'Baby, It's Cold Outside,' Seen As Sexist, Frozen Out By Radio Stations

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It seems unlikely as quaaludes hadn't been invented yet.

Not to mention that in order to have it refer to that, you'd need to take that single line in isolation from the entire context of the lyrics which surround it, which is a really stupid way of analyzing something.

The context where she says no but means yes. Sure.

I actually like this song in the movie Elf.

But even so, what did he put in the drink?

The context doesn't make it Alka Seltzer.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It seems unlikely as quaaludes hadn't been invented yet.

Not to mention that in order to have it refer to that, you'd need to take that single line in isolation from the entire context of the lyrics which surround it, which is a really stupid way of analyzing something.

The context where she says no but means yes. Sure.

I actually like this song in the movie Elf.

But even so, what did he put in the drink?

The context doesn't make it Alka Seltzer.

Holy shit, dude.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So I can't even ask what he put in the drink and say it's not Alka Seltzer, even when she asks him what he put there?

I thought we try to reason things out around here.

 

[dismal]

So I can't even ask what he put in the drink and say it's not Alka Seltzer, even when she asks him what he put there?

I thought we try to reason things out around here.

Tip: There's no reason to believe he put anything in her drink.

Context: She is making half-hearted excuses throughout the song because she wants to stay.

 

[southernhybrid]

I promised myself that I'd stay away from this crazy thread, but I guess I lied to myself. There was an article in the NYTimes about the song controversy, and I just couldn't resist posting it. I obviously have poor self control.

I am delighted that the song's popularity is rising in some areas, since the controversy. All I can say is if you don't like it, don't listen to it. I've always loved this song since I first heard Betty Carter and Ray Charles do their own version, but I had no idea that it had won awards, had been satirized, was in several movies, including one where they did a second duet with the roles reversed. To me, it will always be a cute, flirty, song with some humor to it. And, btw, it was never met to be a holiday song.

There was nothing added to the drink. That "say what's in this drink" was a very popular expression back in the era the song was writing in and it didn't necessarily have anything to do with a woman asking a man if he put something to make her easy to take advantage of. It's sort of the old expression, "What have you been drinking" or the expression from my youth, "What have you been smoking". Maybe you do need to understand the history of the song to realize that it wasn't meant to be "rapey". And, I did ask my young friend what she thought. She said she didn't find the song offensive and wondered why people weren't more upset by the lyrics to many rap hits, which were often strongly misogynistic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/arts/music/baby-its-cold-outside-history-facts.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

One San Francisco station that pulled the song earlier this month, KOIT-FM, reversed course after a survey determined that most listeners wanted the song to be in rotation. And according to Billboard’s sales chart for holiday-themed digital songs, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is rising in the rankings. Three cover versions appear in the Top 50, more than any other title.

At least Mr. Shatner can rest easy. But if past years are any indication, this battle is far from over.

“It’s a shame that the actions of people like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby have left people with a bad taste in their mouths over this song,” Ms. Loesser said of her parents’ creation. “It’s lasted now for about 70 years. Pretty good for a party song, no?”

The article gives both pro and con opinions, fairly similar to what people have said here. It's obvious that none of us are going to change our minds at this point and I do wonder why with all the problems in the world and all the actual sexual assaults, we find ourselves ruminating over this 74 year old song for such a long time.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's obvious that none of us are going to change our minds at this point

That's not true. If we yell and bitch loud enough and call other people idiots for long enough, they'll eventually see reason and start to agree with us. That's how the internet works.

 

[Politesse]

The article gives both pro and con opinions, fairly similar to what people have said here. It's obvious that none of us are going to change our minds at this point and I do wonder why with all the problems in the world and all the actual sexual assaults, we find ourselves ruminating over this 74 year old song for such a long time.

If it is a sin to consider how our existing culture helps put people in dangerous positions, how do you propose combatting "actual sexual assaults"? Just arrest all the rapists, or what?

 

[Underseer]

Rebecca Watson argues that the song is not about rape, but is about slut-shaming

[YOUTUBE]Z_Yb5VA2FJE[/YOUTUBE]

Trigger Warning
Note, the above video contains the opinions of someone who is not male, which will offend certain very delicate princess snowflake conservatives and libertarians around here.

 

[RavenSky]

In my question I thought I made it clear that there was no force, threat of force, coercion, drugs, etc. All he used was persuasion. Eventually she said "yes".

That's not what this particular songs says. What song are you talking about?

