Post by Don on Dec 23, 2016 8:21:36 GMT -5
So apparently this has been a thing for a few years, and I've missed it completely.
So now there's even a remake with modern, consensual lyrics. But there's a lot of historical context worth noting. (bolding mine)
The bolded is the was I've always interpreted this song, because I understood the historical context. I think the revisionists have done the song, and society, a great disservice rewriting it as a consent song. If it is to be rewritten at all, it should be rewritten as a celebration of women's sexual agency, because that was clearly the intent of the original song.
OTOH, I think that "A Guy is A Guy," a Doris Day standard, is downright stalkerish and celebratory of victimhood, but I've never heard a word about it. Lyrics at the link, but it's the story of a girl who falls for a stranger/stalker who pursues her to her door, kisses her without her consent, and next thing you know she's marrying the asshole. And she dismisses his behavior because, after all, "a guy is a guy," so apparently he's incapable of controlling his urges. W.T.F.?
Perhaps if I knew the historical context of that particular song, I would find that it, too, is a song of female empowerment. But I somehow doubt it.
So the real questions in all of this. Do current sensibilities over-ride historical context? Do we need to go all 1984 on culture? Perhaps more importantly, what will be left of history if we do?
Frank Loesser’s 1944 “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” has been a beloved Christmas-song staple for decades, covered by legendary pairings from Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting in 1949 to Idina Menzel and Michael Bublé in 2014.
When you first hear it, the song seems like a cute, flirty call-and-response duet between a man and his lady friend who are debating whether she should stay the night. On the one hand, what would her parents or the neighbors think? On the other hand, it’s just so cold outside. The ending is ambiguous, but it’s implied that she decides to stay after all, keeping them both warm on a cold winter’s night.
But when you listen closer, the song’s lyrics also seem, well ... a little rapey. The guy ignores his date’s protests and badgers her to stay, which feels a lot like sexual coercion. At one point the woman asks, “Say, what’s in this drink?” — which is pretty alarming to a modern audience that understands how roofies work. The original score even lists the man’s part as “Wolf” and the woman’s part as “Mouse,” making the predator/prey dynamic creepily explicit.
When you first hear it, the song seems like a cute, flirty call-and-response duet between a man and his lady friend who are debating whether she should stay the night. On the one hand, what would her parents or the neighbors think? On the other hand, it’s just so cold outside. The ending is ambiguous, but it’s implied that she decides to stay after all, keeping them both warm on a cold winter’s night.
But when you listen closer, the song’s lyrics also seem, well ... a little rapey. The guy ignores his date’s protests and badgers her to stay, which feels a lot like sexual coercion. At one point the woman asks, “Say, what’s in this drink?” — which is pretty alarming to a modern audience that understands how roofies work. The original score even lists the man’s part as “Wolf” and the woman’s part as “Mouse,” making the predator/prey dynamic creepily explicit.
In the “romantic” reading, the woman really does want to stay but feels socially pressured to leave. It’s 1944, after all, and it’s scandalous for an unmarried woman to spend the night with a man. But since it’s obvious to her date that she really does want to stay, he feels no compunction about pressuring her — and she’s also more than happy to be given an excuse to do what she wants to do anyway.
Besides, the “romantic” reading argues, Loesser used to perform the song with his wife at parties as entertainment; it’s clearly meant to be a cute story about romance, and we’re doing the song a disservice if we divorce it from its historical context. If you think about it, the song could even be read as a feminist anthem — a subversive celebration of women’s sexual agency in a repressive time.
The “rapey” reading, on the other hand, finds the events of the song troubling given our modern understanding of how sexual consent and sexual assault work. Regardless of what Loesser intended, it’s a lousy model for romance that normalizes sexual coercion and date rape.
Besides, the “romantic” reading argues, Loesser used to perform the song with his wife at parties as entertainment; it’s clearly meant to be a cute story about romance, and we’re doing the song a disservice if we divorce it from its historical context. If you think about it, the song could even be read as a feminist anthem — a subversive celebration of women’s sexual agency in a repressive time.
The “rapey” reading, on the other hand, finds the events of the song troubling given our modern understanding of how sexual consent and sexual assault work. Regardless of what Loesser intended, it’s a lousy model for romance that normalizes sexual coercion and date rape.
OTOH, I think that "A Guy is A Guy," a Doris Day standard, is downright stalkerish and celebratory of victimhood, but I've never heard a word about it. Lyrics at the link, but it's the story of a girl who falls for a stranger/stalker who pursues her to her door, kisses her without her consent, and next thing you know she's marrying the asshole. And she dismisses his behavior because, after all, "a guy is a guy," so apparently he's incapable of controlling his urges. W.T.F.?
Perhaps if I knew the historical context of that particular song, I would find that it, too, is a song of female empowerment. But I somehow doubt it.
So the real questions in all of this. Do current sensibilities over-ride historical context? Do we need to go all 1984 on culture? Perhaps more importantly, what will be left of history if we do?
