Jihadis, Feminists Rally Against Holiday Song, 'Baby, It’s Cold Outside'

An inveterate fan of Christmas music, I added to my Sirius presets the Hallmark Radio Channel -- Channel 70, if you are looking -- the day after Thanksgiving. I have been rotating this channel, which plays standards from the American songbook, with a Christian station that features more traditional Christian music.

I was pleased to hear that the Hallmark Channel continues to play the slightly naughty, 1949, call-and-response classic, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Hallmark, in fact, may very well play this song in its multiple versions more than any other.

Composed by Frank Loesser of “Guys and Dolls” fame, “Baby” tells the story in alternating voices of a young woman who wishes half-heartedly to head home to preserve her reputation and a young man who leans on her to remain with him. “I really can’t stay,” she sings. “Baby, it’s cold outside,” he replies as he wears down her defenses and ultimately persuades her to stay.

I was aware that feminist Grinches did not much like the song. I had heard the drumbeat, which, Mary Nahorniak tells us in a USA Today article, has been “getting too loud to ignore.” Like many other neo-Victorians in the feminist third wave, Nahorniak sees the song as a symptom of the “the systemic sexual predation that pervades every corner of society.” We hear this argument every day. It is the kind of argument -- one not without some merit -- that got the French skunk Pepe Le Pew kicked off the Warner Brothers’ lot.

What I did not know until a friend informed me is that feminists are not the only ones in the great, unwieldy multicultural coalition who object to “Baby.”

Baby It’s Cold Outside - Betty Garrett and Red Skelton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpDLpz88V-I

The discussion can cut both ways...

I went to a mom’s night out last year; made a winter outdoor sign that says “Baby it’s cold outside”. Most of us chose that quote; it’s a cute line from a catchy song.

People really need to lighten up.

It’s actually about the struggle of a strong, feminist woman fighting against the patriarchy for her freedom from social and sexual repression.

There. I fixed it for the snowflakes.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.