Whilst shopping with my mom over Thanksgiving break, Baby it’s Cold Outside came on in one of the stores. I hummed along for a few moments but then remembered – damn, this song is rape culture under the mistletoe. The song is a duet; the lyrics (with the male part in parentheses) are as follows:
I really can’t stay (Baby, it’s cold outside)
I’ve got to go ‘way (Baby, it’s cold outside)
The evening has been (I’ve been hopin’ that you’d drop in)
So very nice (I’ll hold your hand, they’re just like ice)My mother will start to worry (Hey beautiful, what’s your hurry)
And father will be pacing the floor (Listen to that fireplace roar)
So really, I’d better scurry (Beautiful, please don’t hurry)
Well, maybe just a half a drink more (Put some music on while I pour)The neighbors might think (Baby, it’s bad out there)
Say, what’s in this drink (No cabs to be had out there)
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)I oughtta say no, no, no sir (You mind if I move in closer)
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (And what’s the sense in hurting my pride)
I really can’t stay (Oh baby, don’t hold out)
Oh, but it’s cold outsideI simply must go (It’s cold outside)
The answer is no (Baby, it’s cold outside)
The welcome has been (So lucky that you dropped in)
So nice and warm (Look out the window at that storm)My sister will be suspicious (Your lips look delicious)
My brother will be there at the door (I ain’t worried about you brother)
My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious (That ol’ biddy, she ain’t gonna bother me)
Well maybe just a cigarette more (You don’t need no cigarette, it’s smokin’ plenty up in here)I’ve got to get home (Baby, you’ll freeze out there)
Say, lend me a comb (It’s up to your knees out there)
You’ve really been grand (I thrill when you touch my hand)
Oh, but don’t you see (How can you do this thing to me)There’s bound to be talk tomorrow (Well, think of my lifelong sorrow)
At least there will be plenty implied (If you caught pneumonia and died)
I really can’t stay (Get over that hold out)
Oh, but baby it’s cold outside
Frank Loesser wrote the music and lyrics to this song in 1944. Did you know the female voice in the song is called “The Mouse” and the male “The Wolf?” Wholesome holiday fun!
A blogger friend of mine did a similar post not too long ago: http://kittywampus.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/baby-its-judgmental-outside/
One of her main points is that he’s actually asking for consent with lines like “mind if I move closer.” She also notes, “For the young woman, it’s cold outside, but it’s not the weather she fears; it’s the icy, judgmental reaction to girls who say yes.”
@funnyface – Yeah, I get where your friend is coming from, but she does sort of brush over when the woman says “the answer is no” and the man keeps trying. I do think it’s ambiguous as to what’s really going on (…since it’s a 2-minute pop song, that’s hard to avoid), but it’s clear that whatever consenting is going on isn’t free or enthusiastic.
It’s kind of a different song for me, because the first time I heard it, it was Miss Piggy singing it with Rudolph Nuryev (sic?) on the Muppet Show, with Miss Piggy as the aggressor.
Which does bring up a whole other bushel of issues, but until hearing the original recently, I had no idea that the roles were reversed.
yesterday I saw a thing online about the wartime origin of lots of Christmas songs.
“Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas” originally had this second line:
“for it may be your last.”
I hate hate hate that song. I’m glad I no longer work in retail hell where that shit gets piped in all day. That is all.
I guess my deal is that I can see ways in which the song could be not creepy. If it were a secure, stable, and already sexual relationship, the whole exchange could just be playful foreplay. Lord knows I’ve teasingly made my husband convince me that we should get it on.
The first time I really listened to this song was when I was cornered at a bar where they were showing the Rockefeller Center tree lighting, and Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were singing this. I don’t know why I was paying attention to the lyrics, but as the song went on, I was like “uh…did the dude slip her a roofie? Is that what that line about the drink means?”
Apparently the song was written before roofies existed, but it could be that the drink was really strong.
