"Baby It's Cold Outside" -- Holiday Song? Rapey?

what're those New Puritan membership dues?

Now I want a Neil Young Trans-era Baby It's Cold Outside.

https://images.eil.com/large_image/NEIL_YOUNG_TRANS%2B-%2BQUIEX%2BII-77882.jpg

This is happening: https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/canadian-radio-stations-baby-it-s-cold-outside-1.4931867

I'm cool with this being a poll/discussion on a message board; less so with this kind of action. I just don't see how anyone who argues strongly on one side or the other of this issue is going to come out looking good.

I don't think I have ever heard this song

I don't know if the point is raised on this long thread; but I think it's interesting that in the original movie, Neptune's Daughter, the song is performed twice -- first, by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán (with the familiar dynamic); and then again later, in a "role-reversal" twist, in which Betty Garrett is trying to convince Red Skelton to let her stay. Both versions are in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFJ7ie_yGU

I hated this song before it wasn't okay to hate it. Except my hatred is real, because I literally don't care if he's going to take advantage of her. I just fucking hate this heinous piece of aural dreck.

I don't think I have ever heard this song

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, December 4, 2018 2:25 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i always think this, but i have, it’s just incredibly unmemorable

It's also interesting (to me) that the song was recorded & released eight times in 1949 alone (the year the film came out), producing multiple hit records; including by heavy hitters like Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby,_It%27s_Cold_Outside#1949_recordings

That's what I miss about old pop music: the covers of contemporary songs. Don't like the Beatles version of 'Hey Jude'? More of an r+b fan?

I got you.

I'm being deadly seriously when I say that I'd love to hear Julia Holter's take on something like, I don't know. . . 'Call Me Maybe'. I guess publishing isn't what it used to be, in this regard.

I only ever became conscious of this songs existence via hearing the Wes Montgomery & Jimmy Smith version on a Wes Montgomery compilation in 2006. It just coincidentally happened to be around Christmas time.

How do you avoid this song? I hear it all the time in public this time of year.

Sorry, I'm finding the Wikipedia entry fascinating:

During the 1940s, when Hollywood celebrities attended parties, they were expected to perform. In 1944, Frank Loesser wrote "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for his wife, Lynn Garland, and himself to sing at a housewarming party in New York City at the Navarro Hotel. They sang the song to indicate to guests that it was time to leave. Loesser often introduced himself as the "evil of two Loessers" because of the role he played in the song.

Garland wrote that after the first performance, "We become instant parlor room stars. We got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of 'Baby.' It was our ticket to caviar and truffles. Parties were built around our being the closing act." In 1948, after years of performing the song, Loesser sold it to MGM for the 1949 romantic comedy Neptune's Daughter. Garland was furious, and wrote, "I felt as betrayed as if I'd caught him in bed with another woman."

I mean I hear it more often now, but it's one of those standards that would have flown by if I was not paying attention.

It's like how it was only a few years ago I was made aware of the Christmas song "Marshmallow World".

xp They actually did divorce! (though not until 1957)

Loesser also wrote, among other things, the songs from Guys and Dolls ("Luck Be a Lady Tonight," "A Bushel and a Peck," etc.).

I likely would've never known this song if it wasnt for the creepy shower scene from elf

I just don't see how anyone who argues strongly on one side or the other of this issue is going to come out looking good.

A conundrum that could've so easily been avoided if people had only realized the whole time that there's nothing remotely holiday-ish about this song.

xp. I've heard it twice in public thus far this "holiday season"

I just don't see how anyone who argues strongly on one side or the other of this issue is going to come out looking good.

A conundrum that could've so easily been avoided if people had only realized the whole time that there's nothing remotely holiday-ish about this song.

― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Tuesday, December 4, 2018 2:43 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a weird horse to flog. jingle bells has nothing to do with christmas but here we are

One side won’t look good bc they’re denying obvious reality and the other bc in 2018 an argument that something isn’t rapey will always be suspect as general rape apologetics.

