A number of readers of this blog have written to get my "take" on the controversy about the ol' Frank Loesser song, "Baby, It's Cold Outside." A couple of radio stations have decided to remove it from their playlists because they think it makes light of date rape. I think it kinda depends how you stage it. The same is true of the song "Take Back Your Mink" which Loesser wrote and included in the show, Guys and Dolls. You can find a lot of ugliness in songs if you want to interpret them that way.
But you have to consider the time and the intent…and this whole hoohah still ranks high on my "Who gives a damn?" list. So a couple of radio stations elect not to play it…or some theater decides not to stage The Vagina Monologues because someone there feels it might offend transsexuals. Being private businesses, radio stations and theaters have the right to play or not play — or produce or not produce — any song or play they choose for even the stupidest of reasons.
If they're uncomfortable with any work of art for any reason, fine. Let them choose something else. But let's not act like the government is banning something. Someone's (usually arguable) guess that it will upset someone might be cause for removing it from one venue. That's kind of the premise of most censorship movements…and I don't think self-censorship is a crime.
There are plenty of songs, books, movies, paintings (etc.) that get dated by changing tastes and morals and sensibilities. Drunks don't seem as funny to me as they once did. I don't think some depictions of minorities come across today the way they did once upon a time. The folks who don't want to play some song on their channel might be wrong that audiences won't be comfy with it but that's all they are…wrong. And a commercial endeavor has the right to be wrong.
The folks complaining about the non-playing of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" sound to me like the folks who get upset and scream there's a "War on Christmas!!!" when some store decides not to put a nativity scene in their front window this year. No one's stopping them from viewing a nativity scene a thousand other places and no one's stopping any of us from hearing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" a thousand other places.
Here — here's a link to hear the original 78 performed by Frank Loesser himself along with his wife Lynn. Lynn sure doesn't sound to me like she's being violated in it. If you feel she does…okay, maybe I'm wrong. But that's all I am: Wrong. And bloggers, perhaps more than anyone on this planet, have the right to be wrong. Some of us exercise that right to the fullest…
