U.S.
December 5, 2018 / 7:00 AM / CBS News
Following the lead of several other radio stations in the United States and Canada, Bay Area radio station KOIT said it was banning the holiday staple "Baby, It's Cold Outside," CBS San Francisco reports. Many listeners have said the song heard on countless holiday playlists is inappropriate in the #MeToo era — but others are outraged the classic tune has been taken off the air.
Penned by "Guys and Dolls" writer Frank Loesser in 1944, the song's lyrics describe a woman trying extricate herself from a date and saying "no, no, no," while a man insists that she stays as he moves in closer, pours her more alcohol, and warns about the weather outside. Critics of the song say the lyrics promote date rape.
"I made the decision, it's off for now," Brian Figula, program manager at KOIT radio told CBS San Francisco, adding he is considering leaving the ultimate decision up to the people.
Since Figula announced the decision, the station has received many angry emails and social media posts from people upset with the decision, accusing the station of political correctness.
"They're upset!" said KOIT radio DJ Freska Griarte who has heard from lots of listeners from phone calls and social media posts.
"They're like, 'why are you guys doing this? What is going on? It's just a song. While for some people, it means something more," Griarte said.
"I could definitely see where it's a little uncomfortable when you think about the lyrics being said," said Genevieve Ellison of San Francisco. "But then so are most of the songs on the radio today, right?"
The station launched a poll on their website Tuesday. Listeners can weigh in on whether or not to bring the song back through this coming weekend. KOIT will announce the results of the poll Monday, Dec. 10 at 7:20 a.m.
An informal poll on CBS New York shows a majority of people think the song should not be banned from the airwaves.
Meanwhile, radio stations in Cleveland and Denver have banned the song for the holiday season.
In Cleveland, Star 102 Cleveland radio host Glenn Anderson wrote a blog post about the station's decision to stop playing the song. "We used to play the song 'Baby It's Cold Outside,' but you're the Christmas Executive Officer at Star 102 and you told us it's no longer appropriate," Anderson wrote. "I gotta be honest, I didn't understand why the lyrics were so bad ... Until I read them."
In Denver, however, outraged listeners reportedly forced KOSI 101.1 to have the song put back on the air after an online poll overwhelmingly supported the song.
"We value the opinion of all our listeners and appreciate the feedback we received," said KOSI's Jim Lawson said in a statement. "Respondents voted 95 percent in favor of us keeping the song as part of KOSI 101.1's tradition of playing all of your holiday favorites."
In Canada, CBC Radio announced Tuesday it would join at least two other broadcasters in the country — Rogers Media and Bell Media — in keeping the song off their holiday playlists.
CBC spokeswoman Nicola Makoway said the broadcaster planned to remove the song at midnight on Tuesday with "no plans to play it going forward."
- In:
- #MeToo Movement
Who knew that when Frank Loesser penned the cheery duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside” in 1944, that it would become the magnet for controversy decades later?
The song has long been challenged based on issues tied to sexual consent, but now it’s getting banned outright at various radio stations in the US and Canada.
The song is frequently framed as a predatory male coercing a trapped female into a sexual encounter, sometimes even plying her with date-rape drugs when the line “Say what’s in this drink?” is cited. That boiled over this holiday season, with Cleveland radio station WDOK 102.1 abruptly pulling the song from its holiday playlist.
A poll on station the ‘Star 102’ Facebook page showed that 92% of listeners wanted to keep the song on the station’s playlist, but a few complaints are apparently enough to get it pulled.
“We used to play the song ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’ but you’re the Christmas Executive Officer at Star 102 and you told us it’s no longer appropriate,” wrote station host Glenn Anderson on Star 102’s website. “I gotta be honest, I didn’t understand why the lyrics were so bad… until I read them.”
“Now, I do realize that when the song was written in 1944, it was a different time, but now while reading it, it seems very manipulative and wrong. 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.”
Now, WDOK’s ban is spreading.
Other stations joining the ban include San Francisco’s KOIT and a Canadian station. A Denver station pulled the song and then reversed the ban after listeners overwhelmingly complained.
In Canada, a large number of stations are outright nixing the classic. Just yesterday, several major Canadian broadcast conglomerates announced the removal of the song, including Bell Media, Rogers and CBC. “CBC Music will be pulling the song from its rotation as of midnight and has no plans to play it going forward,” CBC’s head of public affairs Chuck Thompson stated.
The consolidated strike-down means that “Baby It’s Cold Outside” will be a scarce commodity on Canadian radio waves.
Separately, we’ve heard of at least one removal in Europe as well. In Ireland, Christmas FM has now removed the song because “it doesn’t resonate well with our listeners”.
A major problem with this song is that the lyrics are so ambiguous.
Loesser wrote the song for just him and his wife to perform at parties. The back-and-forth lyrics have a female staying at a male’s residence, expressing a desire to go home, while the male is pitted as persuading her to stay based on it being too cold to go out at night, with ulterior motives hinted.
As is often the case with old media withering under the harsh light of politically correct scrutiny, modern audiences are perhaps reading too much between the lines out of context. For instance, for an unmarried man and woman to spend the night in the same housing in 1944 would have been considered taboo, so the song could be interpreted as both of them, consensually, trying to find justification to break the taboo — hence, she’s using the alcohol as a weak excuse.
Also worth noting: the concept of a date rape drug did not exist in 1944, at least not enough to make a recognizable reference for the general public.
Nevertheless, even though it’s an enduring Christmas classic (which doesn’t mention Christmas at all), maybe we’re better off without the song in rotation, if for no other reason than to move on as a society.