BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE STILL SLAPS
With numerous covers on the song, "Baby It's Cold Outside" is a song you have probably listened to or heard of. What's so special about this song, from all the controversies about its lyrical content to the many blogs?
When the winter season comes around, there is a change in mood everywhere. This is when the family spends quality time as it becomes hard to maneuver around, and the only option is to stay indoors. From television stations to radio airwaves, you can tell that it is truly winter as winter movies and songs fill the air, and there is a general wintery mood. If you are a born fan of wintery songs or love the music that plays during this time, you might be familiar with the song; "Baby It's Cold Outside".
What is the Song About
The popular version of this song is sung by Idina Menzel and Michael Buble. However, the original song was written by Frank Loesser. This song was released in eight recordings in the year 1949, but ever since, there have been several covers on this song. It's not about the recordings or the videos of this song but the message behind this song. The main theme of this song is about a man pressing a woman to stay with him, which is not viewed as so blushing to some. Another popular cover is that of John Legend, and Kelly Clarkson performed on one episode of "The Voice". He sings, stating that he is supportive of whatever decision she makes because it's her body and her choice at the end of the day. He further states that he wants her to stay, but the decision is not up to him.
The story behind the song has never been a secret, although most people encountered it when Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams performed it in a movie called 'Neptune's daughter'. In the scene, two people are sited on a couch when Esther tries to stand up, but Ricardo pulls her back down by the arm to the couch. According to Paulson (2014), "Baby Its Cold Outside" won the academy award for best song in 1950 and also became the hottest holiday season song in the later years. However, Scholar & Roth (2021) described that at some time in June 1949, Queasy NBC banned the lyrics as too racy, then later decided that the lyrics contained nothing provably passionate, and the tune was back on the air.
The Controversial Bit
In nearly all the duet's history, the most controversial was whether this song fitted as a Christmas song, considering that the lyrics don't have anything to do with the holidays. Research from the New York Library shows that "Baby Its Cold Outside" most commonly appears in the headlines about freezing temperatures and the fashions during winter and not about articles passing its lyrics, as seen in some videos. The earliest article that came out after noticing that it sounded kind of creepy was published in 2004. Of course, it is impracticable to ascertain when first listeners noticed that the back and forth sounded a bit creepy.
On December 20th, 2004, an article by Rob McKenzie and Joe Bodolai read that "Baby It’s Cold Outside has a lovely melody, but it's an ode to statutory rape. In this article, they argue that the man gets the girl drunk, evident in one of the videos amid her protests, so that he can take advantage of her. Of course, the article was to come out as a mere joke. Instead, it became a matter of political correctness, and it was demanded that all the radio stations and malls. Another blog also came out in 2005 that stated "Baby It’s Cold Outside" was about the "warm embrace of semi-consensual" date rape. Like the previous article, this was more of a joke than his opinion.
In 2006 a guy named Brad Hicks wrote a LiveJournal containing several lines that the song "amusingly rendered seduction". In the journal, he states that "how certain can she be that a guy who hasn't taken 'no' for an answer will draw the line at mere verbal persuasion?" He goes further and states that "the song title and repeated line suggests that she is in subtle danger if she says no," however, the writer still states that he likes the song as it is "very sexy" and brings about domination-submission fantasy.
In 2007 is when the controversy took off about the song. This is thanks to the emergence and popularity of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In December of that year, a video was released on a popular website. The parody video went viral for the dark humor based on the song where a creepy guy drags his terrified-looking date back to his bedroom. The virality of this video led to looking further into the lyrics of this song by feminist writers.
To most, it was concluded that the song was an appreciation Boundary-Crossing sexual coercion, although there was the occasional unexpected counterpoint. In 2010 a blogger named Slay Belle argued that the song was actually about "the desires even good girls have" and the Mouse's internal struggle over whether she should "push the bounds of acceptability" and stay for the night. As in the song, she keeps giving excuses, and her date insists that it is cold for her to go outside.
An often-quoted article written in 2016 suggested that the line "what's in the drink?" was a stock joke at the time. Some believed that the drink was laced with alcohol to make her drunk to take advantage of her. The truth is, there was nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol. These few early perspectives recently developed the debate over the rapines of “Baby It’s Cold Outside," but the articles about this controversial song have become minute over time.
Conclusion
Whether the song fits in as a holiday song to whether it promotes rape or not, "Baby Its Cold Outside" has raised buzz over recent years. Over time the controversial bit of this song has expanded even beyond the world of blogs and gone into the mainstream, but there is no real controversy to date. It doesn't seem that there will be any more controversies or blogs, for that matter, over that song as times have changed and the questions on the lyrical content of the song are no longer persistent.
References
Paulson, L. D. (2014). Grammys, and one Golden Globe. He won an Academy Award for the song “You Must Love Me," written with Tim Rice for the film adaptation of Evita. Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century, 375.
Scholar, J., & Roth, A. (2021). Book Notes# 81.