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Canadian radio stations are pulling "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from their holiday playlists
- Thread starter MMarston
- Start date
People are listening to the song today in today's context, nobody is thinking of those lines in the context of when they were written.
Really?
The "War on Christmas" strikes again, I guess
I always viewed the song as playful banter and I always interpreted the drink part as "how much liquor is in this, this is mad strong", not as it being drugged. Viewing stuff from modern lens without context can be dangerous. The song is from an era when people were used to leaving their front doors unlocked. I'm all for the #MeToo movement but people have to be careful to try understanding things without assuming the worst always. If the song was trying to imply negative things like rape then it should be banned for sure, but I don't see that as the case here.
Regardless of all that, the radio station is free to play whatever they want. It's their station. And this gives us one more song slot for those better Christmas songs to be played
Regardless of all that, the radio station is free to play whatever they want. It's their station. And this gives us one more song slot for those better Christmas songs to be played
Do people honestly think it's a literal song about date rape? Always thought that was just a joke because of the one line which seems like it has to be deliberately misinterpreted.
Then the focus should lie on educating people to understand the context, rather than to ban songs which were not made with any ill intent.
Too bad culture doesn't have an auto-delete for when context becomes too old.
The original ""intent"" doesn't really matter much here, and the argument isn't necessarily that the artist themself had ill will in their heart when the song was written. It's that the lyrics normalize this idea of wearing women down and rewarding sex pest-y behavior despite the lady literally saying no
Yes. And it seems if you don't agree with this, you need to get with the times. It'd be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
As people say context matters. As people with decency know, context can also change over a long time. If you need to spend a lot of time doing research about the society's behavior over 60 years ago. We can and should judge things based on the present because that is how progress is maintained.
If context never changes they would never be progress, because almost anything can be explained away as a product of it time.
If context never changes they would never be progress, because almost anything can be explained away as a product of it time.
From my experience the ones who generally bitch about ppl getting soft unironically, are generally the ones who would be screwed if they lived in that era.
When was the year the BBC banned that, and people just ripped into them until they played it again lol?
I used to think it was creepy until recently when I learned about what the song actually was about. Now I think it's a really nice and sweet song.
Sometimes we take offense to things we don't understand but that's our own fault for not educating ourself, not the piece of media.
Sometimes we take offense to things we don't understand but that's our own fault for not educating ourself, not the piece of media.
My wife and I were wondering if this song might cause some issues this year. It does come off as weird, because at face value and under the lense of today's environment you can take it a particular way. Conversely it can also be looked at as playful banter between a couple under the lense of old gender and societal expectations.
I don't blame anyone for taking it one way or another, there's no doubt many women who have been in situations like this that were not so benign.
I don't blame anyone for taking it one way or another, there's no doubt many women who have been in situations like this that were not so benign.
I never thought it was about date rape, and went to research the context of the song back in the early 2000s. I'm not a fan of it (I hate the singing over each other), but banning the song is pretty dumb. Did the CBC also ban Blurred Lines, a much worse song about the same things some people are blaming "Baby, It's Cold Outside" for?
whats next Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. oh wait https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts...res-why/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.de22f2fe6431
Lol oh God, my favorite podcast every single year rants about how much one of them hates the song, and how painful it is to listen to
It doesn't even have to be deliberate regressives, just look at all the dudes in this thread defending it like it's some kind of fucking cultural icon. It's okay for things to change, lots of men just can't get used to that idea..
It's a song with lyrics that sound creepy but really aren't given the context. Still, I can't blame folks for not immediately understanding the context and having that "wait, what?" reaction to the lyrics.
It's not some hugely important cultural tradition though so people shouldn't get bent out of shape if it gets played less.
It's not some hugely important cultural tradition though so people shouldn't get bent out of shape if it gets played less.
Fucking yikes.. never actually read the lyrics before.
The reason or thought process behind getting to a hard "no" doesn't matter. "But gender expectations".. please stop. Let's not normalize and strain to look for context that justifies these shitty lyrics. It doesn't matter who wrote them or what their outside life may have looked like.. what matters is what's in the song. And what's in the song is a guy who is trying to get laid and continuing after a hard "no".
That may have been all fine and dandy (writing a song in this context) when the song was written, and I have no ill will for the writers, but times have changed. I ain't gunna be playing it either. The whole song is a creepshow.
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Our ears have been protected from this bad influence, now back to our regular playlists about banging hoes.
This is what people tend to miss. They want to be outraged at outrage culture and argue on the internet about internet arguments, but at the end of the day there are plenty of shitty men who genuinely try to wear women down for sex. They keep pushing and pushing and offering alcohol and excuses after being told no.
