Baby It’s Cold Outside

[rlvaughn]

In our local news this morning I heard about a song that had run afoul of the #metoo movement – “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” This isn’t a song I am familiar with, so I had to look it up. Here’s a couple of links on the brouhaha.
Radio station stops playing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” after listeners voice concerns about lyrics in #MeToo era

The song was written by popular Broadway composer Frank Loesser, who originally performed it as a humorous number with his wife. But the lyrics, in today’s context, have taken on somewhat more sinister connotations.

Star 102 Abruptly Stops Playing This Christmas Song. Here’s Why

Now, I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong. The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place.

I won’t lose any sleep over the absence of this song, but wonder why it got picked on, considering all the vile and vulgar songs that are available for regular consumption in various media.

 

[InTheLight]

I won’t lose any sleep over the absence of this song, but wonder why it got picked on, considering all the vile and vulgar songs that are available for regular consumption in various media.

Yes. Now let's see the media give the same treatment to the typical rap song.

 

[carpro]

They picked on it because it's a classic.

Meanwhile, RAP and Hip Hop, and the way they demean females, are just fine.

 

[Wingman68]

 

[Benjamin]

Focus key word, “manipulative”, as if women are aren’t experts at getting the kind of attention and reactions from men when, where and how they want it. Then there are the women that claim that John Doe got out of line on their first date – and next 10 dates after that, then they later bring up he did this and that for whatever power grabbing reason that might suit them. Puts a different kind spin on “kiss and tell”.

Sure some men get out of line and just as sure some women orchestrated every response that they wanted like clockwork but you can’t prove such things, therefore men will have to be the grownups about the situation and find ways to safely bear all or most of the end result responsibilities.

Can’t imagine the song being a hit if the nature of things was avoided and the guy immediately got up and went outside – seems men will have to learn to nip women’s “hard to get game” in the bud and always consider such an action a game stopper. So much for romance…

 

[Jerome]

In our local news this morning I heard about a song that had run afoul of the #metoo movement – “Baby It’s Cold Outside”....Radio station stops playing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” after listeners voice concerns about lyrics in #MeToo era

in the #MeToo era?
Tom Chantry (prominent Reformed Baptist historian and blogger) was criticizing the song as particularly vile years ago. And he's the furthest thing from a #MeToo advocate:

chantrynotes.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/the-most-creepiest-time-of-the-year/

"There was a time when the secularized holiday music was of a more or less wholesome type....But in late 1940s, flush with the redefinition of sexuality which was already underway in postwar America, one Frank Loesser released another sort of winter song."

"'Baby It’s Cold Outside' is...sexual coercion. The song is a conversation between an obviously unmarried young woman (she’s worried about her father and mother waiting up for her at home) who finds herself in some difficulty attempting to leave a man’s apartment. He pleads the cold as a reason for her to stay, pours her a stiff drink, puts on romantic records, and begs her not to 'hold out.' Although foolish enough to be at his apartment in the first place, the victim at least has the sense to want to go home. In the end, though, she gives in, joining him in singing about the cold. The implied ending is that she remains in his embrace…and in his bed? Loesser’s original score called the man a wolf, and we know what it means when a wolf entices a young girl to remain at his place.

"I wonder if we realize just how awful it is....it is: the anthem of date-rape. The girl actually says, 'The answer is no,' at the opening of the second verse, and we all know what 'no' means! But the wolf still pursues, and in the end he gets his prey. The line “Say what’s in this drink?” takes on a particularly creepy meaning....the song must go, and frankly, every thinking Christian ought to agree. There is simply nothing redeemable in this song, even when Harry Connick Jr. sings it.

"Hollywood doesn’t just push some boundaries; it pushes them all. Remember that these are the same people who can’t understand why Roman Polanski’s rape of a thirteen-year-old girl was all that big a deal"

"we...fail to see the subversion of our values in cute Christmas videos. We need to have our eyes open – all the time"

 

[Benjamin]

Perhaps the guy in the second half of the original video should find himself a movement of his own?

Definitely looks like he needs protection from that wolfess woman trying to date rape him:

 

[InTheLight]

Perhaps the guy in the second half of the original video should find himself a movement of his own?

That's Red Skeleton.

in the #MeToo era?
Tom Chantry (prominent Reformed Baptist historian and blogger) was criticizing the song as particularly vile years ago. And he's the furthest thing from a #MeToo advocate:

"'Baby It’s Cold Outside' is...sexual coercion.

At the minimum it's about a guy wanting to spend more time with his girl. Only in someone's crazy world is it about rape.

The song is a conversation between an obviously unmarried young woman (she’s worried about her father and mother waiting up for her at home) who finds herself in some difficulty attempting to leave a man’s apartment.

That makes it sound as if the guy is physically preventing her from leaving. In reality she sings, "I wish I knew how to break this spell."

He pleads the cold as a reason for her to stay, pours her a stiff drink, puts on romantic records, and begs her not to 'hold out.'

Actually, she's already having a drink when she says, "maybe just a half drink more."

"I wonder if we realize just how awful it is....it is: the anthem of date-rape. The girl actually says, 'The answer is no,' at the opening of the second verse, and we all know what 'no' means!

No, she sings, "I ought to say no."

But the wolf still pursues, and in the end he gets his prey. The line “Say what’s in this drink?” takes on a particularly creepy meaning....

Yes, because perhaps she had been drinking rum and now there is vodka. Surely she doesn't think it is rophypnol!

 

[David Kent]

Star 102 Abruptly Stops Playing This Christmas Song. Here’s Why

I tried this and got

Error 1020 Ray ID: 484236c98d5e35a8 • 2018-12-04 23:57:12 UTC
Access denied
What happened?
This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

Cloudflare Ray ID: 484236c98d5e35a8 • Your IP: 80.43.231.52 • Performance & security by Cloudflare

What was the song?

