Elise Thorburn is an adjunct sociology professor at Brock University
"Well, that's it," said my friend, after hearing the viral 2016 version of Baby, It's Cold Outside.
"It's done," he said. "We officially never have to talk about that terrible song ever again."
Except, maybe we do.
Rewritten by Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski, the reinterpretation takes the song's mid-century back and forth between a man and a woman – and injects some very 21st century consent culture into the tune.
The remake strips the sly wit and flirtatious joy from the original song. She sings "I really can't stay …" and he responds, "Baby I'm fine with that." Instead of an illicit evening visit between a desirous man and woman, the song is reimagined as if two friends are shaking hands after an evening of adult colouring books and Settlers of Catan. Even her line "I don't know how to break this spell," is met with his discomfited "I don't know what you're talking about."
The original's song lyrics are heavily reflective of the era's sexual mores – in 1944, women were to be chaste and coy, men were to be predatory and inflamed. She really can't stay any longer with a man who finds her lips quite so delicious. But the song also attempts to subvert those same sexual mores: the woman feels desire, but is hemmed in by the societal expectations of her own chastity rather than her own lack of want.
She offers excuses that do not amount to a personal refusal but instead suggest that it is the judgment of those around her – father, mother, the snoopy neighbours – who would make her leave that roaring fire.
She makes excuses to leave, and makes more excuses to stay, "maybe just half a drink more," "maybe just a cigarette more" she sings. Even her most contentious line of the song, "Say what's in this drink?" which has raised the ire of modern listeners, was a tongue in cheek way of deflecting blame for her actions in the 1940s parlance. The drink is the excuse that might protect her from the criticisms that are sure to come in the morning, and opens up space for what she really wants to do – which is to stay warm, with her man.
But how are we really understanding consent, and by extension desire, if we feel the need to revisit and rewrite the sexuality of the past in light of today's cultural values?
In fact, how are we, through a 2016 lens, actually moving away from rape culture if we refuse to entertain the possibility that a woman may actually have wanted sex – particularly in a time when women's bodies were even less their own than now?
This catchy holiday classic has always struck me more as an anthem to women's imprisoned sexual desire than an anthem for date rape. She wants to stay by that roaring fire – but she knows that the world of the 1940s doesn't allow her to have or act on those same desires. She is to be cute, coy, and desired but never feel desire herself. Otherwise, "the neighbours might think ..."
It is difficult to read the past through the harsh glare of the present, so hearing the song in 2016 and calling it "rapey" – as many have – isn't unexpected.
But we must listen to the past on its own terms, and hear the ways the original song offered women the opportunity to push back against cultural expectations of their sexuality and to have sexual desires at all.
If we want to socialize ourselves out of rape culture and into consent culture we might want to consider the present in the same way: consent isn't just about sexlessness, which the new version implies. The classic is also about playful, enthusiastic sexiness and pushing back against a culture that says women can't have desire.
In the last days of 2016, baby, it's as cold outside as it was in 1944 – but this song in its original glory can help us consensually turn up the heat.