I’ve heard the argument that one of the things this song demonstrates is a cultural shift where women no longer have valid excuses not to stay. At the time the song was written, the fact that her “maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” and that “father will be pacing the floor” gave women something to back up their saying “no.” Today, those excuses are gone. While some people might argue that those reasons are another example of the control and scrutiny women were under, I do think there’s a certain amount of power in have those cultural mores to back up your choice (especially when the wolf isn’t letting up).
Yep, you can always just get a girl drunk and rape her. Roofies are just more efficient.
@GeekGirls: Yep, a puppet pig and a gay ballet dancer say Christmas to me. But what do I know, I’m Jewish.
The fact that the version I always hear is Dean Martin adds to the general sliminess of the song.
Yup. My friend Miles and I were listening to it a few years ago, singing along, and he stopped and said, “This is a song about date rape. This is the date rape song.” It’s scary how you can o 25 years hearing something like that before it sinks in…thought it does demonstrate what were up against when it comes to changing the culture.
Even as I was reading the lyrics, I was thinking of ways to justify it, but when you said the Wolf and Mouse thing, that pretty much ruined the song forever.
I guess it’s a good think I’m an atheist jew.
@funnyface – that’s interesting. the song was written by frank loesser – who also wrote guys & dolls – and he and his wife used to sing it at parties all the time. so, it’s possible he did see it in that context, though doubtful.
I do think that so many song lyrics are so deeply problematic that you can’t afford to drive yourself crazy thinking about all of them. Though I will never, ever be able to listen to “More Than Words.” Ever.
Ummm.. I guess but there is much much worst out there. At least in this song it is implied that the woman does want to have sex but is afraid of what people might say and finally submits to her desires. Although it is wrong that the man is trying to pressure and guilt her into it.
There are songs out right know with choruses sayings “She don’t know she’s coming home with me tonight.”
I *detest* this song. When I was younger I just thought it was nice that a man and woman were singing together. Then I got to be a teen, listened to the words, and was horrified. Now, I’m just thankful this song is rarely heard anymore, so my boys aren’t exposed to this “happy holiday song”.
@funnyface- Roofies are only the latest date rape drug, slipping someone a mickey is a time-honored tradition.
Also, I thought these boys really emphasized the creepiness in their cover version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_QoSg9HT7w
I guess you could interpret it as rapey, but honestly, it just seems like foreplay– the teasing, “persuade me, then” kind. I do think reading it as rapey is reading far too much into things.
I saw this earlier but didn’t have time to comment. Read through the lyrics, just of the woman’s part (I’m familiar with the Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Prima recording): she’s saying NO with almost every. single. line.
Sure, some of them are excuses about family, concern for her reputation, etc., but regardless, “the Wolf” persists. How is that different than Becky’s earlier post about how women use “I have a boyfriend” to escape the persistent dude-on-the-street? We agree that those guys are assweasels, no?
It’s no-means-yes, it’s pushing and pushing, it’s ignoring her clearly stated intention to leave. That’s rape culture, baby. You’re soaking in it.
@Amanda – Personally I find the continuation after the line “the answer is no” to be baldly “rapey” and I think that your underlying assumption that the singers have the sort of relationship where ignoring an explicit lack of consent counts as foreplay — i.e. a relationship where this sort of play has been discussed and is accepted by both parties — is reading quite a lot into the song.
@Amanda-
Women feeling that we need to say no even when we want to say yes, and putting men in a position where they have to push past our resistance is an adaptation to centuries of restrictive beliefs about female sexuality. It gives women plausible deniability if the news gets out and our reputations are ruined, or if the consequences to the act are more than we anticipated. We don’t have to be responsible for giving up the goods if we were persuaded by alcohol, and candlelight, and strong, handsome men whose masculine wiles overpowered us.
Frankly, compared to open, honest communication, it’s a losing game for both parties.