Another example of a "holiday standard" that has nothing to do w/Xmas, just wintry timez -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Got_My_Love_to_Keep_Me_Warm

i quite like Jen Kirkman’s thread on this from the other day - which basically reinforces kate78’s post wayyyyy upthread that this song is a foreplay song
(kirkman links to the Persephone piece too)

I’m so tired of this. The song seems odd now not cuz it’s about coercing sex but about a woman who knows her reputation is ruined if she stays. “Say what’s in this drink” is an old movie line from the 30’s that means “I’m telling the truth.” She wanted to get down and stay over. https://t.co/3TaQbUSoB1

— JEN KIRKMAN (@JenKirkman) December 1, 2018

Song may not be rapey, but it's nonetheless an example of that old highly gender-specific trope, whereby man tries to persuade woman to do something she has doubts about, for whatever reasons. The reasons here obviously sound very old fashioned to our ears, but it's still a case of a no could mean a yes if only I can talk her round.

It's probably the Loesser of two evils, anyway

I was in two minds, until GMB played th song from the film, what Piers called "a nice happy Christmas movie".

Basically, bloke invades woman's personal space, chases her around the room only slightly slower than Benny Hill, shuts curtains, crams next to her on a seat she sits on, etc. All this after she's already said "The Answer Is No".

The staging/performance in the movie is (surprisingly) mediocre... even the sets are cheap. This was clearly not a top-shelf MGM production.

That said, the song predated the movie and became popular thanks to dozens of recordings afterward (as discussed above); the movie is by no means the “original/definitive” interpretation. No one knows the film, anyway.

Have come around to think the song is def not rapey, but I think the same cultural context that made the song not rapey (women having to coyly put up a front of not wanting to be "easy") provided cover for a lot of actual rape, so it's good we've moved beyond that.

i continue to take more issue with the word "rapey"

I apologize for using it. I would not object to a mod replacing it with something more appropriate.

“Say what’s in this drink” is an old movie line from the 30’s that means “I’m telling the truth.”

I'd still be curious to hear some backup for this.

I apologize for using it. I would not object to a mod replacing it with something more appropriate.

― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.), Wednesday, December 5, 2018 9:40 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was 2013, it was all anybody was saying about "blurred lines" too. i take more issue with it being used now

or maybe i don't actually care lol, god this song is so boring

Key line — “put some records on while I pour”

swap "rapey" for "engenders a feeling of warm nostalgia for a time when the notion consent was a cutesy little joke"

I'd still be curious to hear some backup for this.

Yeah, I've seen this asserted a few times, without seeing examples of it. Even otherwise, though, I think it's a real stretch to read "what's in this drink?' as implying "her drink was secretly spiked with drugs".

googling "what's in this drink" brought this up first thing: https://medium.com/@jeffreydenny77/say-whats-in-this-drink-9d720f79918b

Doesn't actually clear up the '30s origin story claim, but does slice up the positions the song draws people into circa now.

For the politically woke, the song represents classic white Western patriarchal, phallocratic Weinstein-style sexual dominance and coercion, so the song should be abolished immediately from playlists lest our children grow up gender-insensitive and un-woke like we did.

For the politically tone deaf, the Weinstein Defense suffices; “all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.” The guy in the song was just innocently cajoling a gal he liked to possibly achieve sexual congress, just as our fathers did with our mothers to spawn us.

For the politically advanced, the song represents “an anthem for progressive women… and even [a] subversive message about woman’s sexuality in its own time,” a Washington Post guest columnist, a Georgetown University graduate student, explained in 2014. Even if the woman in the song wanted to stay, she worried about slut-shaming by family and neighbors. “In this light, the song could be read as an advocacy for women’s sexual liberation rather than a tune about date rape,” the columnist noted.

