Thoughts on "Baby It's Cold Outside": Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go

"Baby It's Cold Outside"
written by Frank Loesser, 1944



These are expanded comments I made about the song during the opening of the Dec. 6 "Words On Flicks" podcast.

There is a current controversy going on about the age-old ditty "Baby It's Cold Outside," a song associated with winter and the holidays because of its references to frosty weather. Many radio stations have decided to pull the song from their holiday broadcast playlists because of complaints that it condones date rape and is triggering to victims of sexual abuse. Others say, Get over it -- it's just a song. I can see both sides of this debate.

CBS This Morning's Gail King spoke out on the program Wednesday defending the song, as have many other newspaper opinion pieces, while the daughter of its writer, Frank Loesser, blamed the kerfuffle on convicted sexual predator Bill Cosby, whose habit of drugging victims brought new attention to the line "say, what's in this drink?"

Why it's pertinent to Words On Flicks is because "Baby It's Cold Outside" was popularized when it appeared in a movie, the 1949 romantic-comedy-with-music cream puff Neptune's Daughter. Starring the then-popular mermaid Esther Williams, an expert swimmer who inspired MGM to build giant tanks and stage elaborate water ballets around her, Neptune's Daughter is a fluffy mistaken-identity comedy with Ricardo Montalban as a smooth, polo-playing Latin lover.

The song "Baby It's Cold Outside" pops up as Montalban's character tries to convince Williams to stay a little longer for romance on a cold night. It's a cute and very clever duet about the cat and mouse romantic flirtation between a man and a woman. During the time it was written, the 1940s, it was a scandal for a woman to spend the whole night with a man, her "reputation" would be ruined. Men who wanted more than a few kisses or casual petting had to ramp up their persuasive techniques to get what they wanted. Women were supposed to draw the line at having sex unless there was a wedding first, or at least a ring on her finger.

According to the alternating lines of the song, the man is doing everything he can not merely to verbally convince but to physically coerce the woman to stay the night. Tp be fair, the movie Neptune's Daughter also shows the song being sung by a woman, Betty Garrett, in the pursuer's role, trying to interest Red Skelton in a romance. So the song shows both sexes as putting pressure on the other, to hilarious effect. But the song is more often heard in the classic style with the man as the aggressor.

If you listen to the whole song, at the end it seems that the woman gives in -- seemingly of her own free will -- or at least she gives up. But in a scenario like this, what could have happened if she said no? If, in fact, she insisted on leaving?

A gentleman would open the door, express regret, and graciously say goodnight. A sexual abuser would lock the door, block all exits, and attack. How do I know? Because it has happened, to me and to many others.

And that is what is triggering about this song for many. These are the same coercive lines and maneuvers that many sexual predators use to trap their targets physically and emotionally so that they cannot escape, and that place of isolation is where they feel emboldened to harass, grope and/or rape. It's all fun and games, lightness and flirtation -- until it isn't. Abusers count on the fact that women expect men to follow the rules of chivalry and courteousness in every situation; it's the benefit-of-the-doubt rule, the innocent-until-proven-guilty rule. Predators use this against victims. Their target often can't tell a good guy from a bad guy until it's too late.

Although the song ends on an upbeat note, with both parties making an informed choice, one could interpret this song as encouragement to men to press their advantage whenever and however and for as long as they can until they get the answer they want and feel entitled to.

"Baby It's Cold Outside" is a song strictly of its time, certainly a more innocent era with stricter societal mores, courtly traditions and lighthearted intent. The trouble is that the song continues to be recorded, year after year, by more contemporary artists. New generations are listening, generations for whom the year 1949 may as well be the Pleistocene Era and Esther Williams doesn't spark any glimmer of recognition, generations for whom the idea of a mother waiting by the door or a maiden aunt spreading gossip (as it says in the song) is laughable. The original intent and source of the song is lost, and all that is left are its words -- which today's listeners take on face value. And just as we know better now on other issues -- blackface and minstrelsy, stereotyping, gay bashing -- we should do better by letting questionable Hollywood fare fade into the background. To riff on another popular holiday weather tune: Let it go, let it go, let it go.

If radio stations are responding to the needs of listeners by taking this antiquated song off the air, I think that's a responsible response. And if there are people who can listen to "Baby It's Cold Outside" and hear only a playful teasing exchange between equals who are already fond of each other, then that's great too.

But I don't think those who find no problem with the song should shame or dismiss the concerns of those who do. That's just another way the very real experiences and concerns of #MeToo victims get pushed into the cold outside.