At office karaoke last year, two of my colleagues (one male, one female) decided to sing this song as a duet. The results were unintentionally hilarious, as they had apparently forgotten what the lyrics actually said, and they found themselves performing a bizarre date-rape scene on stage in front of the entire office. Added uncomfortable points for the fact that both are married (not to each other), the male coworker was very drunk and the female coworker’s husband was in the audience.
I seem to remember that in the Pearl Bailey version of this song she sounds like she’s going to kick his ass. Still problematic, of course, but it’s a slightly different twist.
I am perturbed by bellacoker’s assertion in that last comment, if I am reading it right (and I may not be). If a woman says no because of her fear of societal judgment, that’s still a no. It may be a no based on reasons you don’t like and she may be conflicted about it, but it doesn’t actually mean yes. The picture of women as game players who must be ‘pushed’ by men to admit to what they want, even if it’s portrayed as the patriarchy’s fault, makes me extremely uncomfortable.
It sucks, because I love love LOVE Christmas music, but I can’t support a song like this. Thankfully there are several others that are all about warm and fuzziness rather than this disgusting BS.
This song is totally rapey, but I still love it, I have no justification for that.
My dad and I usually prepare the holiday meals together, and we’re both singers so we like to duet on this one, but we acknowledge the creepiness of the lyrics.
And yes, it’s a creepy song for a father and daughter to sing, but rare is the man/woman duet that isn’t about love, so we’re inured to content.
Thank you! I’ve been saying that for years and no one seems to ever agree with me! Glad I’m not the only one who finds this song terrible, especially as a holiday song. Definitely doesn’t put me in the holiday spirit. Unless the holiday spirit is creeped out.
Wow! I never noticed that before. Not consciously anyway. I think I will now hate that song forever.
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I think the song could be seen as romantic teasing fun… If it weren’t for the “say what’s in this drink?” line. No excuse for that one. Just rapey.
I’m confused by the people saying that this has nothing to do with them because they’re Jewish and/or Atheist. It’s a terrible song, but not a Christmas song. There’s nothing in the lyrics about “mistletoe” or any other holiday decoration. For all we know, the singers are out on their Valentine’s Day date. Or maybe they’re in Australia and it’s actually July. It just gets lumped in with the “Holiday music” because it takes place in winter and for some strange reason it’s not okay to play “Winter Wonderland” or “Let it Snow” in January.
That’s a fair point, Brennan, but I’ve never seen it on a non-Christmas album, and the holiday season is when you hear it in department stores. I think I’ve seen it in movies or TV shows where the scene was winter-y, but not holiday-ish, but it’s the holiday play that have stuck with me.
@Fat Louie:
My apologies for perturbing you.
I wholeheartedly subscribe to the No means No, Yes means yes theory of enthusiastic consent, it is the model of sexual communication I employ in my own life and relationships. But, I didn’t always and because of my history I can understand why people don’t in every situation without fail. This is bad, of course, because it muddies the waters both during that encounter and in the expectations both participants have for future partners in future encounters.
On the other hand, I think it’s also problematic to place, disproportionately on the women involved, of course, the pressure of always knowing what we want and always being able to communicate it clearly and unambiguously, when that level of communication is not expected in any other situation. That doesn’t really change the dynamic of sexual relationships; the woman is still expected to play the gatekeeper, just to a gate that we’re told it is okay to open on occasion.
Does that help? I understand if it doesn’t; I just try to remember, for myself, that the world is a nuanced place and that a perfect practice is unachievable.
@Brennan – Are you Christian? Because, honestly, as a Jew, it doesn’t matter to me whether “winter holiday” songs mention Jesus or not. If they’re part of the culture of Christmas, they’re part of a culture that is not directed at me except in occasional hand-wave-y efforts to get me to buy things by sticking a Magen David on them.
@baraqiel-
I was trying to explain Hannukah cruises to some Southern Baptist acquaintances of mine. They thought that the cruises would be offensive to Christians who just wanted to go on a cruise, and I was like Yes, just like going to the mall between Halloween and New Years is offensive (offensive in the sense of offending sensibilities, not persecuting) to everyone who is not a Christian. They were not swayed by my logic, which I thought was impeccable.
