Colonialism Lives! (Part Three)

Part One recounted my own beginnings in the colonial era and wander into the present). See part one here.

Part Two noted how miscommunication happens between cultures quite regularly. See part two here.

The problem, I argue, is that we carry the necessary relativism that applies to language over into values at the level of our stated philosophy, but then act on the basis of a new absolutism in practice.

Part Three

I have been considering these reflections for many years. A recent controversy sparked me to put these brief reflections in writing.

This past week CBC announced that it would not include “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in its Christmas play list, following the lead of a number of other radio stations. “Baby” is a call and response song, in which the woman sings and the man responds. Here are the lyrics, with man’s voice in parentheses:

I really can’t stay (but baby, it’s cold outside)

I’ve got to go away (but baby, it’s cold outside)

This evening has been (been hoping that you’d drop in)

So very nice (I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice)

My mother will start to worry (beautiful what’s your hurry?)

My father will be pacing the floor (listen to the fireplace roar)

So really I’d better scurry (beautiful please don’t hurry)

But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)

The neighbors might think (baby, it’s bad out there)

Say what’s in this drink? (no cabs to be had out there)

I wish I knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)

To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)

I ought to say, no, no, no sir (mind if I move in closer?)

At least…

Heard today, the lyrics are problematic in several ways. I highlight two:

1) She said “No”. No means No. In the era of “Me too”, the man’s voice is asking for trouble.

2) “What’s in this drink?” sounds creepy in the aftermath of so many date rape situations.

A bit of internet surfing, however, turns up women’s voices, warning us that in banning the song we may have overstepped the bounds of reason. They point out that she appears to have surprised him by dropping in on him in his apartment. They observe that her protests sound a bit like someone covering themselves from “slut shaming”, even as she makes it clear that she is as willing as he is. As one column [not by a woman writer, at least I don't think so] put it, “These legends of song skillfully and melodically wrung such laughs out of the song’s doth-protest-too-much dance of foreplay that it was surely clear even to a 1940s listener that these two characters were about to have a long night of fireplace-hot and — yes! — deeply consensual sex.” (From Variety)

The problematic line “What’s in this drink?” turns out to be a common line people used when getting ready to do something they weren’t supposed to do. (Although I heard another explanation: that women were often served alcohol-free alcohol and might protest at what is left out of the drink.)

Slut-shaming is bad, and I do not advocate consensual sex outside of a lifelong committed relationship. Those values, however, speak against a great deal of popular music, both from the last century and from our own time. Not to mention much-loved madrigal music from Elizabethan England: “Now is the month of maying, when merry lads are playing ….”

Where did the instant condemnation come from, leading CBC to ban the song from its playlist? I suggest that we have fallen into a habit of judging others by our standards – and, fatally, assuming that our standards are absolute. Colonialism and Imperialism redux. We expelled them through the front door, and they have returned through the back.

[To be concluded.]
Part Four brings a preliminary conclusion to these musings.