With Christmas just around the corner, many radio stations have begun blasting out our favorite holiday hits to get us in the right yuletide mood, but one station in Cleaveland has refused to give the classic song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” any air time.
According to CNN, Star 102, WDOK-FM publicly announced their ban of the 1944 Christmas song for its inappropriate lyrical undertones. On the station’s website, host Glenn Anderson has explained he didn’t understand just why the lyrics to the song were offensive until he decided to step back and actually read them.
“Now, I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but no while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong,” he wrote in the post along with the lyrics to the song. “The world we live in is extra sensitive now, and people get easily offended, but in a world where #MeToo has finally given women the voice they deserve, the song has no place.”
The narrative of the Christmas tune, written by Frank Loesser, describes a man and a woman after a party as the man attempts to convince the woman to stay the night. He insists that it’s “cold outside” and she shouldn’t try to go home despite her repeatedly telling him she “really can’t stay.” At one point in the song, the woman asks, “What’s in this drink?” and then, a few lines later, says, “At least I’m gonna say that I tried.”
“Mind if I move in closer?” the man implores at one point in the song. “What’s the sense in hurting my pride?”
In the past, the controversial lyrics have compelled other American radio stations to pull the song from the airways following complaints from concerned listeners, Daily Edge reported. While some people have pointed out that the woman joining in with the man’s singing in the final chorus indicates her desire to stay after all, others have argued that perhaps this means she simply gave in to societal norms of women in the late forties and early fifties.
In recent pop culture, we’ve seen this song be used in such movies as the Christmas classic Elf, with Will Ferell and Zooey Deschanel. In one scene, Buddy the Elf (played by Ferrell), joins in a duet of the song with an unsuspecting Jovie (Deschanel) while she’s in the shower. This scene certainly doesn’t bode well for the song, as it depicts another instance of a lack of boundaries between a man and a woman.
“People might say, ‘Oh, enough with that #MeToo,’ but if you really put that aside and read the lyrics, it’s not something that I would want my daughter to be in that kind of a situation,” Star 102 midday host Desiray told Fox 8 Cleveland.
She added, “The tune might be catchy, but let’s maybe not promote that sort of an idea.”
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