Baby It’s Controversial Outside

Everyone has heard of the #MeToo movement giving a voice to women who have been sexually harassed and assaulted and now it has spilled over to Christmas. A few radio stations around the US, including Colorado’s KOSI and Cleveland’s WDOK, have taken the 49th most popular Christmas song, “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” off of their rotations. People are overwhelmingly upset about it.

 

The song has some questionable lyrics that make people worried if it, in today’s day and age, is appropriate for the radios. Lines like “Say what’s in this drink?” as well as “The answer is no” are repeated while some parts in between and at the end are simply just talking and say “you’re very pushy you know”  and “That took a lot of convincing!” This makes some people think about rape culture and how the song can be negatively interpreted.

 

Because of the number of listeners who want the song back on the air, Colorado’s KOSI made a poll for its listeners to see if it should return. The People’s article on the situation said, “ The poll results showed an ‘overwhelming’ majority — 95 percent — of the 15,000 respondents wanted the song to come back.”

 

If there are lyrics like this in it and the radios think it is bad enough to take off of their stations, then why is there a problem? Many listeners are very upset with it not being there. Articles written in NPR as well as People say that “Listeners rely on it to reminisce about the good old days.” As well as that, the people who believe it should be on the radio think that people now are too sensitive.

 

Overall, the song seems very pushy and there is a vibe of sexual harassment in it. A song written in 1944 is quite different from a song written in 2018. During the holiday season when “Baby It’s Cold Outside” comes on people sing along and do love the song, but are they listening to it mindlessly? This song is a bit questionable when you really listen to it and in no way should it be promoting the types of behavior happening in the lyrics, however it is a classic Christmas song that everyone loves. If people believe this song does deserve to not be on the radio then those people should choose to not listen to those stations that keep it there.