 

[RavenSky]

So I can't even ask what he put in the drink and say it's not Alka Seltzer, even when she asks him what he put there?

I thought we try to reason things out around here.

Tip: There's no reason to believe he put anything in her drink.

Context: She is making half-hearted excuses throughout the song because she wants to stay.

You are the woman in the song?

 

[couch_sloth]

I see how the song can be interpreted as being rapey.
I also think there are a lot of famous songs about unrequited love, which can be viewed as stalk-y.
It just depends on what sort of negative spin you want to put on it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I see how the song can be interpreted as being rapey.
I also think there are a lot of famous songs about unrequited love, which can be viewed as stalk-y.
It just depends on what sort of negative spin you want to put on it.

But the question should never be can you put a negative spin on it, because that is always true for every song.

The question should be whether it’s justified to put this negative spin on it. In the case of this song, it is not.

 

[repoman]

This is a rapey song

 

[zorq]

Not exactly:

Your question was vague and needed clarification.

Whom? I was thinking... you, me and anyone else with the ability to form an opinion. This isn't a trick question.

Except that it is, because, once again, it becomes a question of sophistry and context. If the person viewing the film were a Grand Dragon of the KKK, for example, how would he label it and what would his arguments/approach be?

It doesn't matter what the Grand Dragon of the KKK would label it or what his arguments or approach would be. I asked you to tell me what "The better proper context" for approaching the labeling is for US, meaning EVERYONE! Including the Grand Dragon of the KKK and the president of the Mickey Mouse Club. The person doing the investigating is irrelevant to the "proper better" context from which to start the investigation! This is ridiculous. If there IS a "proper, better" context to start from it is the SAME "proper better" context for EVERYONE! The "who" of the person doing the investigation is again, irrelevant.

I did not ask who can label a film.

You did, you just did not realize that this was what you were asking. It may not have been your intention, but, again, the way you worded the question, that's what you were asking.

Again, I did not ask who can label a film. I know who can label a film. Anyone capable of forming an opinion can label a film. Maybe you don't agree with me. Maybe you think that describing art is something that only an exclusive elite or the actual creator of the art should be allowed to do. I'm not saying that everyone is GOING to label a film correctly but anyone CAN label a film and be correct.

I asked what the "proper" context was for a human, any human living today or in the future is to investigate the racism of this film.

And that phrase--"investigate the racism of this film"--once again, is vague and needs clarification in order for us to determine "proper context." Was the racism the director's/author's/producer's political stance (i.e., was the film meant to be propaganda)? Was the racism meant as social commentary (i.e., was it ironic, and therefore being used by the director to indict any in the audience who could not see a reflection of themselves in the grotesques depicted)? Is it a combination of politics and commercialism; i.e., playing on cultural stereotypes of the day in order to appeal to the racists in the audience as a marketing gimmick (i.e., give the idiots what they want and we'll laugh all the way to the bank)?

All of which requires a form of psychoanalysis of the director (or author or producer) in order to determine the proper context to "investigate the racism of this film."

Nope, none of that is necessary to detect racism. Which is, if you recall, the context of my question. We are investigating the existence of racism so that we can use the label. So when we do try to detect racism in art, we can do so without knowing about its creator. (you do that very thing a little further down in this post I'm responding to.) We especially don't need to understand the motivation (everything you listed above) for the racism to detect it. If we are already on the step of trying to understand the motive for the racism then we have already gone a step too far. The racism has already been detected and we can stop there. If the motivation is irrelevant then the mind of the creator is too. You DON'T need to psychoanalyze the creator to find the racism. The better our understanding of the context of the creator, the better we are at detecting the deliberate racism inserted by the creator, but creations often have qualities unintended by their creators.

The irony of all of this--your inability to establish even the proper context of your own question--should not be lost on you.

Sigh. No. Your continued insistence on shifting the contexts for my question is what is truly ironic. Consider for a moment how much you seem to value an author's right to establish the context for their own work. Now consider how many times you have re-interpreted my questions into questions that you THINK I should have asked but failed to do so. If you really believed that the author is the ultimate source for providing the correct context for their own work you would take my questions at face value because that is what I have asked you to do. But you don't. Instead you insist that you know of a better context for my questions and then re-frame them into that context completely ignoring the context that I have asked you to use. Your very debating tactics in this thread play into my argument that the creator of a work of art's intent is not an entirely reliable source for establishing the "best context" of a work of art.

