Thursday, December 20, 2018

Baby, It's Cold Outside



Like most of the ginned-up controversies of our day, the tempest in a teacup surrounding the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” can easily be laid to rest by a moment’s Google search. But since so many social movements and politically correct philosophies rely on emotional energy and selective outrage—as opposed to logic and reason—it’s likely that no amount of history or perspective will change the minds of people that are always looking for something to be offended by. Just as to a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so to the offensensitive, everything is a reason to become more so. 

But hey, to quote the song, “At least I’m gonna say that I tried…”

"Baby, It’s Cold Outside" was written in 1948 by Frank Loesser, a Tony, Oscar, and Pulitzer Prize winning songwriter, initially penned to be sung as a duet between himself and his wife, actress Lynn Garland, at a housewarming party they’d been invited to at the Navarro Hotel in NYC. At the time, it was common for Hollywood entertainers to perform at such occasions, so actors doing scenes or singers performing songs out in “civilian” life was par for the course. The couple sang the song at the end of the party, as a humorous cue to the guests to leave. A musical “Get the fuck out,” if you will. It was so well received that Loesser and Garland were then invited to perform it at other gatherings, and it became a passport to the best parties of the day, which neither Loesser nor Garland would have had the star-power to gain an invite to otherwise. In fact, a number of such soirees were engineered just for the sake of having the couple as the closing act.

When the luster wore off of this momentary appeal, Loesser sold the song to MGM studios, much to his wife's annoyance. In turn, MGM incorporated it into a romantic comedy called “Neptune’s Daughter,” where it was again a smashing success, garnering Loesser his first of five Oscar nominations, and his only win. The song is performed twice in the film, between two different couples, sung once by Betty Garrett and Red Skelton, and again by Esther Williams and Ricardo Mantalban. Interestingly, the first time it appears in the film, the part of the pursuer is sung by the female character (played by Betty Garrett), whose affection for the male character (Red Skelton) is unrequited. It makes for an interesting reversal for contemporary viewers, as the innuendo and subtext are flipped on their head, especially when viewed in light of today’s #metoo climate. 

That same sector of society that recently savaged actor Henry Cavill for expressing his wariness of flirting with women in today’s environment, are also the people who have raised the faux alarm over this song. They said that Henry should be able to tell the difference between flirting and harassment, between wooing and assault, etc. But then with no sense of irony at all, they then turn and say that this song is too "rape-y," and encourages men not to take ‘no’ for an answer. Or that the woman’s part (or Red Skelton’s, if you please) is purposefully written to make it seem like she was asking for it, so it’s her fault if she gets assaulted. As though none of us possesses the emotional intelligence to properly read the subtext of the song, or enjoy the flirtatious tension in the call and response repartee.


The song has been performed as duets and solos for almost seventy years, by such artists as Sammy Davis Jr., Bette Midler, Barry Manilow, Ray Charles, Tom Jones, Norah Jones, Michael Buble, Cee-Lo, Christina Aguilera, Willie Nelson, Colbie Callait, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant, James Taylor, and Dolly Parton. Meanwhile, the hand-wringing revisionist historians and overly-earnest intellectual luminaries of the Glitterati step right over everything from “Funky Cold Medina,” “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Get None),” “Blurred Lines,” “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” “So Much Better,” “King’s Dead,” and “Psycho,” to get to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” and so find their virtue-signaling righteous indignation. Which is a bit like eating a bucket of warm shit and then complaining that there was a hair in it, but whatever.

Remember back in the day when the religious right, the Moral Majority, and all those sweaty Televangelists like Jim and Tammy Fay Baker, Jerry Fallwell, and Jimmy Swaggart were clutching their pearls and warning us about backward-masked messages from Satan in Led Zeppelin Songs, and trying to get George Michael banned for “I Want Your Sex?” They were actually able to force George Michael to change his video so that the word 'monogamy' was written on a woman's bare back in lipstick, as a nod to their censorious prudity. Thank goodness. In the midst of all that, they introduced the Parental Advisory warning, and other ratings systems which we still see today.

But at least back then, the counter culture revolutionaries on the left had a field day, mocking them in story and song, and shrieking about it all as though the sky were falling. Well, the shoe’s on the other foot now, and the cultural Thought Police are coming at us from the other end of the political spectrum. Only now, the people that used to defend us from the intellectual tyranny of this sort of enforced Groupthink are cowering before it. Just ask Kevin Hart.

Oh well, like the man said: "Don't get upset girl, that's just how it goes. I don't love you hoes, I'm out the do'." And a Merry Whatever-Doesn’t-Offend-You to all.



EPILOGUE

Well, it's official, "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has been returned to the radio after stations—both AM and FM—in San Francisco, Cleveland, and Buffalo conducted listener polls to determine the true nature of the outcry over the song. 

In all three markets, the song received at least 77% support or higher, and the remaining 23% were split between people who took offense and the undecided. The confirmed detractors averaged on 14% in those markets, meaning that 86% of the population either likes the song or doesn't care. 

So all that outcry was generated by 14% of the population, pretty much a complete non-troversy. That sounds about right, if not a bit high. Offensensitivity is a blight on our culture, because outrage gives people a megaphone. Like a satisfied customer tells 1 person, or less, but an angry customer tells 7. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, etc. It deforms our perceptions, and I view it as a kind of propaganda. Not quite as asinine as the whole Starbucks cup farce, but in the ballpark.

If your outrage be debunked in 90 seconds on Google, please try harder.