65 years ago this may have been an accepted back and forth between two people "dancing the dance." Today it makes certain people feel uncomfortable and it emboldens certain men that they are not actually creeps, but that the woman is playing hard to get.
Pretending like anything is being banned, or that history is being censored when it's a song being taken out of rotation is more disingenuous that what you think you're railing against.
The context of the song for everyone familiar with the two singers paints the overall tone has something incredibly lighthearted and facetious. It's only questionable if you divorce it from any and all context and even then it's only ever questionable at absolute worst when read as cynically as possible. Calling it sexist/misogynistic is hyperbolic and reeks as one of those knee-jerk internet memes that happens to spill out into pop culture and will itself into existence.
If I were to take my face and smash it against a cement wall 80 times until I was sufficiently concussed then I could probably listen to Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and interpret it as a statement in favor of segregated weddings. Just because I have that cynical hot take doesn't mean I'm allowed to will it into existence based on cynicism and bad faith.
If I were to take my face and smash it against a cement wall 80 times until I was sufficiently concussed then I could probably listen to Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and interpret it as a statement in favor of segregated weddings. Just because I have that cynical hot take doesn't mean I'm allowed to will it into existence based on cynicism and bad faith.
lmao came here to say that regardless of nuance level the song is just not very good in the first place.
"Oh so we're banning everything now?" lmao it's culturally outdated schlock why do you care so much, listen to better music.
Oh so like when it's played on the radio out of context from the production it came from?
Not bitching per say, but does society nowadays have to erase everything possible that has a glimpse of negativity? I mean really, the world has just become a huge game about who can walk on egg shells the lightest for the longest period of time.
Nothing is being erased. You can listen to it 24/7 all year long if you want. A company is making a decision based on consumer feedback.
Came here to post this. If one reads this and still thinks that removing the song is censorship or the death of nuance, then they are either arguing in bad faith or are being a dum-dum.
Ridiculous shit like this is what gives fuel to a bunch of far right movements, who give 'average' people a way out of this PC madness.
To be fair I heard this song the other day and instantly thought I better go disrespect someone for no reason, or maybe even escalate my inappropriate and bad behaviour further.
Gotta keep the filth off the radio to keep people safe 👍 Thanks for leading the way Canadian radio stations. I await the international response from other global partners.
Gotta keep the filth off the radio to keep people safe 👍 Thanks for leading the way Canadian radio stations. I await the international response from other global partners.
Who's erasing it? You can easily go on Youtube or Spotify and look up any number of variations of this song made by people who are totally cool with it. I'm sure the movie is freely available.
Y'all need to stop with this "omg they're trying to ban/erase/remove thing from the wooorld" hyperbole bullshit when an individual entity makes a decision like this. That is literally not happening.
Yeah. There are people who aren't really getting the subtext behind the song. If you think it's about a guy forcing a girl to stay against her will you really aren't getting it
Nobody is going to bother educating the masses on the context of a song from like 60 years ago when the message behind it reads as questionable in today's context, nothing is lost by getting rid of it, there's a ton of Christmas songs. Hell, people have the freedom to fire it up on their phone or in their homes if they want.
I think a song sending a message that advocates sexual assault/rape isn't something we need to keep around, you would not agree with that? Would your advice be that people just need to toughen up in that area?
If a radio choosing to not play a song turns you into a right-winger you probably already were one.
Fun fact it totally plays in the grocery store I work at here in Canada heh... i hear it oh about 4 or 5 times a night
Great, so political correctness gone mad is now going after something as innocent and joyful as an explicitly rapey song! What's next? The hitchhikers in my basement well?
I am aware of and appreciative of the context in which the song was made and presented and to whom, but that context is completely absent in a radio playlist so I'm not sure why it's surprising it's been lifted. It's not like Christmas fails to happen in its absence. Also, "what's in this drink?" is literally about the strength of the "eggnog" for example. Not rufies. It's a commonly used phrase when adults of both gender are joking about booze
The only real answer
Try again
This. People are using the internet yell box (twitter) and clickbait headlines to draw attention to themselves on a daily basis in order to monetize their "brand". It sucks when this type of exploitation starts overtaking legitimate activism/movements in terms of frequency.
Can someone find something problematic about Dominick the Donkey because I'd rather never hear that song again either. Or any Christmas song dreamed up by a Beatle. Or the Beach Boys.
I'd include Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" but I feel like we already realized that song's problems and it powered through. It's terrible though, problematic or not.
I'd include Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" but I feel like we already realized that song's problems and it powered through. It's terrible though, problematic or not.