The song, however has no similar vagaries. We know from the lyrics it is not about rape. We know from the artist's daughter it is not about rape. We know from contemporary sources that "Say, what's in this drink" was an ironic joke, not a serious question or suspicion of being drugged. We also know that the line itself is not inherently about rape the way a depiction of a white woman choosing suicide over marriage to a black man just because he is black is inherently racist (iow, no context needed in regard to the isolated content). Etc.

Yes. It's a good thing nobody in this thread has claimed the song is "about rape." So we all agree with this.

No. We don't need to know the "political intent" of an artist to form an opinion on the art and study it's implications, political or otherwise

This isn't about forming "an" opinion in a general, oh gee what the hell kind of way; it's about forming the intellectually honest or academically "true" opinion (assessment/analysis) to the intellectual best of our abilities and tools at our disposal, which is a far more difficult thing to do and why sophistry and context are key.

Any idiot can form an opinion about any fucking thing they want, which is, once again, why the clarity of the question is so important. That's what "investigate" entails after all.

If all you are doing is using the racist scenes in Birth as a springboard to discuss something else--such as "racists tropes in American cinema" or the like--then that's a different matter. But you are saying you want to "investigate the racism of this film" (and not merely "in" this film, btw, something else we need to address), which is a VERY broad topic and would necessarily require an analysis of artistic intent (and which artist's intent, no less) as well as film theory and a comparison of historical and contemporary sociology (including analysis of southern and northern audiences from both periods); etc., etc., etc.

Now apply the same thing to the line, "Say, what's in this drink" in an attempt to "investigate the condoning of rape of this song." The song does not condone rape and the line--in and of itself--is benign in both historical and contemporary contexts. End of investigation.

I never suggested the song "condones rape." But that isn't what an investigator is detecting when they describe the song as "a little bit rapey." And here we are back at the crux of our disagreement, the meaning of the word "rapey."

Things can have

Yeah, again, we're veering way off into unnecessary pedantry again.

That's not MY fault.

It most certainly is.

My question was narrow.

It demonstrably was not.

I believe I have shown that your twisted misinterpretations of my question are irrelevant to my actual question.

You seem intent on steering it out to left field despite my insistence that it has no business going there.

Horseshit. As has been abundantly demonstrated twice now, it was vague and sent us off on its own business going there.

Again. We don't have to psychoanalyze the creator to conduct an investigation and arrive at a conclusion. It doesn't matter who is doing the investigating, if there is a "proper better" context to start from we should all be starting from the same place. These are irrelevant.

To you, perhaps, but to me it is equally to slightly more weighted,

Yeah I don't know how I possibly got that impression...

No, actually, you cannot. There is only ONE correct context, which is the one established by the artist

Did you note the qualifier? Only one correct context, which is the one established by the artist and (again) "correct" in the intellectually rigorous manner noted previously. That hasn't changed. If you are the artist and you are asked in what context should someone understand your art, your response is therefore the only correct one. How could it not be?

Because even creators can be wrong about their creations. Even creators can lie about their creations. Creators aren't omniscient benevolent deities. They are human.

Again, Nazi Germany.

If only I were insisting that we all look at the creation from one arbitrary context. Then, at least, this barb you keep spitting at me might be appropriate. But I'm not. You are the one insisting that the one context you favor most is the one we must all adhere to. I might guess that you are projecting here.

THAT IS NOT MY QUESTION! Damn! Why are you so evasive?

Irony. Big fan. I am the one directly addressing everything you wrote--trying to clarify YOUR vagaries--not be evasive in the slightest.

Yeah, you did such a good job at dismantling Post #160. And what ever would I do without you here to tell me that the question I asked you is really three other questions that you are oh so happy to answer for me, but not the original question I asked?

Case in point:

I want to know if the seemingly universal standard you insist upon for evaluating art applies universally.

"Evaluating art"? You couldn't be more vague if you tried.

When you establish a "universal standard" the context is bound to be rather broad, don't you think? The phrase is only as vague as it is encompassing.

And I wasn't "evaluating art" in regard to the song, I was determining whether or not the song condones rape or is otherwise depicting a rape. That's not "evaluating art." That's evaluating accusations.

... (Sigh), and how are we going to determine if the "accusations" are accurate if we don't "evaluate the art?" Talk about pedantic nonsense.

And the "universal standard" I am applying is "sophistry and proper context." So, yes, I would say that in either instance (evaluating art or evaluating accusations) that "sophistry and proper context" should be applied and can be applied "universally."

This entire conversation has been about your standard for "proper context." Don't lose the scope.

I see how much you are struggling to avoid honestly examining your universal standard.