My pet peeve is stores that sell “Holiday” stuff and when you get to their “Holiday” section the only holiday represented in Christmas. It really pisses me off when stores try to be progressive by using inclusive language, but can’t actually be bothered to be, you know, inclusive.
@bellacoker – On that note, this site is *hilarious*. http://standforchristmas.com/ It’s full of ratings of how “CHRIST-mas friendly” stores are. Points off for saying happy holidays. Look at the GAP ratings especially.
@ baraquiel
I am a Christian. I understand that the song and the traditions surronding it are offensive to you because of cultural exclusion. I was trying to communicate that they are also offensive to me because of cultural appropriation. We have twinkling lights and carols playing in the mall beginning in October not because we’re a Christian nation, but because we’re a Consumerist nation. Somewhere along the line, Christmas became big business, and that’s not good for anybody (except . . . you know, the retailers, their suppliers, the millions who invest in them, the millions more who rely on them for employment . . . you get the idea. Established cultural establishment is established).
Try to imagine a universe in which our economy had evolved to encourage everyone to spend as much money as humanly possible . . . on Yom Kippur. Picture your traditions, your cultural symbols, your faith reduced to a caricature so that Victoria’s Secret can make a thirty second commercial for Sexy Yom Kippur Lingerie. That’s the universe I live in from Halloween through New Years.
That’s one of the reasons the “just-say-merry-christmas” crowd makes me want to bang my head against a wall. On the one hand, they can be a source of comedy gold (try mentioning to them that most of the symbols they’re trying to protect were originally appropriated from germanic religions. Sputtering will commence.) On the other, I don’t need Bill O’Reilly to defend *my* Christmas, thanks all the same. The “culture of Christmas” has become so warped that people (Christians included) tend to forget that they’re talking about a holy day of a major religion. When that happens we get . . . “Christmas Albums” where Jessica Simpson sings a song about date rape followed immediately by “Oh Holy Night.” Christmas has become associated with so many cultural establishments that have nothing to do with the original celebration, and yes, Christians are largely to blame for this, but if I can avoid any peripheral association with this song by imagining it’s July in the Outback I absolutely will.
@bellacoker & baraqiel: I’m totally fine with all the Christmas crappity-crap in stores being solely Christmas crappity crap. It’s bad enough that Christians have had their holidays co-opted by Big Retail, as Brennan rightly points out. I have no desire for my own religion to be similarly commercialized. It’s bad enough that a minor festival like Hannukkah has been elevated and exaggerated out of some misguided sense of “inclusiveness” merely because it falls around the same time as Christmas.
@Brennan – It’s not that Christmas carols are offensive to me a priori, or even that their being played in public space is necessarily offensive to me. But I am bothered by your contradiction of the idea that because I’m Jewish, songs that are essentially Christmas songs regardless of their mentioning Jesus or not have nothing to do with me. Look, dude, unless they were written by Irving Berlin, *they have nothing to do with me*. It’s not my culture, I don’t participate in it, it doesn’t reference me, and I don’t appreciate you trying to convince me that it does. You can imagine whatever you want about those songs, the fact is that they’re Christmas carols and given all the shit Jews and other non-Christians have to put up with around this time of year, at least leave us the ability to opt the fuck out.
I mean, I sympathize with your holiday being capitalized out the ass, but that is absolutely the responsibility of Christians. You guys have to police yourselves and if you don’t like the way that your fellow Christians are celebrating your holiday, you should take it up with them and not with the non-Christians that have nothing to do with it.
@Becky – For serious. As far as I’m concerned, businesses can and should be as Christmas-y as they want and the government should basically ignore it.
