Baby, It's Cold Outside

Did they take the predicted El Nino into account?

Last year, that song, which many of us grew up hearing and enjoying received negative press from some groups and individuals who complained that the lyrics were sexist. They claimed that the lyrics narrate an attempt by the male to seduce the female to stay for other than innocent reasons. No doubt there's more than one way to stay warm during a winter storm! I know that I'll never outgrow my enjoyment of the wonderful vocal gifts of both Bingo and Doris regardless of what they're singing about.

Probably not. We usually get warmer weather with an El Nino. I like it. Perhaps wetter, but I don't have to shovel rain.

I remember last year.

They're right, that's why he wants her to stay. Even when the movie was made, that was clear to all but children.

I think it's sexual but not sexist. She knows why he wants her to stay and the discussion wouldn't have gone on for 3:45 if she had given a firm no right away. (Part of that could be because she likes being asked even when she knows she won't stay, but at least for the movie viewers there is tension.. What will she do when the song is over, leave or stay?)

Various groups of all sorts often seen their most frequent enemy where it doesn't exist.

To really evaluate this, one should watch it in the context of the movie, not just the song alone. I think I've seen the movie and that's what I'm going by. Perhaps one should include in the mix other movies of that era. if there were some where the girl stayed and some where she didn't, that just increases the tension. And there are some where the scene closes but she's neither left nor taken off her coat to stay.

I am a la Nina person myself.The warmer wetter weather of El Nino plays havoc with my snowboarding.

Micky, I appreciate your academic perspective. (My wife taught college level film criticism for about 15 years.) However, my comments were intended to be interpreted from the frame of reference of cancel culture, to which I strongly object. I believe that creative works should be considered by two criteria: (1) artistic merit, and (2) within the context of what was socially and culturally acceptable and normative at the time the creative work was made.

It may be instructive to teach how it is likely that the work in question would never be created today and why that's the case. But to banish, alter, or destroy a work of recognized creative merit because it has become offensive in the context of today's sensibilities to me is wrong. Should we ban all music composed by Wagner because he was strongly anti-Semitic? Maybe we should ban Shakespeare because he created the character Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" etc. etc. And who gave permission to singers as early as Paul Robeson to change the original lyrics in "Old Man River" (not for any of Robeson's stage performances but in the recordings he made of that song)? I could find no evidence that Oscar Hammerstein was asked and consented. What's the difference between doing that and certain religious sects damaging great paintings depicting nude figures by over-painting fig leaves or loin cloths?

I know the subject is very controversial but these days it's hard to find a subject that isn't!

If the horse didn't rear up on it's hind legs and wave its front hooves outside the window, it didn't happen.