Why The Song ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Doesn’t Apply To Modern Culture

Our generation has become so overly sensitive and is offended by everything, even the wholesome and sacred holiday that is Christmas has become attacked by the public. First, it was movies like Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, and A Christmas Story that were both receiving negative backlash from the public for being inappropriate. Now it’s time for the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to have it’s turn to be roasted on the open fire in many’s hypothetical fireplaces.

The controversy stems from the song being deemed as inappropriate because it suggests the promotion of date rape. It’s been taken off of numerous radio stations, pulled from holiday TV specials and has created a war on social media between listeners who support the song and those who don’t. People have even attacked singers who have performed it.

While I do believe some of the lyrics are slightly concerning when you truly think about it in a modern-day cultural perspective, but you have to think of the way it’s perceived as a whole. And you also need to consider the fact this song was written in the 1940’s.

People believe the song promotes date rape because the lyrics suggest the male singer is trying to stop the female singer from leaving and the female singer is constantly singing about not wanting to stay and how she should leave. It’s an easy assumption to make when you’re only thinking of particular lyrics.

In today’s society women are given more freedom and have become self sufficient and independent. We have jobs, we can be in relationships or remain single, we have other priorities. But back in the day, women didn’t have these empowering privileges like we are fortunate to have today.

There are two ways I view this song in terms of how it holds accurate to the time period it came from.

Not to sound like my grandmother, but back in the 40’s, and even until the early 70’s, the relationships between men and women were completely different. Men were gentlemen who didn’t take advantage of women; they were respectful, concerned and always aimed to protect their women in any way they could. So by having the male singer use every excuse to have his woman stay comes from more of a protective and genuine concern for her safety due to the dangerous weather conditions. Keep in mind they also didn’t have the luxuries of snow blowers, plows, heated homes or even salt in many areas, so winters were a lot more dangerous.

That’s why he keeps saying he’ll keep her warm, listen to the fire place roar, and how the storm is bad and there are no cabs to take her home. For anyone who’s ever experienced a true winter storm, you will not find someone to drive you home easily and most families will understand if you stay the night somewhere to remain safe if the roads are too bad. So imagine this going on before snow plows became a thing.

Additionally, back in the 1940’s, a social norm was that women had curfews and were not allowed to be seen with a man past a certain time. It was scandalous if a single woman stayed at another man’s house, let alone be in the same room with him. Hence why she’s so resistant to stay. She feared the consequences and the scandal from other people.

Plus back then women weren’t used to having a man take care of them because they ran most households, so she wouldn’t want to burden him with looking after a guest that could cause controversy in the neighbourhood.

What “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” does is challenge the social norms of society during the time period it was written for, not encourage date rape. If you still don’t believe me, or the thousands of other people who feel the same way about this song, listen to the line where the female says, “At least I can say that I tried.” It suggests that she really doesn’t want to leave and is only denying him to not be provocative or scandalous.

Plus she spends most of the song debating on whether to go or not. Don’t believe me on that either? “I out to say no… Well maybe just a half a drink more.” People are only focusing on listening to the male lyrics, rather than inspecting the females as well, which are more telling to the situation quite frankly.

Plus if you watch the original music video you’ll see how their body language is and how the singers react to one another. It’ll change your perception on the song completely.

I’ll admit that other pop culture phenomenons from that time period do encourage an unhealthy message in today’s standards, but this song is simply not one of them when you take the time to do your research and observe every aspect accordingly. The #MeToo movement is important and should continue to be a topic of conversation, however, this is not the right song to use as an example as it doesn’t apply to our time period appropriately.

So I’ll keep suggesting this catchy duet to my local radio stations.

Featured image via Yana Lizunkova on Unsplash

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