@Becky-
Oh, yeah. I absolutely don’t want to see increased production in Chinese dreidels, et al., I am even only mildly annoyed with kids in school writing letters to Santa and stuff. What really pisses me off is how corporations hedge their bets with their customers who belong to minority religions by saying Happy Holidays, but don’t really consider what they could offer that would make my life easier. Which is to say, I would really like brisket to go on sale.
It’s funny someone mentions playing this song in July in Australia, cause that’s exactly the connotation I have with this song. This song has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas for me, because where I’m from, Christmas is beach parties, barbecues and summer salads. This song is usually played in the middle of winter, as wintery as it gets here in Australia at any rate.
That said, it’s still a rapey song. I love Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Prima’s version though, cause I love listening to Ella sing. But she could sing the pattern of the imprints on a bog roll and I’d be happy, her voice is that good. Doesn’t change the fact that this song?
Utterly rapetastic.
Oh, “roofies” aren’t a new invention – they were a standard part of the 1800s scare-women-into-staying-home package, if you go work in the Big City you’ll be tricked into taking a drugged drink (drugged chocolates also popular) and sold into “White Slavery” so you’d better stay safely indoors until you’re married off – so that line in the song is meant to suggest *exactly* what it sounds like, he’s “slipped her a mickey” as they used to call giving someone drugs in a drink back in the Noir days of film and fiction. (The Straight Dope says that term goes back to 1898, btw.)
I’ve never listened to this song’s lyrics all the way through (it’s firmly in the class of “nauseating” just due to its sound for me, like Barbara Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Xmas Tree”), so I’m a little surprised that they were able to get it past the censors but I guess the plausible deniability is that the drink could just have been spiked with harder liquor.
@ baraquiel
You make a fair point. I was just trying to communicate that this song, while it has been co-opted by Christmas culture, is much more reflective of rape culture, which is fucking us all over equally. I’m sorry if my remarks came across as contentious or offensive.
@Brennan – I understand the point you’re trying to make and I think your intentions are good, but rape culture is not fucking us all over equally. It is fucking us all over, but one half of the population gets it a little bit worse, in point of fact.
But otherwise, thanks for the apology.
@baraquiel-Bad choice of words (again) on my part. I happen to belong to the half of the population that “gets it a little bit worse,” which is part of the reason I back away as quickly as possible from this particular song.
@Brennan – No worries, being careful about language is one of my big things.
Word, BeckyS and baraqiel. It makes me cringe in embarrassment when I see those fools with the giant menorahs on their cars driving around the neighborhood. And why do we need a hanukiah every time there’s a Christmas tree? The inflation of this minor festival by the Jewish right wing baffles me. It warps the calendar and tries to compete with our Christian friends in way that is entirely selfish and provocative.
And really, do we see a lot of Christians expressing happiness about the commercialization of one of their major holidays? I thought not. Then why would we want to do the same thing to an observance that even the rabbis didn’t want to talk about? Yet again, right-wing Jew fail.
I’m a big fan of the Ray Charles, Nina Simone version of this song, and also consider myself a feminist. I have had many friends who have been raped, and yet I think that this post is taking the idea of feminist radicalism to an extreme. This song was written in 1944, as a family “pop” Christmas tune, and I do not find this post enriching or informative.
Feminist in Academia, I apologize that my post does not live up to your standards. This song was written as a family pop Christmas tune and the theme is a man coercing a woman into staying with him – presumably for sex. THAT’S THE POINT. It’s a family Christmas song with a rapey theme and most people see nothing wrong with it!
Yours,
SarahMC
Taking feminist radicalism to an extreme since 2009.
@Feminist in Academia: I do not find your comment particularly enriching or informative.
I’m a fan of this rape-y song BUT also a feminist, therefore the song can’t be rape-y!
My friends have been raped BUT I think talking about music and rape culture is too radical!
I’m no academic, but I seem to recall learning at some point in my education when you have to qualify your statements with such illogical personal protests as “Well, I’m a…but I…” or “some of my best friends are…but I…!” it’s a sign you either don’t have valid argument or don’t know how to make one.