More horseshit. The whole point of my previous thread (and this one) and indeed every fucking thing I've posted itt is about "honestly examining" my "universal standard."

If that were true you shouldn't feel the need to completely ignore my questions and answer new ones I didn't ask.

Sophistry and proper context. Does a person's arguments hold water and what is the proper context to guide in determining that?

Either way, however, you were--and continue to be--asking about the artist's intent,

Only with respect to the proper context in which to evaluate the art.

Hey, you finally got it.

This comment was in reference to your unwanted and irrelevant detours. Despite my insistence that I did not want you to do so, you chose to dive right in to an unnecessary and superfluous psychoanalysis of Griffith. I asked you about your standard of context for evaluating a work of art with respect to an artists intent and You dive into a fucking sources-cited analysis of just how racist Griffith might have been.

But, again, "evaluate the art" as it stands alone is hopelessly vague.

Encompassing.

Iow, context is not required to determine if the content of a particular scene is racist. There is no other "label" that could be applied to a scene, for example, in which a white Southern "belle" prefers suicide over the prospect of marriage (or rape) to a black man for no other reason than he is black.

So the only way a work of art can defy the will of it's creator is if the creator flubs his creation so badly that it becomes inherently contrary to his will?

What?

Or are you conceding here that the context of the creator's intent is unnecessary for labeling a piece of art?

Jesus fucking christ. Your original question was "investigate the racism of this film."

You do understand that what a creator wants to put into their creation isn't always what they get out, right? An artist can try to make a historically accurate drama and fail by their own poor understanding of the subject they wish to portray, failures of communication, unauthorized/unexamined contributions from collaborators, or countless other reasons.

Do you seriously not understand--after my own now completely necessary unnecessarily pedantic deep dive into your quagmire--the distinction between investigating the racism "of" this film or investigating the racism "in" this film?

Iow, is Birth propaganda or artistic expression? Leni Riefenstahl's films are certainly artistic, but they are NOT artistic expressions, they are propaganda. There is a political intent--a political agenda--to them, not an artistic one (except as it serves the political one). So the distinction between investigating the political agenda "of" her films as opposed to investigating the political agenda "in" her films is entirely two different areas of exploration.

What do I mean? Throw up on the whiteboard next to her films Chaplain's brilliant The Great Dictator. He depicts the exact same political agenda "in" his film that Riefenstahl does, but the political agenda "of" his film is diametrically opposed to Riefenstahl's.

Get it now? Exactly how you word your questions make significant differences. It's not a matter of my misunderstanding anything; it's a matter of you being too vague in your choice of words and phrases.

Also, I see no reason why you are insisting that the context of specific scenes can be evaluated as "racist"

NO. The racism is inherent in the imagery.

Yes, I misspoke. I am not misunderstanding you here.

It is deliberately racist imagery,

Are you SURE about that? It is blatantly racist to our modern eyes, but that is not the same as deliberate. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that Griffith thought he was making a historically accurate dramatization. This picture was described as the first picture filmed in a mode of "Cinematic Realism." It was meant to be taken by the audience as the truth. That is likely in part because Griffith himself believed it was the truth. He was likely not trying to make his picture racist. (And to be clear here, I'm not referring to racism in the movie that it depicts, I'm talking about a racist movie) President Woodrow Wilson who was a former history professor remarked, "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true," after viewing a first printing in the white house.

But Wilson was obviously not the only contemporary critic of the film. Griffith acknowledged the accusations of racism the film received from the protesters and while he never actually apologized for the racism in Birth, some of his subsequent films were described as possibly offerings to make amends for the racism that Birth depicted and inspired. "Intolerance"(1916) and “Broken Blossoms”(1919) are two such works. Also In subsequent prints, he included a few new title cards to the beginning of the film asking the audience to not censor him. These are odd contributions from a man who you are implying "deliberately" included racism in Birth.

so in regard to isolating the imagery (removing it from the context of the film) it is inherently racist no matter what (same with Riefenstahl's and Chaplain's imagery).

I'm not confused about what you are saying here. You are looking at elements stripped of context and you can tell right away without any additional information (besides your own mental toolbox) that this element is [insert adjective here]. The thing I was wondering is why you feel so comfortable shifting the context of individual elements into a raw, context free state for evaluation, but you think the same can't be done for larger portions or the entire work.

So the context becomes a question of artist's intent (again, Riefenstahl v. Chaplain).

