtful folk who have stepped up to the mic and given it a go.  I promise you, Lady Gaga is not championing date rape.

But now, let's flip the coin to the controversy that it stirs today.

We now live in a time when the hazards long felt by women are no longer being ignored.  "What's in this drink?" is a real question. And being pressured/molested/raped by men is being met with public outcry, firings, loss of careers.  #MeToo is a powerful hashtag, one that I have joined and used as I came forward with my own past of being raped.

I am intensely sensitive to the gauntlet my daughters run, hell, I still run when simply walking down a street.  Culley and I encountered this less than a week ago while shopping downtown Seattle.  Leers, voices, catcalls that culminated with two very loud men commenting on my leather jacket and my booty.  Always aware at how quickly those "compliments" turn into naked aggression when not acknowledged, without missing a step, I twirled, pointed directly at them, tilted my head, completed my circle and kept walking.  As with most bullies, they had zero idea what to do after being acknowledged, and they shut up.  We walked faster.

So I get  it.  I promise.

I also get why Baby, It's Cold Outside, when heard only through the filter of where we are as a society today, is skeevy to so many.  (I loved Friends and Sex & The City - laughed my ass off in their original runs - but now personally find the tonedeafness of how they treated subjects like LGBT issues, etc to be way offputting and I fast forward to the next episode.) 

Yes, if the song were written today, with every NOW connotation, it would deserve the shunning for blatant insensitivity.  But to hear it only through the filter of NOW?  That is selective, and that imbues it with offense that was never written in or intended.

And quite frankly, selective outrage tends to highlight a certain hypocrisy.  If this is BAD, where are the marches, the hashtags, the umbrage against <insert almost any rap song>?

The answer here is actually really simple.  If the song, any song, is triggering, offensive to you, rubs you the wrong way - don't listen to it.  But I would also caution against giving something more power than it deserves.

Baby, It's Cold Outside is OLD outside, inside, all sides.  But what it was never intended by its writer, and the writer's wife was to be an anthem about rape.

Now, excuse me while I enjoy my latte out of this RED, flamey, controversy laden Starbucks holiday cup, because I live in Colorado, and baby, it IS cold outside.

Comments

[Nikki in nyc]

I always loved this song because it was written as a piece of flirty, fluffy, slightly naughty fun. My favorite version is by Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton. I think we have reached a point where everything causes outrage. We are losing our sense of proportion, and common sense as well.