 

[Jerome]

In his blog several years ago, Tom Chantry goes on about what set him off, was the Idina Menzel-Michael Buble music video version:

chantrynotes.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/the-most-creepiest-time-of-the-year/

"they barely appear at all in the video with which they released their version. The video instead stars Emily Carey and Harry Collett lip-synching to Menzel and Bublé....Emily and Harry are child actors....Yes, Virginia, we’ve entered the era of adorable, high-production-value music videos about date-rape starring pre-teens."

"Make no mistake; this is far too sophisticated to be about kids playing dress-up. No, the meaning is much more pointed than that. Harry’s none-too-subtle wink to his older-self in the mirror sends a clear message: 'I’m sexy, and we both know it.' I can’t get past the feeling that the entire purpose of this atrocity is to suggest that Emily and Harry are both sexually desirable. (The lyrics have been altered to make this version 'kid-friendly,' but they retained 'Gosh your lips look delicious') Neither of them has yet turned twelve."

"as I watch this as a man, I have the impression that they are trying to get me to contemplate whether the little girl is, in fact, kissable. Or perhaps they are trying to get a man of another ‘orientation’ to wish that the little boy would say that to him."

 

[JonC]

In our local news this morning I heard about a song that had run afoul of the #metoo movement – “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” This isn’t a song I am familiar with, so I had to look it up. Here’s a couple of links on the brouhaha.
Radio station stops playing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” after listeners voice concerns about lyrics in #MeToo era
Star 102 Abruptly Stops Playing This Christmas Song. Here’s Why
I won’t lose any sleep over the absence of this song, but wonder why it got picked on, considering all the vile and vulgar songs that are available for regular consumption in various media.

Yea....when I first read this I thought how stupid people were getting (I like the song...and it's on Elf).

After reading the lyrics I can see it is a bit creepy.

 

[Benjamin]

"as I watch this as a man, I have the impression that they are trying to get me to contemplate whether the little girl is, in fact, kissable. Or perhaps they are trying to get a man of another ‘orientation’ to wish that the little boy would say that to him."

This man’s imaginative mind seems to have a rather strange draw toward some creepy perverted thoughts.

 

[kyredneck]

That's Red Skeleton.

Skelton

 

[rlvaughn]

in the #MeToo era?
Tom Chantry (prominent Reformed Baptist historian and blogger) was criticizing the song as particularly vile years ago. And he's the furthest thing from a #MeToo advocate

Yes, the "#MeToo era." The news in the OP is related to that.

This man’s imaginative mind seems to have a rather strange draw toward some creepy perverted thoughts.

Pastor guilty of physically abusing kids in Arizona accused of doing same in Arlington Heights

 

[rlvaughn]

I tried this and got

Error 1020 Ray ID: 484236c98d5e35a8 • 2018-12-04 23:57:12 UTC
Access denied
What happened?
This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

Cloudflare Ray ID: 484236c98d5e35a8 • Your IP: 80.43.231.52 • Performance & security by Cloudflare

What was the song?

Not sure what is wrong. I just clicked the link and it opened alright.

The song is now linked in a couple of posts above, by Benjamin and Jerome. The lyrics can be found HERE.

 

[church mouse guy]

19% of the people dislike the song. Everyone else is fine with it or have no opinion. It is just banter and there is no indication that she does not leave after both of them agree that it's cold outside. It is romantic but that's about all. Here is the way that it was originally done by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I never saw that it had much to do with Christmas but the song dates about three fourths of a century to 1949 so it was played on the radio before there was as much Christmas music as there is now.

 

[JonC]

19% of the people dislike the song. Everyone else is fine with it or have no opinion. It is just banter and there is no indication that she does not leave after both of them agree that it's cold outside. It is romantic but that's about all. Here is the way that it was originally done by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I never saw that it had much to do with Christmas but the song dates about three fourths of a century to 1949 so it was played on the radio before there was as much Christmas music as there is now.

That's the key (not only to this topic but to just about any considering the past). If we contextualize it to today's culture it takes on another meaning than it would have in 60 years ago. But then again....today is today (and the question is not whether or not it should have been played way back then).

I like the song.

 

[church mouse guy]

That's the key (not only to this topic but to just about any considering the past). If we contextualize it to today's culture it takes on another meaning than it would have in 60 years ago. But then again....today is today (and the question is not whether or not it should have been played way back then).

I like the song.

Seventy years ago. 1949.

Honi soit qui mal y pense

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I've found that some of the metoo movement's opinions might be exaggerations, but I have to agree with the feminists about this. The song (which I had not heard of until today) does give out a vibe of sexual coercion and the video accentuates it. Also, whoever thought that remaking the video with children was a good idea should have thought twice. This is definitely not a song that children should be performing or enacting, even if they changed a few lines.

 

[church mouse guy]

I've found that some of the metoo movement's opinions might be exaggerations, but I have to agree with the feminists about this. The song (which I had not heard of until today) does give out a vibe of sexual coercion and the video accentuates it. Also, whoever thought that remaking the video with children was a good idea should have thought twice. This is definitely not a song that children should be performing or enacting, even if they changed a few lines.

The problem is that this song was done in 1949 when people didn't think that way about it. We have a radio station here in Indianapolis 105.7 that plays Christmas music 24/7 from Thanksgiving till Christmas so I have heard the song a couple of times already. The original song was done by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting, who I think was a big band singer. I don't especially like the song but I say Honi soit qui mal y pense As I remember Margaret Whiting, she was straightforward.