But we do not have the same condition in the song, which was the point. There is nothing inherently "rapey" about the line "Say, what's in this drink." Iow, if you isolate that line (taking it out of the context of the song) and ask, "is this rape?" The answer is no. Take any particular scene from Birth and isolate it and ask, "is this racist?" The answer is yes. In fact, it is racist in or out of the movie. Likewise not so with the song.

So, the question of context in the film must once again turn to whether or not such a scene was meant by the filmmaker as propaganda or artistic commentary and to answer that question one must eschew ignorance and do the research.

Which places us exactly back at sophistry, not artistic interpretation.

And as I pointed out at the beginning of this post, the motivation for including an element or quality in a work of art is unnecessary for us to detecting it. It's a step too far in the investigation. And the artist's intent is superfluous unless we wish to ask a different question. Questions like, "Is the racism in this movie deliberate, accidental, or sabotage?" "Is the racism satirical or serious?" "What inspired this racism?" But all of these questions that require understanding of the artist's intent already acknowledge the existence of the racism.

And in regard to whether or not anything in the above is comparable to taking a line of the song--such as, "Say, what's in this drink"--and applying the same analysis, is there anything inherently "a little bit rapey" about that line? No, there is not.

Be very careful on this point. Is there anything inherently "rapey" about asking someone--male or female--what's in this drink? No, there is not (and certainly not in a like manner as with the inherent racism in isolated scenes in Birth). It can be a purely benign question and even if the answer is, "Yeah, I dosed it with LSD" it could still be a welcome and purely benign condition, depending upon the disposition of the person asking.

I totally agree with this.

Then why is this continuing? That's pretty much the whole shooting match right there.

Because that goes to the crux of our disagreement (as I have mentioned) which is the meaning of the word "rapey."

But this is mostly quibbling over a metaphor.

Aka, being unnecessarily pedantic.

There are some interesting thoughts in there that you clipped out that I may want to return to so don't be surprised if they crop up again.

 

[crazyfingers]

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick that's a long post.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick that's a long post.

And pretty much just taking everything I previously argued and redirecting it back at me, for some bizarre reason.

zorq, let’s simplify, since it evidently comes down to this:

Because that goes to the crux of our disagreement (as I have mentioned) which is the meaning of the word "rapey."

What—exactly—do you mean by the word “rapey” if not “of, or relating to (i.e., implying) rape”?

 

[thebeave]

I see how the song can be interpreted as being rapey.
I also think there are a lot of famous songs about unrequited love, which can be viewed as stalk-y.
It just depends on what sort of negative spin you want to put on it.

Yep. People seem to think Every Breath You Take by The Police is a sweet love song and its often been played at weddings. Trouble is, Sting wrote it as a song about stalking, and he has been a bit appalled at how his song has been misinterpreted. Yet, the song is still played on the radio, and as far as I know, there haven't been any demands to remove it from the playlist. I guess teh feminists are busy with other problematic songs and TV shows, but I assume they'll get to it soon enough.

 

[Copernicus]

I see how the song can be interpreted as being rapey.
I also think there are a lot of famous songs about unrequited love, which can be viewed as stalk-y.
It just depends on what sort of negative spin you want to put on it.

Yep. People seem to think Every Breath You Take by The Police is a sweet love song and its often been played at weddings. Trouble is, Sting wrote it as a song about stalking, and he has been a bit appalled at how his song has been misinterpreted. Yet, the song is still played on the radio, and as far as I know, there haven't been any demands to remove it from the playlist. I guess teh feminists are busy with other problematic songs and TV shows, but I assume they'll get to it soon enough.

That's a very interesting point. A mistaken understanding of Sting's intentions leads people to perceive Every Breath You Take as some kind of vow of undying love by a man whose feelings are welcomed by the object of his love. It is fair to say that people in love are obsessed with each other, at least in the early stages of the relationship.

The context of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in Frank Loesser's mind was somewhat better telegraphed in his song. Both individuals are engaged in a kind of romantic banter. In today's context, there is so much attention to contexts in which the male's advances are not welcomed that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" comes to be seen as a narrative of a woman being intimidated into compliance by a man whose advances are not welcomed. As with Sting's song, how you interpret Loesser's song depends on the context that you imagine the words to apply to.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

A mistaken understanding of Sting's intentions leads people to perceive Every Breath You Take as some kind of vow of undying love by a man whose feelings are welcomed by the object of his love.

And another excellent example of how knowing the artist's intent helps to place the proper context of the song.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So are we just a few steps away from PETA demanding Hippopotamus for Christmas being taken off the air?