To the politically regressive, the oversensitive safe-space snowflakes and PC Police are overreacting deliciously as usual. Noting that Loesser wrote the song to perform with Lynn Garland, his wife and musical partner, at parties, a Daily Caller writer argued, “It was written in an era when seduction was not synonymous with sexual assault, you didn’t need to sign a consent form to hold a girl’s hand, and men weren’t assumed to be vicious predators. In fact, the only vicious one in this song is the woman’s aunt.”

Doesn't the "say, what's in this drink" trope relate more to blurting out something that's probably truthful but you wouldn't ordinarily say in that situation?

But that interpretation doesn't fit in the context of the preceding lines

Interesting. I completely believed that "what's in this drink?" meant something innocuous: if not the meaning given earlier, either something to the effect of "my, you're really sweeping me away" or just "oh, this is a nice drink; what's in it?". However, in both versions of the song in the Neptune's Daughter clips upthread, the 'mouse' does sing the line while reacting as if there is something funny in the drink and putting the drink aside.

god this song is so boring

no, horror films are boring

This song is a horror film.

maybe everybody could just chill about policing the cultural remnants of bygone decades in cases when no one's being hurt

it would free up a lot of time

“say what’s in this drink?”
http://persephonemagazine.com/2010/12/listening-while-feminist-in-defense-of-baby-its-cold-outside/

So let’s talk about that drink. I’ve discussed solely looking at the lyrics of the song and its internal universe so far, but I think that the line “Say, what’s in this drink” needs to be explained in a broader context to refute the idea that he spiked her drink. “Say, what’s in this drink” is a well-used phrase that was common in movies of the time period and isn’t really used in the same manner any longer. The phrase generally referred to someone saying or doing something they thought they wouldn’t in normal circumstances; it’s a nod to the idea that alcohol is “making” them do something unusual. But the joke is almost always that there is nothing in the drink. The drink is the excuse. The drink is the shield someone gets to hold up in front of them to protect from criticism. And it’s not just used in these sort of romantic situations. I’ve heard it in many investigation type scenes where the stoolpigeon character is giving up bits of information they’re supposed to be protecting, in screwball comedies where someone is making a fool of themselves, and, yes, in romantic movies where someone is experiencing feelings they are not supposed to have.

the movie is by no means the “original/definitive” interpretation

Here's a version by Frank Loesser and Lynn though (direct mp3 link)

no, horror films are boring

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, December 5, 2018 1:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

take it to ile

VG, that explanation has been posted here a couple of times, including that same article, I think. I and jmm are interested in actual examples of the line being used that way in films of that time (or other sources). I'm not convinced that the scenes from Neptune's Daughter do show the line working in that way.

I'm not in favour of banning the song at all, tbc.

maybe everybody could just chill about policing the cultural remnants of bygone decades in cases when no one's being hurt

it would free up a lot of time

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, December 5, 2018 3:07 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otfm

I'm being deadly seriously when I say that I'd love to hear Julia Holter's take on something like, I don't know. . . 'Call Me Maybe'.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 21:42 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Now here's the real horror

I'm not in favour of banning the song at all, tbc.

I'm not either. I don't appreciate it as a holiday song, but whatever. I try to only listen to church crap during the month if I can manage.

When they came for "Baby, It's Cold Outside", I grimaced. When they came for "Wives and Lovers", I whimpered. When they came for "You're Sixteen", I grinned. When they came for "Seventeen", I helped them load the other Winger cds into the windowless van.

this whole thing cropping up again bugs me not because there are multiple opinions on the matter, but because of how many people have adopted the "it's sexual assault" angle not due to their own close reading, but because of the received wisdom. half the convos I've seen in the last week have boiled down to (and I apologize for bringing up Brad's least fav word)

(song plays)

"Oh, I love that song"
"Huh? don't you know it's rapey!"

and that's where the convo ends because it's treated like this thing you learned in 3rd grade. which is why I actually liked this thread lol